There may be no emotion that provokes a stronger and more immediate reaction in humans than fear. A perceived threat spikes the heart rate, boosts adrenaline, and prepares the body to fight or run away to safety. Moments of fear can seem obviously perilous – playing a game… going into a house a killer just walked into… inviting a vampire in… boarding a spaceship… walking through a wall into a building with oddly familiar but slightly off and increasingly unnerving rooms… giving that guy your phone
number… getting caught between taking another touch and clearing a ball only to have your foot hit the turf and watching helplessly as the ghost of René Magritte exacts his revenge… things that seem common lead to panic and turn out to be disastrous.
Horror movies examine the human condition through actions that reveal how people survive or die thanks to their skills, emotional aptitude, and physical abilities. Those attributes ultimately decide who lives and who ends up in the corner of a creepy basement. Clearly, the question of how US Soccer players would fare as film characters in these situations must be addressed as Halloween approaches.
Heroes
When it comes to US Soccer, this is pretty straight forward. The program has a long and storied history of excellence, world championships, and sets the bar for achievement in the sport. The current generation of heroes has the skill, emotional intelligence, knowledge, talent, physical prowess, and leadership to navigate the horrors they face. They endure pain and persevere using creativity and pure instinct while facing opponents who rely on physicality as an advantage, in the end they’re the ones left as survivors.
Tierna Davidson – She carries a calm, steady presence into the scene, responds to pressure with a cool determination and could pick out the right move in the pitch dark. Hello Clarice…
Alyssa Thompson – Young but growing from a sense of bravery and confidence with raw speed and the ability to match up with more physically imposing opponents in one v. one situations to find a breakthrough and carry the day. Michael Myers, you’ve met your Laurie Strode.
Lindsey Heaps – Resilient, experienced, selfless in her versatility – she has seen it all in her years of picking apart opponents who step forward to take their shot at her with cunning and vision. Behind their masks every Ghostface ultimately falls to the feet of Sidney Prescott.
Trinity Rodman – A fighter if there ever was one. Relentless and direct, she uses her skill and athleticism to take on opponents and outsmart them in unexpected as a warrior. Playful but fierce, she doesn’t mind tracking back and getting her hands dirty. There’s not a xenomorph in the universe who can match her Ellen Ripley energy.
Rose Lavelle – Confident, analytical, controlled, calm, but surprisingly intense until she picks the right moment to be lethal – she’s fearless and keeps opponents off balanced. The horrors in front of her are just a puzzle to be solved and she’ll keep showing up until it’s done. Meet Dr. Dana Katherine Scully, M.D.
Four stars, Gold Medals… no notes.
Sympathetic doomed guys
When one shows up we like him. He’s fun to root for but he’s flawed. Even if he doesn’t die he’s probably making things worse and reacting to emotional impulses, injecting unnecessary self-inflicted chaos, running into the woods to touch the monster or look for aliens, and there’s always some weird conspiratorial excuse for the failures or actions that put him and his partner in danger she ends up having to save them from.
As a trope, they seem so promising with a great apartment and maybe a car their parents bought… we convince ourselves of things that aren’t there. All they have to do is run a little quicker, be a little smarter until… well, did we expect a bunch of guys who lack the talent, skill, and mental edge needed to face off against better, stronger, more cunning foes to be there at the end? We might need to take careful consideration and develop big expectations around them. We’ll evolve and get there. Will Fox Mulder? Will my chunky allegory land or is it just another malaphor?
Villains
Horror villains come in all shapes and sizes from gardening implement wielding maniacs to monsters or aliens to the undead to ghosts to HELL ITSELF to allegories for systemic issues that represent economic or social inequality and oppression. They aren’t always the thing everyone think they should be running from. They might also be loud oafs who take up space and fill the air with nothing of substance and generally hinder the ability of the other characters to survive and it ends up costing them and others in painfully embarrassing ways. These guys insert themselves into the story for their own self interest, attention, or profit. It’s pretty satisfying when they get what’s coming to them but it usually comes at a steep price for the heroes or sympathetic doomed guys.
For our purposes, this could be filled by international soccer governing bodies, corporate overlords, heads of state, pundits, coaches, players, former players, VAR, or even online communities. The truly upsetting thing is that they never go away. Even if they are convicted felons, resign in disgrace, delete their accounts or lose their sponsors their curled fingers reach back up from the depths clawing their way back seeking revenge. The heroes can fight valiantly and win but the forces that propel the evil they encounter time and again still lurk in the shadows bearing fangs or recording their creepy VHS tapes. In the end, whatever horrors there are that flash across the screen, when we step out into the cold light of the day the real monsters aren’t in masks, they’re wearing suits and ties.
