As Halloween approaches, the debates about which horror movie is the best are reignited; die-hard fans proclaim their allegiance to “The Shining” or “Get Out” and are willing to oppose anyone who disagrees with them. This author believes, however, that in discussions of horror films a classic has been too often forgotten, overlooked and just plain unknown. Which movie, you ask? None other than the 2003 Richard Curtis Christmas rom-com, or rather, horror movie, “Love Actually.” Told through various perspectives, the story begins by introducing you to the eight couples (if that word can even be used) that are, presumably, going to discover that love actually is all around over the course of the film. In this way, it lulls you into a false sense of calm before shaking you in a way “Barbarian” could only dream of. In an effort to keep this description from being too frightening for The Observer to publish, I’ll just touch on two of the more nightmare-inducing plotlines, both more terrifying than the other. 

Disclaimer from the author: I am generally quite a rational and genial person; I don’t get road rage; I forgive people who have wronged me and believe very few people are truly unredeemable. That being said, “Love Actually” invokes a rage in me the likes of which have not been seen since Sodom and Gomorrah.

Colin (Kris Marshall)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the mind of a Reddit-fueled, un-showered, basic-human-empathy-lacking incel? Look no further than Colin’s storyline. Colin is a young 20-something man that is every bad first date combined. Upon being unable to find love in England (see reasons above), he travels to America where, just minutes after touching down, he is approached by three of the most drop-dead gorgeous women you have ever seen in your life (Elisha Cuthbert, January Jones and Ivana Milicevic). These women immediately offer him a foursome. His tale is resolved not by him growing as a person, learning to respect women or just generally becoming less of a douche, but rather by him finding another stunningly beautiful American woman (Shannon Elizabeth) to bring back to the UK, because of course the foursome girls weren’t really relationship material. While his character already makes a chill crawl down your spine in the way every woman has experienced in the presence of such men, what makes his plotline so scary is that Colin is not the villain. His behavior is “rewarded” with a foursome and new girlfriend, because, of course, the issue was the English women and not his personality being akin to a 13-year-old boy whose blood flow is perpetually diverted from his brain. 

Karen (Emma Thompson)

Karen is a stay-at-home mother of two children with her husband, the human embodiment of getting lemon juice in your eye, Harry (Alan Rickman). Harry and his uncomfortably-younger secretary Mia (Heike Makatsch) engage in an affair which culminates in a scene that is more hair-raising than “Jaws”: Karen discovers her Christmas gift from Harry in his coat, a beautiful golden heart necklace. Then, on Christmas night, the family opens gifts together when Karen discovers that her present is a CD, not the golden necklace. She quickly deduces the truth, that Harry bought the necklace for another woman, and has a heart-wrenching moment alone in her bedroom before drying her eyes and returning to her family with a happy face to witness her children’s Christmas pageant. You may be wondering what makes this one instance of cheating so bad? While it is true that lots of people cheat in movies, what makes this particular instance so putrid is that Harry is not the villain, nor is Karen allowed to grieve beyond the cinematic scene in her bedroom. Harry doesn’t have to witness her pain, her anguish, her suffering and is rewarded with her continued fidelity and love.  

But what is truly horrific about “Love Actually,” what destabilizes the very foundation of life as it is known, is that someone (Director Richard Curtis) sat down and decided to write of lust, deceit and cheating and then label it love. What could have been a delightful, if trite, holiday rom-com is bastardized as a film so upsetting it would make “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” blush. “Love Actually” is a psychological horror film of a dystopian world where women exist only as whores or madonnas, whose sole unifying characteristic is their innate desire to seduce, adore and forgive men who have done nothing to deserve it. What is so terrifying about this movie is that I’m not that sure how many men know it is fiction.