Casey, a semi-attractive twenty-four year-old PGCE undergraduate, is running through a cave. She's about to be torn limb from limb by a pack of deformed zombie nazis spewing blood from their eyeballs. A dead end!... What's she going to do?
She scrambles up a ten foot wall. Thank God- this should hold them off for another few minutes. But NO- these are zombie nazi ANGELS! One by one they float up to the ledge, the swastika scars carved six inches deep into their chests glowing luminous blue, skulls snapping with brown decaying teeth. She kicks one in the head- which cracks off and smashes onto the cave floor below.
There's too many of them. Casey resigns herself to the afterlife, helplessly watching the swarms of zombie nazi angels flood the sky from above, descending onto her like a chattering cloud of death flies. She closes her eyes.
BOOM! The ceiling explodes. What was that? Slowly, a giant robot lowers into the cave. The head is made of transparent glass- through which Casey can make out... Toby! She screams out his name- to which he skilfully uses his chiselled, handsome head to give her a reassuring nod. He pulls a bunch of levers to make one giant robot arm rise stiff to the ceiling in a salute, which splats a dozen flying zombies into the cave roof in a shower of blood.
They descend on the robot in their thousands, trying to break through the armour. He has disappeared under the mass of their snarling, biting bodies.
ZZAPP!! Goes the electrolysed armour. The zombies all fall to the ground in steaming chunks of rotting meat. Casey screams with joy. The robot marches over to her, a hatch opens up and she crawls in. Toby is there waiting with open arms.
'It's all over,' he says with a smug grin.
She wraps herself around him, but her face betrays her. She knows it's not over, not forever. But it might be for today... and that's all that matters...
FADE TO BLACK.
CUE: REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING HEAVY METAL MUSIC.
And here's my point:
I am FED UP with heavy metal playing over the credits of films. PARTICULARLY horror films. A film crew invests so much time and energy into creating a cinematic event that it makes my spine crack when all the tension and thought-provocation of a piece is dashed as soon as the story is over by a tacked -on soundtrack which jolts you out of the experience.
The credits are a time of thought, then reflection. Initially you remain in your seat because your brain is still involved in the story and you are coming to terms with it having left you, then after those few minutes your psyche shifts to the reflective zone... asking questions (hopefully) and filling blanks.
A thumping metal track completely erases your ability to think about what you've just seen. It is like the screen is screaming GET OUT OF THE CINEMA AND GO HOME THIS WAS JUST A FILM WE HAVE YOUR MONEY NOW.
The first time that this really got to me was at the end of Resident Evil. Okay, not such a good film to warrant thinking about afterwards but I remember really wishing that the director hadn't latched on to this idea that heavy metal makes stuff suddenly a lot more 'cool' and 'extreme'- like blood and guitars are the perfect combination. That film could have been terrifying if done a lot differently, but branding it as a kind of 'cool product' really objectified the audience.
In fact, movies adapted from video games all seem to come packaged with a thumping six-string squealer soundtrack. Well, all apart from Super Mario Brothers. But that was still shit.
I've got no beef with heavy or speed or death or nu or whatever brand of metal music you like. No I'm not a fan- much preferring a spot of Burt Bacherach- but each to their own, you know.
Just keep it out of my end credit sequences.
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