Writer's Block: Scary movie

[cupcake_goth]

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Ahahaha. I love the horror genre; you people know that, right? Some of the movies that I find comforting in times of emotional distress include things like 30 Days of Night, Jennifer's Body and Zombieland. But. I am kind of a big wimp about suspenseful horror. Gore, monsters? Great, bring it on! Creepy suspense? I will cower behind clovisdvlbunny while watching, and not sleep because of being freaked out.

So, I have two answers for this question.

Scariest horror movie #1: Poltergeist. I have not seen this movie since ... the late 80s. This movie terrified me so much when I first saw it that I didn't sleep for three days. (Of course, that may have had something to do with when, on the way home after seeing it, Dad asked me what I thought the scariest part was. I answered "The clown doll,", because even then I Did. Not. Like. Clowns. My Mom replied, "But you used to have a doll just like that! I think it's in the attic ..." Thanks, Mom. No sleep for me!) I also had an unreasoning fear of TVs tuned to static for a very long time, but I'm (mostly) over that now.

There is a part of me that wonders if the scares of Poltergeist still hold up. But I'm not willing to watch it again to find out.

Scariest horror movie #2: The Blair Witch Project. Yes, really. No, I never believed it was a "true story". But the movie was a very clever play on the types of ghost stories I constantly read when I was a child, and the mounting tension of weird things happening and no one knowing what was happening? Yeah, that hit all the right (wrong?) terror buttons in my hindbrain. Plus the final scenes in the movie included a bit of imagery that was, I kid you not, straight out of a recurring nightmare I have had for decades. (The bloody handprints on the walls of the house. When the camera first panned across them, I think I tried to whimper and curl into a fetal position. I don't really remember.)

We saw The Blair Witch Project right after we had moved into the house, and about a week before the Stroppy One went out of town to go to Gen-Con. So there's me, in a heightened state of freak out, by myself in a newish house, not yet used to the creaks it made. One day, when I was about to go into the mostly-finished basement to feed the cats, I called my parents and made them talk to me, in the hopes that I would be less creeped out.

But I still love horror movies. Oooh, maybe I'll watch 30 Days of Night again tonight.

Comments

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Sadly, like all other scary movies, Poltergeist doesn't keep being scary. About the third time through, you're laughing at the crawling steak, which was the bit that really did it to me. Which is a shame, because the first time I saw it, that movie managed to scare me (and that's really, really hard.)

The only other movie that's ever scared me was The Haunting of Hill House- the original one. Those breathing doors? The whatever holding the girls hands in the dark? Holy crap. But even that one didn't hold up, alas.

[cupcake-goth.livejournal.com]

I have never watched the movie of The Haunting of Hill House, because it's one of the books that terrifies me. I love it, but I have learned the hard way that I cannot read it if I am alone in the house, or if it's after dark.

OH GOD THE CRAWLING STEAK. I had forgotten about that.

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

I think that's really for the best. I read the book and then watched the movie, and having *read* the book made the movie much, much scarier - especially the line, "Oh God, God! Whose hand was I holding?" Just typing these words gives me goosebumps.

I cannot watch any of the new crop of Japanese horror films such as The Ring or Ju-on. The images creep me out - the way the ghost-things pose and move. It's very simple but it's just too much for me.

Shawn, who cannot help himself, will sometimes stand in the corner of the basement, just so I can never forget. The boy ain't right.