I have noticed, more often that I like to admit, that I form opinions of people I have never met and experiences I have never had based upon what I have seen in movies, on television and in the news.

And even worse, I tend to do so unconsciously, despite being aware–sometimes even hyper-aware–of the distorted images they bring to reality.

For instance, I have always assumed that blind people are relatively helpless, that losing their sight has somehow made them…somehow less capable beyond the lack of sight.

This feeling wasn’t something that I was particularly conscious of, but was there nonetheless.

Which is why I was surprised by the film that I saw recently.

This story begins on a very rainy day in Washington, DC, a day I have spent cleaning my apartment, which is a bit messy because I let things go when I was sick last week–though the experience revealed to me that beer actually helps colds by muting the cough reflex as well as helping one sleep.  After all, it’s not an accident that NyQuil contains alcohol–and watching horror flicks on Netflix.

At the moment Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes 2” is unspooling, and while it’s not by any means a great movie, what it does have is one of the most capable blind people I have ever seen in movies, without that person being a ninja, or something of that effect.

I don’t know any blind people personally, though such a portrayal is unusual.  I mean, there’s a scene that takes place in a mine shaft, where the blind character is being chased my a mutant.  Nearby there’s a rope hanging down a narrow shaft that leads to the surface.  She eventually finds this rope, and climbs what must be ten or so feet to the surface, where her boyfriend, hearing her cries, assists her.

My first impulse is to say how silly the scene is, till it occurred to me that, if she were sighted, would I have the same opinion?

Another scene, I am not so sure about.

The aforementioned mutant, having escaped the mine shaft, is now after the blind lady and her boyfriend.  What he doesn’t know is that they have set up a booby trap involving a burning bus, a ring of fire, and a pulley.

This very Rube Goldbergian device, perhaps a bit improbably, manages to work and our mutant friend ends up blowing up.

Now here’s the interesting part:  The intrepid couple end up at the shaft that the blind lady escaped a bit earlier, when the mutant runs from the burning bus that moments earlier had erupted in a ball of flame.

Now keep in mind that, if most people were just in a massive explosion and were burning like the human torch, minus the inflammability, they would probably not be focused on vengeance.

Not this radioactive, burning mutant.  Instead he spends his last on getting those two meddlesome kids.

Her boyfriend who’s sighted, dives aside.  His blind girlfriend, doesn’t because she can’t see him coming towards her, though just before he reaches her, she dives aside.

How did she know to do so?  Did the flames alert her?  Perhaps, though because a bus had exploded in her proximity only seconds ago, I am not quite sure I buy it.

This is not to say that I watch Wes Craven horror movies expecting realism, as the clip from his 1986 film “Deadly Friend” illustrates, though I do think that the portrayal was a fascinating one.