I was halfway through Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman's perceptive and entertaining book about horror cinema since the 1960s, when I had my first anxiety attack. Spawn of the Slithis? Trail of the Screaming Forehead? All those horror movies, 95% of which the author estimates he has actually watched! He and I are of the same generation, and started reviewing films around the same time, in the early 1980s. So how come he's seen so many more than me?
Ideally, one would be able to explain the discrepancy by dismissing Newman as the sort of otaku who never shifts from the sofa in front of his DVD player, but that just isn't true; all the signs are he leads a full and active social life, certainly fuller and more active than mine. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I'm thanked in the credits at the back of the book – but then so is everyone else Newman has ever talked to, just another indication that in between watching every horror movie ever made, he somehow finds time to go out and meet people.
Meanwhile, I'm left wondering how I can possibly write about horror films again when I've seen so few of them. And that's just one genre! Think of all those unseen films out there. Even if you were to exercise strict quality control and leave out straight-to-DVD titles starring Jeff Fahey, how could you possibly find the time to see all the new thrillers and rom-coms and action movies, let alone the classics and arthouse fare that sit glaring at you from your must-see pile, demanding to be watched.
There must be an official term for the anxiety this engenders, probably something along the lines of Kinosterblichkeitangst or Kinomangelschmerz. But if there isn't a specific word, there jolly well should be. After idly tweeting on the subject a few days ago, I was swamped by replies from people assuring me they too were suffering from the very same neurosis. I think we're all aware it's a trivial concern compared to, say, worrying about where your next sip of uncontaminated water is coming from, but it's clear this is a malaise increasingly common in the modern age.
Alvin Toffler was already writing about "information overload" in the late 1960s. But the burden, if you can call it that, has been exacerbated by new media and technology that not only make films more accessible, but encourage film-makers to make more of them. When I started reviewing for the Sunday Correspondent in 1989, there were around three or four new releases per week; nowadays it's a rare Friday when the number dips below a dozen, and that's even before you factor in the DVDs.
It all used to be so simple in the pre-video, pre-multiplex, pre-download days, when the only movies on offer were the ones showing at your local Odeon or ABC or repertory cinema. Now the entire back catalogue is jumping up and down, vying for your attention. Unless you're Newman (who I sometimes suspect has equipped himself with an army of workhorse clones, like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity) or Bradley Cooper (whose enhanced brain activity in Limitless would presumably enable him to speed-watch 100 films per day), the rest of us need to redraw the battle lines. We're like demented twitchers, ticking off titles, but how many of these films do we actually need to see?
Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, recently blogged about Fomo (Fear of Missing Out) with regard to the grip social software exercises on its users, but I think what she wrote applies to culture, too: "To be always filled with craving and desire … is one of the Three Poisons of Buddhism." So maybe the solution is to develop a zen approach to cinema: the greatest action is not watching the film, but knowing the film is there. Or we could follow the example of RM Koske, who replied to my tweet with the rather lovely suggestion that all we need to do is adjust our attitude and greet the superabundance of movies, old and new, with the thought: "I'll never run out of wonderful things to see."
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