"The Old Gods"

I think I've finally found a genre of horror - aside from slashers - that I don't like: The Old Gods. I just watched a movie with that at its core, and though the movie itself was rather atrocious, the concept of an 'old god' coming back annoys me.

See, here's the thing: I can totally get behind the idea of demons and even angels doing heartless stuff. I, myself, have a story planned about an archangel trying to erase humanity. I also kind of like exorcist-type stories, about demons needing to be driven out. I even like the idea of a demon pretending to be an old god, and taking his gap where he can find it and bridging the gap into our world. After all, the Devil is the lord of lies, and his minions are probably no better. A demon pretending to be a god is pretty good.

I would also like to point out that the problem I have with 'old gods' isn't religious. My faith is totally strong enough to hear other's stories of other gods - old and new - without needing a breather.

Nope, my problem with these 'old gods' stories is fundamental in its telling: how do you pick an 'old god' who was actually a god?

Let me explain: according to apocrypha, there are thousands of demons and we don't know their names. You can throw a rock at a bush, smash the keyboard, and have yourself a demon to tell a story about. But how do you select among the millions of old gods and tell me this one is a real god, not just a legend? And whose culture provides the names? Are the Asians more reliable in identifying the real ones than the Africans, or should we trust the Native Americans? Greeks? Indians? Vikings? I know stories like Stargate went all-in with the Egyptian gods, and that is okay. They go out of their way to link Egypt - the site of the origin of the gods/Goa'uld - making sense of the fact that the Egyptian alien-gods can be accessed from the USA.

But when a horror movie just suddenly throws an old Mesopotamian or Russian god at a bunch of Americans, I get annoyed. Why isn't the god messing with some Russians, then?

Unless, of course, the writers never bothered with doing any research on 'old gods,' not even as much as type into Google 'random ancient gods' or something, then I suppose they could also go the keyboard-smashing way for the name, and throw a rock to see which part of the world this god crawled out of.

Anyway, the movie was trash. It was the kind of trash that I most probably would have forgotten about by tomorrow morning if not for this wee rant, and then, at some point, I might stumble upon it again while browsing and start rewatching it. This happens far more often than it should, and then I spend the entire movie knowing I've seen this before, but not remembering what happened, and then I get pretty angry at myself for rewatching, but it's like watching a driver park on the edge of the canals in Amsterdam, and you know he's going to end up in the water, but you just can't sop watching. You want to scream at him to be careful, but you also don't want to startle him and make him end up in the water sooner.