The other big movie that is out right now is 2012. I haven’t seen 2012 and I don’t plan to and you shouldn’t either. A couple of years ago, I read a book called 2012 by Whitley Strieber. I do not know if the movie is based on the book, but let us assume for the purposes of this movie review that the movie is based on that book. First of all, I have problems with reading. I can read. That’s not the problem. The problem for me is retention. I read Jane Eyre every year, not because I like it that much, but because I can't remember what happens. There are moors, right? And an orphanage? And probably pox or plague or AIDS. I can’t remember. Does Jane end up with Heathcliff in the end? I guess I’ll have to read it again to find out.
So even though it’s been awhile since I read 2012, I do remember that I didn’t like it, which upset me, because I have a sort of history with Whitley Strieber. Even though you may not know it, you know about this author. He wrote Communion over 20 years ago, and they made a movie out of that book too. The movie is called Fire in the Sky and it features D.B. Sweeney, who went to my high school. The reason why you are familiar with this book is:
["I believe"]
GAH! It gets me every time. I'm going to for sure have to sleep with my parents tonight.
For some reason, I got my hands on this book when I was in grade school and I read it one weekend and scared the living shit out of myself. In this book, the author, Whitley Strieber, who was already a published novelist, tells the non-fiction play-by-play of his encounters with “visitors” who abducted him and anally probed him, either actually or figuratively (if given the option, always go for the figurative anal probe). I thought it was super dumb that aliens should choose to abduct and anally probe a published novelist. It’s a sure way to generate negative press. But they're ballsy. They don't give a fuck. They took him and they probed him and he wrote about it, and as a pre-teen, I read about it, and it ruined my entire fucking life.
Here’s why: I have to sleep on my back and with the lights on until I die. Did you know that, according to Whitley Strieber, aliens, when they come into your room to take you up to their flying saucer, IMMOBILIZE you and then stand around your bed staring at you with their terrifying empty dinner plate eyes? They speak to you through your MIND and YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY because YOU CAN’T MOVE, and they probe you in your eyeballs or in your bum and then you’re done for. Once they have you by the ass, they do terrible and painful experiments on you and they make you impregnate their lady aliens, or if you are already a lady, they impregnate you with an alien baby and they keep you on their spaceship until you have the baby and then they take the baby and plant a chip in your skull behind your right ear and drop you off back at the farm where you live.
There is no reason for me not to believe that this really happened to Whitley Strieber. As a previously struggling horror novelist, what possible motive would he have to lie about such a massively world-view-shattering thing? So when I read about this strategy the aliens have of paralyzing you in your bed, I knew that I had to sleep on my back forever, because I couldn’t bear the thought of being immobilized while lying on my stomach with my bum in the air. Also, even though they are tremendously technologically advanced and can communicate with their thoughts, aliens don’t seem to know how to work a light switch, so if you leave your lights on, you can kind of ward them off.
[NOTE: When I was in law school, I was telling my cronies all these things I know about aliens, and my boyfriend and my roommate confirmed that I really do sleep on my back and with the lights on. One of our classmates, an awesome, slightly older (probably like 28 at the time, which seemed incredibly elderly), black fella named Mr. Cox (we didn’t have first names in law school) looked at me very seriously and drawled in his soothing, southern way, “Ms. D-. Don’t you think, after these aliens travel a hundred million light years and come into your bedroom, they can FLIP YOU OVER?” Touché, Mr. Cox. Touché. Still, I feel like if you’re sleeping in the dark with your butt out in the open, you’re just asking for aliens to come and put something in there, so I still like to sleep on my back.]
So I had this feeling of attachment to Whitley Strieber from a young age. While I didn’t appreciate having my life ruined and my sleep forever disturbed by his book, I did appreciate his giving me good pointers on how to protect myself in the event of an alien invasion. A couple years ago, I found out that he had written a new book called 2012 about the end of days as predicted by the Mayan calendar. Like Communion, 2012 is 100% true. I was about to head to Peru, so I bought the book to read on the plane and was fully prepared to take a lot of notes to get ready for the end of the world, which is apparently coming up. In 2012. He put it right in the name of the book, so I had that important piece of information available to me right off the bat. I didn’t finish the book on the plane, so I put it in my backpack and carried it with me for four days while hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. There are no lights on the Inca Trail, so I had to read the book while sleeping in a tent in 30 degrees wearing a head lamp. It was kind of touch and go on the last night, because I really needed the bulb on my head lamp to last all four days if I wanted to be able to find my way to the bathroom at night (“bathroom” is a euphemism, I hope you understand). But I really wanted to finish that book. I don’t know why. Half-way through, it turned into some kind of sci-fi thriller and it was terrible. I think there were ZOMBIES involved. Whereas extraterrestrials are believable, zombies are not. What would the Mayans know about ZOMBIES? The Mayans came WAY before Shaun of the Dead. It was so stupid. I hated it. I was disappointed in Whitley Strieber, who I had previously greatly respected for his honest account of true events.
On the last day of the trek, we got up at 3:30 a.m. to make our way to the Sun Gate. I was holding the stupid book that I was mad at myself for reading because I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD, but it was pitch black outside and my head lamp had gone out. I didn’t want to carry the book in my backpack anymore. I wanted to throw it away, but there is this whole thing about there not being any garbage cans on the Inca Trail, so I was just holding the book and not knowing what to do with it. One of the men in my group saw the book and he asked me if it was any good. I said, “No. It’s stupid. I’m throwing it away.” He said, “I’ll take it.” I said, “No. I don’t want you to read it.” And because I wanted to make my point, I dramatically threw it on the ground and stomped on it with my muddy, llama-and-human-feces-covered hiking boot (there’s a LOT of feces in Peru). He picked up the book, tore off the front cover (because it had poop on it), and said, “I think I’ll still read it,” and he put it in his backpack. So that was that.
And that’s why you shouldn’t see 2012. It has poop all over it. And also, it was written by a man who has been anally probed, has an alien homing device implanted in his skull, and has part-alien/part-failed-horror-novelist babies flying around in outer space as we speak.
[D.B. Sweeney, who went to my high school, and
who played Whitley Strieber in the movie Fire in the Sky]
[FOONOTE: D.B. Sweeney did not actually go to my high school. The movie Fire in the Sky is not based on the book Communion. And the movie 2012 is not based on Whitley Strieber’s novel of the same name. But everything else I wrote is true, especially the stuff about aliens.]
