Part Time Review
Private healthcare and spooky films.
It’s late May, and in some strange way I am enjoying the oscillating weather. It somehow serves my need for novelty, which creates a dopamine hit that I absolutely crave. Do I need an umbrella or a bikini? Who knows. I see the sun is creeping around the corner to put on an endless show (well, so the BBC Weather app tells me) and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I might have to shave something.
Highbrow
So, as I’ve mentioned/moaned about in previous Substacks, I have a hip injury. One so bad it has completely disabled me. I’ve been through the washer that is the current NHS. Look, I’m pro National Health Service, but not hugely in its current capacity. It’s not the NHS’s fault, it’s the Tories and, well, I think probably Wes “Haunted Marionette” Streeting’s fault.
Basically, because the NHS doesn’t have the capacity for a complex case like mine, I got shipped off to private healthcare through the NHS Right to Choose method.
My GP grilled me about my expectations, to which I said I had none, seeing as shoddy care policies had gotten me to this point.
He decided to send me to the private facility, and I got a taste of how the other half lives. Off I toddled to central London, not sure what to expect. Let me tell you, it had a very posh coffee machine that did hot chocolate and flat whites, and it was free. I stared around the gaff waiting for someone to tell me to fuck off for being in the wrong place, but no, the specialist came and collected me, ushering me into a huge, brightly lit, clean, and pleasant room.
She asked me 1000 questions and examined me. When I sat back down, she explained that my case was complex and that I was also experiencing chronic pain. My heart sank. Here we go, they’re going to tell me to lose weight. I’ll then explain to them it’s my medication that messed with my metabolism, and she will look at me as if I’m a liar, and I will leave with no help.
But, on the contrary, she told me that complex cases were their “bread and butter” and that I was in the right place. I’m now being shipped to their chronic pain rehab centre to look at my hips, but also my migraines, and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s the first time in eight years someone has said they are going to look at me holistically, as opposed to body part by body part like some fucking decapitated cadaver.
It’s a complicated feeling because I don’t really believe in private healthcare. The NHS should work for everyone at the level necessary to make someone fully better, complex cases and all, but for now, as it crumbles, I shall use whatever loophole I need to access the care I need.
Having been in hospital only six weeks earlier, the difference was stark. I can’t lie, it felt good to be in a clean, fully staffed facility that could accommodate my care, and that’s incredibly sad. Nye Bevan will be turning in his grave, I imagine.
Low Brow
This might seem controversial as I start writing, but you’ll see what I’m stepping in in a minute.
I’m a horror film lover. I have very specific tastes when it comes to horror, as the genre is massive and sprawling. But when people ask me if I’ve watched something on TV or at the cinema, I often relay something spooky. People often recoil: “Oh no, I couldn’t watch that.”
I am, for the most part, a scaredy-cat, a yellow belly, a wet wipe. A pussy, if you will. But I fucking love horror films. They give you peril and adrenaline with no stakes; the stakes are on the floor. I can watch a girl fuck herself with a crucifix screaming “The power of Christ compels you” and then pop the kettle on for a decaf tea (remember, I’m a pussy, so I don’t drink caffeine).
For me, a woman who is scared of all bugs, her partner walking around the flat, and ghosts, horror films feel like a low-stakes outlet. I can scream and then go to bed. Sometimes I do scream in my sleep to be fair, but that’s for another substack.
The reason I have put it in lowbrow is because, even though I adore the genre, film buffs, AMPAS, critics, and art lovers seem to be less enamoured with horror in general. Where was Toni Collette’s Oscar nomination for Hereditary, I ask? What about The Thing? Snubbed by the Academy. Don’t get me started on The Shining, which didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination.
Why is horror seen as less worthy? My musings are that the genre is seen as adolescent, less intellectual. There seems to be a stigma around “serious” filmmaking and that’s just, well, bullshit. God bless cheap thrills and their often deeper meaning. If you haven’t seen Babadhook, then be prepared to be Babashook.
I will now share my top 10 Horror films in no particular order.
Rosemary’s Baby
Don’t Look Now
The Witch
The Wicker Man
The Blair Witch
Scream
What Lies Beneath (i will hear no slander)
An American Werewolf in London
The Descent
The Changeling (1980)