“With each passing year, more and more people are being stabbed, shot or otherwise tortured to death. Okay, so maybe that’s not true in the real world, but it is in Hollywood land. In 2007, Tinseltown cranked out a record 385 horror flicks, not to mention the 162 screen gems that went directly to video.”
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With each passing year, more and more people are being stabbed, shot or otherwise tortured to death.

Okay, so maybe that’s not true in the real world, but it is in Hollywood land.

In 2007, Tinseltown cranked out a record 385 horror flicks, not to mention the 162 screen gems that went directly to video.

Assuming an average of three victims per film, there were over 1,600 on-screen deaths (staged as they were) last year alone.

That makes for a lot of fake blood and, if you’re anything like me, far too many a sleepless night.

What’s strange, however, is the fact that the movies themselves don’t really bother me.

I mean, I know going in that the beautiful yet brainless teens won’t survive.

So why is it that their untimely deaths trouble me so?

As I’m clearing off my chest of drawers (you know, the one with which I’ll barricade my door), it hits me; I’m afraid that I’m the next to go, the next to be stabbed, chainsawed, decapitated or worse.

Fellow horror-aficionados, we need to get a grip on reality.

Care to wager a guess on the chances of our being murdered here in America, during the whole of our lifetimes?

Is it 1 in 90?

How about 1 in 1,000? Ha!

Not even close. Try 1 in 18,000.

Yes, that’s right; we’re more likely to date millionaires (215-1), get hemorrhoids (25-1), suffer identity theft (200-1), write a New York Times best seller (220-1), or win an Academy Award (11,500-1) than to meet our ends, violently, at the hands of another.

What do you say to that, Freddy Krueger?

So this Halloween, when shoveling out those ten (or more) dollars to see Quarantine, Saw V or The Haunting of Molly Hartley, worry not about some masked murderer or scheming psycho but, rather, about what that bucket of butter-soaked popcorn is doing to your arteries.

No demented demon is coming to steal you away in the night. No buzz saw will be breaking down your door.

If you have to worry about something, worry about heart disease.

Heck, that could strike you dead any time, anywhere-at work, at school, even in bed with your favorite stuffed animal tucked closely beside you.

So much for those pleasant dreams.

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