Here's something you might be interested in.
When it comes to scary movies, particularly movies about the supernatural, I am the biggest scaredycat on the planet. I read Rosemary’s Baby, but never watched the movie. I read the Exorcist, but never watched the movie. Never saw The Omen. Never saw The Blair Witch Project. I’ve never seen Silence of the Lambs. Never seen Alien. Never have seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is funny because for a while when I was a teenager I worked in a second-run movie house where they would show that movie regularly, it always drew huge crowds, and the disgusting part was people bought tons of food to eat, same when they showed Jaws, yuck. When I would do the cigarette run (every fifteen minutes check for smokers) during a TCM showing, I kept my eyes down so I wouldn’t see what was on the screen; I hated it when I would be walking up the aisle and suddenly everyone would gasp and throw their hands up to their face, I’d freeze, then jam out of there as quick as possible. I’ve never seen Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, or any of those kinds of films. I’ve never seen the classic scary movies, Frankenstein, Werewolf, Dracula, the Mummy, or any modern versions of them. I did go to see The Bride, the movie with Sting and Jennifer Beale, that was a scary waste of brain cells. That Anne Rice flick was on a couple of nights ago, Interview with a Vampire, with Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas, I watched for a bit just to look at Antonio Banderas (had no clue what the movie was about, never read the book). There are some mildly scary movies that are okay to watch. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jaws, The Shining, Psycho, The Birds, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, Carrie. I remember watching television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Outer Limits, One Step Beyond, and Twilight Zone when I was a little kid. Funny scary stuff is okay, like the Munsters, Addams Family, and I loved Young Frankenstein, never laughed so hard at a movie as when I saw that the first time.
I get scared easy, been like that all my life. I once had a sleepover at my best friend’s house and she started telling me some scary stories about hauntings that were supposedly true; she had set up my bed on the floor, and after she got done scaring the life out of me, she turned off all the lights and went to bed. I had never realized how spooky her house was before; I kept trying to creep into bed with her, and she would get out of the bed and get into the other bed, then I’d creep over there and finally she told me to leave her alone, so I sat there in the dark, petrified, until I guess I fell asleep from exhaustion. And I wasn’t a kid, I was like 14 or 15 at the time, as I recall. She teased me for the longest about that. Her brother must have known about what happened, either she told him or he overheard. A year or two later he took me to a drive-in and the movie was a scary film that had something to do with an RV, think there was something creepy in the woods and they were trying to get away but the whatever it was kept getting them. Anyway, I kept scooting closer and grabbing the guy‘s arm, which I guess was the point, and after about half an hour of the show, we ending up not watching the movie, not for the reason you’re thinking, because he was laughing every time I leaped, or gasped, so after a while we ended up talking, eating, walking around, and enjoying the night. But I digress.
I’ve never been in one of those haunted houses they set up at Halloween, though I did go once to the one at Disneyland. I was having a heart attack about it in line, kept asking people was it scary, was it scary, everybody assured me it wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t. A few years ago, a friend of mine set up a Halloween night haunted house in her yard, and when I took my son, I was so creeped out I pulled my son out of the yard and wouldn’t go back inside the fence: They were convincing performers! Not that it takes much to scare me. I don’t go to buy my son his Halloween costume in the evening, and sometimes I won’t even go to the back of the store at Party City because it’s kind of dark back there. I get scared even when I walk by those Halloween treat bowls with the hand and the hand bends, yikes! I put up Halloween decorations like everybody else, but I don’t try to make my house look deathly, hair-curling scary. Just ordinary stuff like fake cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns, and I hang a motion activated ghost thing near where the kids have to walk by to get to the door on Halloween. On Halloween night, I set out the boom box in the foyer and play CDs of spooky sounds. But you know what, darkness makes a difference. Things that look fairly benign in the daytime, are freakin spooky in the night. All the lights, shining through the cobwebs, the flickering jack-o-lanterns, the spine-tingling sounds, then just as they get to the door, whoo-hoo, this ghost dangles down in front of them. I can tell the kids and their parents enjoy the effect, even if it is a little scary -- but not too much, I don’t want to traumatize anybody!
Where I used to live, there was this oleander tree in the small front yard, the branches of the tree hung over the fence near the front gate. I had a cat, MAS*H, who liked to sit in that tree and whenever anyone walked by, he’d greet them with a big old friendly meow. He startled more than a few people, even got me a few times when I would forget he was there. And that was in the daytime. On Halloween nights, I’d get little crowds of people motoring along trick-or-treating, heading for my front gate, suddenly this meow would come at them out of the tree, I tell you, there were some pretty good leaps and shrieks, followed by a lot of laughter, especially mine.
It is funny when somebody else is the one getting scared. Some of my favorite America’s Funniest Home Video clips are of people getting scared silly. I’m sure you’ve seen videos of people getting pranked by that e-mail of a maze that turns into an ugly face, you probably got pranked by it yourself, I did. I squinted my eyes all the way through, suspecting something was going to happen, and I still jumped out of my chair. Somebody should tape me when I get scared, I know they’d win the $100,000 on AFV, because I’ve done things that are physically impossible. Like that time when I was a kid and checked out The Exorcist from the library, came home and was laying down, reading it on my bed. I was so engrossed in what I was reading, I didn’t hear my grandfather coming down the hall in his socks, something he did every day after work, dropping his work shoes outside the door, the shoes landing with a loud clatter. Bet you never saw anybody leap horizontally into the air, well I assure you I did. My grandfather, bless his heart, tried not to laugh too hard.
Unless you intend on taking me to a drive-in without cluing me in first, I’m not the person you want to invite to watch a scary movie. Not going. On the other hand, if you tell me scary stories and turn off all the lights, who knows what might go bumping in the night?
