On ‘Old’ & The Inescapable Horror Of Aging

In M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, as in life, aging is the monster.

I have not seen M. Night Shyamalan’s new horror movie, “Old,” but I don’t need to, because I’ve seen the poster, and I can use context clues!

Hmm, looks familiar, yeah? Almost reminds me of these before-and-after pictures from Insta-famous surgeon and skincare brand founder Dr. Lara Devgan…

Or maybe this side-by-side from L’Oreal?

Either way, I get it. In “Old,” as in the beauty industry, life’s a beach that makes you old! Life’s a beach and then you die!! Aging is the monster!!! Etc., etc., etc.

This parallel is — forgive me — pretty old, actually. Horror has always imitated beauty culture, or beauty culture has always imitated horror; the two are essentially interchangeable. See: This fun little list of Horror Films & Their Beauty Culture Counterparts!

“Friday The 13th” & LED Masks

A little move trivia for ya: The actor who played Jason Voorhees was actually wearing an early prototype of the Dr. Dennis Gross LED mask.

“The Silence Of The Lambs” & Resurfacing Treatments

One could say Buffalo Bill was the original skin resurfacer…

“The Purge” & Retinol

I don’t think I have to explain this one. (I already did.)

“A Nightmare On Elm Street” & Chemical Peels

The real villain here isn’t Freddy Krueger, it’s Max Jessner, and I stand by that.

“Hellraiser” & Microneedling

But it’s so great for collagen production!

“The Sixth Sense” & Lotion P50

Whoa, what if our fear of dead skin cells is just a more manageable manifestation of our fear of dying…? Eh, no, you’re right, probably not.

“The Picture Of Dorian Gray” & Instagram Filters

The original Filter vs. Reality.

“Rosemary’s Baby” & The Penis Facial

Epidermal growth factor harvested from fetal foreskin? Pure terror.

“The Shining” & Glass Skin

OK, this one is more about the name than the plot, but still. I think it works?

“The Twilight Zone” & Nose Jobs

In Hollywood, this nose is The Best Nose. In that “Twilight Zone” episode, pig nose is The Best Nose. There is no ideological difference!

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” & Face Lifts

A newly-mutilated Marc Jacobs is out here looking like Leatherface — not a value judgement, just the truth! — and the industry is all, “Bravo! How brave to show off your elective cosmetic surgery from the comfort of a hyperbaric chamber!! RADICAL TRANSPARENCY!!!” I’m sorry (I’m not), but admitting you got a face lift is not radical transparency. It’s regular transparency. Radical transparency would be emotionally contextualizing the face lift — maybe a statement along the lines of, “The superficiality of this world is simply too much for me to bear! Maybe it’s the industry I work in, but if I don’t feel young and hot, I don’t feel worthy. I am willing to have a surgeon cut off my face and sew it back on, but tighter — yes, even in the middle of a deadly pandemic! — because my identity is tied up in my appearance, and because facing my mortality is fucking terrifying, and because no one ever teaches us how to deal with these emotions. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I don’t recognize myself anymore! On some level, I guess I understand that that’s part of being human… that you’re not supposed to recognize yourself as you get older, that you’re supposed to evolve and grow and shape-shift and learn and expand into new experiences and continue becoming you. But nah. I don’t wanna. I got used to the previous version of me, thanks, and that other stuff sounds hard, so… a face lift it is. You feel me?” Or, you know, something to that effect.

[Ed. Note: This is not to say that everyone who gets a face lift feels this way, or that you can’t get a face lift and also expand into new realms of consciousness, or that face lifts are inherently bad, or whatever. It’s is just a single, imagined scenario that came hurtling out of my head and crashing onto my keyboard and it means nothing. Nothing at all! Especially if it makes you mad. You can erase it from your brain now.]

“When A Stranger Calls” & Beauty Culture

Beauty culture starts conditioning us the second we slip outta the womb. Our brains absorb its messages before we can think for ourselves. When we finally can think for ourselves, we think we think what beauty culture taught us to think (I think?), but we don’t!! I know I quote Tressie McMillan Cottom too much, but in the words of Tressie McMillan Cottom, “I like what I like is always a capitalist lie.” Cue: Dissatisfaction! Anxiety! Frustration! Always striving to be better, prettier, younger, thinner, smoother, clearer, Eurocentric-er — and sort of feeling like you enjoy the process? performing beauty is fun! — but never really feeling like you’ll get there. Like you’re good enough. Like there’s an end point. The reason it’s so hard to disengage from beauty culture is because… drumroll, please… the call is coming from inside the house.

Scary, right?