It's October, the best month of the year! I'm already well into my spooky movie marathon, and I was talking to some friends about the films we watch this time of year. Eventually, the conversation turned to the movies that truly scared us as kids (and as adults).
When I was eleven or twelve, we watched The Amityville Horror (1979) as part of "family movie night." "Don't forget!" my mom said. "It's a true story!" That movie scared the shit out of me. I had trouble sleeping for a couple weeks, and I remember getting a stomachache when it would start to get dark. I didn't look out of the windows at night, and I instinctively shut one eye when walking down the hallway past my parents' bedroom so I wouldn't see their red digital alarm clock that reminded me of the red glowing eyes from the movie. I watched it again recently and was able to laugh at how cheesy it was through older and wiser eyes.
I've seen quite a few horror films over the years, and while I've been grossed out and startled during the movies, very few have left me creeped out after the movie was over. A few years ago I saw The House of the Devil (2009), and that one gave me the serious chills. It just builds and builds and you're filled with increasing dread until the horrifying climax! For several nights after seeing that movie, I would run full-speed from my car to my apartment door when coming home from work. It's amazing that a movie could affect its audience so much.
I want to hear your story! What movie scared you the most as a kid or teenager? What about as an adult?
As a child I was scared by all sorts of things. I had a special way to walk around the local video store so that I wouldn't have to see the video boxes for the Child Play films. My grandfather even edited the scary parts out of my VHS copy of Ghostbusters. As an adult I'm not really sure what film has scared me the most. I remember being startled a lot when I saw the original Halloween at the Widescreen Film Festival. It was weird cause I had just watched the film for the first time earlier that afternoon on VHS in the bright light of day. But in a darkened theater I was nervous. This is Craig btw...
ReplyDeleteI was just talking about this with a group of friends the other day. I have two older brothers so I saw a bunch of things younger than maybe I should have. As a child, I was scared by seeing Poltergeist too early. Specifically the scene where the raw steak crawls across the table and then explodes with maggots, and then the paranormal investigator guy goes into the bathroom to wash his face and he starts ripping his skin off. Watching it now, it's an obvious and terrible puppet, the effects do not hold up, but when I was a kid it really stuck with me. I always loved Jason and Freddy because it was ridiculous fun, but I do believe in ghosts, so haunted house movies have been the ones that actually scare me. I was pretty scared by the original Paranormal Activity, I saw it in a packed theater with a great audience. That white noise gets to me, I felt I'd never seen a movie that sustained abject dread for so long. I'd made the mistake of walking about a mile to the theater to see the movie, which got out at night, and it was a long walk home alone. I couldn't sleep, so I was sitting up writing and all the sudden a couple boxes in my closet came crashing down to the floor. I still don't know what caused it! For the next several nights, I made sure to close my bedroom door when I slept so I could hear if a demon came in.
ReplyDeleteHouse of the Devil definitely scared me too. Another one that recently gave me serious tense chills was ILS. An invasion story better than any other I've seen. I watched a lot of horror movies as a child (an extremely weird child), so I knew a lot of things were puppets, or fake...in the daytime. At night though, anything was real. Gremlins, Tremors, Beetlejuice - they were all out to get you as you tried to run down the hall with the lights off.
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