When it comes to scary movies, particularly movies about the supernatural, I am the biggest scaredycat on the planet. I read Rosemary’s Baby, but never watched the movie. I read the Exorcist, but never watched the movie. Never saw The Omen. Never saw The Blair Witch Project. I’ve never seen Silence of the Lambs. Never seen Alien. Never have seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is funny because for a while when I was a teenager I worked in a second-run movie house where they would show that movie regularly, it always drew huge crowds, and the disgusting part was people bought tons of food to eat, same when they showed Jaws, yuck. When I would do the cigarette run (every fifteen minutes check for smokers) during a TCM showing, I kept my eyes down so I wouldn’t see what was on the screen; I hated it when I would be walking up the aisle and suddenly everyone would gasp and throw their hands up to their face, I’d freeze, then jam out of there as quick as possible. I’ve never seen Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, or any of those kinds of films. I’ve never seen the classic scary movies, Frankenstein, Werewolf, Dracula, the Mummy, or any modern versions of them. I did go to see The Bride, the movie with Sting and Jennifer Beale, that was a scary waste of brain cells. That Anne Rice flick was on a couple of nights ago, Interview with a Vampire, with Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas, I watched for a bit just to look at Antonio Banderas (had no clue what the movie was about, never read the book). There are some mildly scary movies that are okay to watch. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jaws, The Shining, Psycho, The Birds, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, Carrie. I remember watching television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Outer Limits, One Step Beyond, and Twilight Zone when I was a little kid. Funny scary stuff is okay, like the Munsters, Addams Family, and I loved Young Frankenstein, never laughed so hard at a movie as when I saw that the first time.
I get scared easy, been like that all my life. I once had a sleepover at my best friend’s house and she started telling me some scary stories about hauntings that were supposedly true; she had set up my bed on the floor, and after she got done scaring the life out of me, she turned off all the lights and went to bed. I had never realized how spooky her house was before; I kept trying to creep into bed with her, and she would get out of the bed and get into the other bed, then I’d creep over there and finally she told me to leave her alone, so I sat there in the dark, petrified, until I guess I fell asleep from exhaustion. And I wasn’t a kid, I was like 14 or 15 at the time, as I recall. She teased me for the longest about that. Her brother must have known about what happened, either she told him or he overheard. A year or two later he took me to a drive-in and the movie was a scary film that had something to do with an RV, think there was something creepy in the woods and they were trying to get away but the whatever it was kept getting them. Anyway, I kept scooting closer and grabbing the guy‘s arm, which I guess was the point, and after about half an hour of the show, we ending up not watching the movie, not for the reason you’re thinking, because he was laughing every time I leaped, or gasped, so after a while we ended up talking, eating, walking around, and enjoying the night. But I digress.
I’ve never been in one of those haunted houses they set up at Halloween, though I did go once to the one at Disneyland. I was having a heart attack about it in line, kept asking people was it scary, was it scary, everybody assured me it wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t. A few years ago, a friend of mine set up a Halloween night haunted house in her yard, and when I took my son, I was so creeped out I pulled my son out of the yard and wouldn’t go back inside the fence: They were convincing performers! Not that it takes much to scare me. I don’t go to buy my son his Halloween costume in the evening, and sometimes I won’t even go to the back of the store at Party City because it’s kind of dark back there. I get scared even when I walk by those Halloween treat bowls with the hand and the hand bends, yikes! I put up Halloween decorations like everybody else, but I don’t try to make my house look deathly, hair-curling scary. Just ordinary stuff like fake cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns, and I hang a motion activated ghost thing near where the kids have to walk by to get to the door on Halloween. On Halloween night, I set out the boom box in the foyer and play CDs of spooky sounds. But you know what, darkness makes a difference. Things that look fairly benign in the daytime, are freakin spooky in the night. All the lights, shining through the cobwebs, the flickering jack-o-lanterns, the spine-tingling sounds, then just as they get to the door, whoo-hoo, this ghost dangles down in front of them. I can tell the kids and their parents enjoy the effect, even if it is a little scary -- but not too much, I don’t want to traumatize anybody!
Where I used to live, there was this oleander tree in the small front yard, the branches of the tree hung over the fence near the front gate. I had a cat, MAS*H, who liked to sit in that tree and whenever anyone walked by, he’d greet them with a big old friendly meow. He startled more than a few people, even got me a few times when I would forget he was there. And that was in the daytime. On Halloween nights, I’d get little crowds of people motoring along trick-or-treating, heading for my front gate, suddenly this meow would come at them out of the tree, I tell you, there were some pretty good leaps and shrieks, followed by a lot of laughter, especially mine.
It is funny when somebody else is the one getting scared. Some of my favorite America’s Funniest Home Video clips are of people getting scared silly. I’m sure you’ve seen videos of people getting pranked by that e-mail of a maze that turns into an ugly face, you probably got pranked by it yourself, I did. I squinted my eyes all the way through, suspecting something was going to happen, and I still jumped out of my chair. Somebody should tape me when I get scared, I know they’d win the $100,000 on AFV, because I’ve done things that are physically impossible. Like that time when I was a kid and checked out The Exorcist from the library, came home and was laying down, reading it on my bed. I was so engrossed in what I was reading, I didn’t hear my grandfather coming down the hall in his socks, something he did every day after work, dropping his work shoes outside the door, the shoes landing with a loud clatter. Bet you never saw anybody leap horizontally into the air, well I assure you I did. My grandfather, bless his heart, tried not to laugh too hard.
Unless you intend on taking me to a drive-in without cluing me in first, I’m not the person you want to invite to watch a scary movie. Not going. On the other hand, if you tell me scary stories and turn off all the lights, who knows what might go bumping in the night?