Horror Film & Child

That film got me.
It colonised, then darkened, my mind.
For weeks, perhaps months, its images held me.
I carried them into my bed.
Then many dreams... many nightmares.

Obsessed by the brutality of it all.
Its pure violence,
The blood,
The gratuitous killings...
All got me. Got me good.
The cutlass’s slashes 
Of the white shirt over a white skin.
And, of course, more blood -
The copious blood.

These many years later, even now,
It still leaves a nasty taste.
You too-easily forget
Your prior vulnerability and inexperience.
How we're taken in.
How we believe, so easily.

Smug at this safe distance.
Forgetful of inexperience.
Only now do I see clichés.
Easy, trite horror.
The atonal dissonance
Of the hackneyed score,
And the distinct lack of plot...