Deadly Doll's Toychest
New Corpse On the Block
04/09/2009
Movies: Horror: Blogging:: 10 comments: by Emily Intravia
Horror-Taught Tips for Home Hunters
Every few years, I’m forced to undergo an ordeal I imagine to be similar to Hell’s orientation process. You probably know it better as moving.
Whether you’re hunting for your dream home or just digging for a month-to-month hole in the wall to sleep in, dealing with real estate is a nightmare. Fortunately, like in every other area in my life, horror movies have provided some valuable lessons. Since karma is the only bug spray I have in the urban jungle created by Craig’s List, allow me to share my knowledge of important factors to consider when browsing the classifieds. Seriously, these just may save your life:
1) Location, location, location
No matter how big the closet space may be in a prospective apartment, it’s not worth the move if you’re going to die en route to your doorstop. My finances will probably put me in a neighborhood not unlike the Candyman haunted Cabrini Green, but that’s surprisingly less scary than say, retiring in the mock security of Stepford (unless you’re a male and will probably find it awesome). Some surefire warning signs that future block parties may end in something worse than illegal firework accidents include the following: residents that get really quiet whenever you walk by, pale wide-eyed children that seem to giggle ominously when you ask them any questions, an overabundance of cemeteries, and, as Poltergeist’s Freelings learned, a complete lack of cemeteries…because of course, chances are then high that there are loads of angry Native American bodies buried beneath your basement.
2) Utilities
Yes, that $600 studio sounds ideal on paper, but will the leaking Dark Water raise your monthly bill? And, you know, make you mopier than a haunted Jennifer Connelly (if it is indeed humanly possible to be mopier than Jennifer Connelly)? The same considerations should be taken for larger homes. Robert Englund’s plumbing woes caused him quite an inconvenience in Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, but being turned into a squishy man-eater pales in comparison to The Beyond’s Liza, who had to deal with leaking faucets, a rapidly downsized house staff, and all the other ramifications one encounters when opening a gate to Hell. Everything has a hidden cost, but your life and/or soul shouldn’t be so cheap.
3) Meet the neighbors
Living in Manhattan, it’s very possible to go years without ever making eye contact with the people who sleep a door away. Tell that to Rosemary Woodhouse. One can usually ignore neighbors easily enough, but sometimes their intrusiveness can affect your life, particularly when they’re Satanists, vampires, or hippie hating, power drill-wielding Abel Ferrarras. Visit a local hangout to get a feel for the residents. Some towns have welcome wagons. Others have senior citizen-run cults, hungry cannibals, or Driller Killers
.
4) Wildlife worries
The only time I ever took pleasure in causing the death of another creature involved a month of squeaks and a lot of mousetraps, but that’s nothing compared to the trials of Arachnophobic Jeff Daniels or poor Kathleen Quinlain facing a psycho feline infestation in Strays. Folks moving to the country should always consider the fauna situation before making a non-refundable deposit. A little nature is nice, but getting wrapped in spiderwebs or your eyes scratched out by feral cats is a bit much.
5)Inquire about previous tenants
This is particularly important when their reason for vacating involved family homicide or worse, if they never actually left. My Long Island brethren is well-versed in the lessons of Amytiville, but many people forget Bad Ronald, the mooching squatter who lived inside the walls of another family’s home for 13 years. Free-loaders are an annoyance, but never more so than when their main goal in life is to kidnap you, kill your boyfriend, and turn you into a princess (which is surprisingly less fun than it sounds). You’re entitled to the facts. Get them.
6) Roommate references
You wouldn’t walk into a mental asylum for the criminally insane and take a patient out to tea, so why would you give one of the patients your house key and allow unlimited access to your tea kettle? This mistake befalls even the smartest of horror characters, like the med school star of Re-Animator or, in the Citizen Kane of roommate horrors, Bridget Fonda’s Single White Female. In the Internet age, meeting psychotic and needy people is easier than stealing WiFi. Sure, running a background check seems like an excessive cost, but weigh that expense against the years of therapy bills you’ll amass due to the death of your puppy, un-deadening of your kitten, total theft of your personal style, and icky molestation of your girlfriend by a disembodied head.
