Night Trap (1992)

“Somehow, you set the wheels in motion, now haunts our memories…”

Although I couldn’t verbalize it at the time, I felt a sense of confusion and betrayal as I left the shopping mall multiplex on a summer afternoon with my father in 1989– my only lasting memory of the day. We had just seen Ghostbusters II (1989)

Ghostbusters II is the first movie sequel I remember anticipating. Ghostbusters (1984) was the very first movie we watched as a family– my father, my mother and me– after my dad brought home our brand new, front loading VCR. Even if the VCR was mostly bought to watch pornography in a comfortable setting, he was also excited to watch big Hollywood blockbusters months before they hit HBO. He was a movie guy. 

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The Misfits (1961)

“You know, sometimes when a person don’t know what to do, the best thing is to just stand still…”

If you didn’t already know, the ticket insurance that Ticketmaster sells is a scam. They get away with it because they don’t expect you to use it. Ticketmaster thrives on an idiot proof, impossible to fail business model– people love going to concerts. For most any latter day Gen-Xer or millennial, popular music has played a significant role in their lives– heavy metal was the sound of adolescence; alternative rock, the soundtrack of wistful teenage love. 

Music lives deep in the soul of anyone born in the age of the rock star, and so it follows that business for Ticketmaster is evergreen– the product sells itself, so much that Ticketmaster can exploit their customers and get away with it. People want to see their favorite bands; Ticketmaster can rip you off with tacked on fees until the price of your ticket is well into the hundreds of dollars, and while this may be annoying, you grin and bare it because seeing Metallica, or Guns n’ Roses, or The Misfits is worth it. After all, you don’t know how much longer they’ll be around.

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