Now, a lot of people will tell you that slasher films present the scarier metaphor. I disagree. In Friday The 13th, Jason stalks and kills young people at Camp Crystal Lake (think Kinzinger, who, on Friday, announced he would not seek re-election). While getting (politically) axed may be scary, there’s something MUCH creepier about watching a friend’s humanity slowly drain away as they morph little-by-little into a MAGA-zombie or alien clone or “pod people” (or whatever). And that’s what has happened to me.

The fact that this transformation is still happening after the horror icon (in this case, Trump) was ostensibly defeated only serves to reinforce the genre’s trope about the villain reanimating or being resurrected.

In the meantime, I keep watching my former allies become unrecognizable. At some point, there are no normal human beings left, and you find yourself at an abandoned mine screaming at passing motorists: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next!”