7) Meet the teachers
Those of you with school-aged children should always investigate the quality of public education in your area. If Class of 1999 taught us one thing, it’s that Pam Grier playing a homicidal robot teacher is awesome. If it taught us two, it’s that inserting homicidal robot teachers in gang-plagued high schools is a better idea on paper than real life. Take a tour of your future school district and judge for yourself. For those of you without children, this matter is still of importance, but for different reasons. It’s mighty tempting to move to a lower taxed neighborhood, but before you’ve had time to change your address, a white contact wearing Stacy Keach is hired as an educational consultant and all your hard-earned money is financing the construction of homicidal robot teachers. Forget the guilt involved in student casualties; funding that kind of technology is WAY more expensive than paying a public school teacher’s tenured salary.
8) The option of rent control
Ignore numbers 1-7. If you’re guaranteed in writing to pay the same price for an apartment—particularly if it’s in a prime location—you can deal with the rest. After all, you’ve watched plenty of horror movies. How bad can it be?
As always, more advice is welcome and encouraged. Since I began my Craig’s List search, I’ve already had three offers for discounted one bedrooms at great prices, providing I send my check immediately to a missionary in Nigeria. Personally, that Amityville is starting to look like a really good deal…
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About Emily Intravia
Location: New York, New York
Occupation: Copy Editor/ESL Teacher/Writer
Bio: Emily, aka Chucklove to the Pop Syndicate forum family, is best described as a film snob with bad taste. When not watching horror movies, she is known to travel the world as an English teacher/grammar mercenary, work on her own creative writing, and become easily depressed by the general state of the NY Mets.
Posts: 34
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Posted by Ghetto-Tim on 04/10/2009, 03:22 AM
This is great Emily. Lovin it.
I once lived in a boarding house in Toronto where they filmed the
notorious ‘Bird cage’ scene from David Cronenberg’s ‘Naked Lunch’.
True story.
Posted by Emily Intravia on 04/10/2009, 04:06 AM
That makes my day.
Were the landlords eager to share that as a selling point, or did it decrease property value?
Posted by Ghetto-Tim on 04/10/2009, 06:39 AM
My landlord was a kook.
Was from one of the richest families in Toronto, and was the nut on the family tree.
He owned a private museum in the house with stuffed zebra heads, pickled baby lion cubs, elephant skulls. All kinds of shit you could NEVER find now. It was literally like the Adam’s Family house.
We lived upstairs in separate rooms.
He had me do alot of grip work for him as tv and film crews would come to the house to film. He liked their money, but not dealing with them.
Unfortunately Mr Elder passed away and the remains of his estate were auctioned off to Ripley’sbelieve it or not and private collectors.
Saw the house a few years back and it was gutted and renovated.
Saw it this past christmas and now it’s a yuppie nightmare.
That place was a dingy creepy place at times, but alot of great memories, and some great friends.
Posted by Emily Intravia on 04/10/2009, 07:21 AM
I’m incredibly jealous. I’ve seen my share of haunted homes in my area—used to live near The Dakota and grew up a half hour drive from Amityville—but co-habitating with elephant skulls just sounds like fun.
It reminds me of a museum I visited in St. Petersburg. It seems like a typical history and art center, except that there’s one floor with hundreds of conjoined twin embryos and stuffed two-headed creatures. Apparently, Peter the Great had a strange little hobby in collecting anatomical oddities.
Posted by ericasname on 04/10/2009, 03:35 PM
Don’t forget to check if the High School is on top of the Hellmouth.
Posted by Emily Intravia on 04/10/2009, 04:26 PM
I totally forgot about that! Although Sunnydale does fall under the ‘overabundance of cemeteries’ blanket. I imagine school taxes are temptingly low…
Posted by ericasname on 04/10/2009, 10:15 PM
I’m pretty sure Sunnydale had only one cemetery. They appear to know it quite well.
Posted by Emily Intravia on 04/11/2009, 04:21 AM
You’re right! I’m thinking of when Giles pointed out that Sunnydale has a ridiculous amount of churches. Plus really low mortgage costs.
Both are additional causes for alarm.
Posted by ericasname on 04/11/2009, 05:28 AM
And I was thinking of when Xander said something along the lines of meeting at suchandsuch’s headstone and then described it.
Oh and also, don’t forget to check for a nearby lake where a Native American princess drowned. Although this isn’t a movie reference, just a life reference.
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