As Halloween approaches, I'm getting ready to face my yearly personal quandary. No, not whether or not to put razor blades in the candy I hand out (which I would never do, though a little antifreeze....). My dilemma is a personal one I've wrestled with for as long as I can remember. Actually, I can remember when this one started: Back when I was in grade school in the late 70s/early 80s, at my parents best friends' home, exiled to the kitchen as the adults would watch Friday the 13th on this fabulous new invention called Home Box Office. We weren't allowed to watch because obviously there were ratings even back then, but apparently listening isn't as damaging as watching....or so they thought. So we listened. And heard. All of it. The screams. The heavy breathing. The gasping. The "ch ch ch ha ha ha" that is so infamous even now. Yes, we could have gone to other rooms, done other things, ignored it all. Yet we couldn't. Thus began my simultaneous fascination and fear of horror movies. Specifically, The 100 Scariest Movie Moments on Bravo, which I both anticipate and dread every year. As Jay takes our kids door to door to recoup my candy, I stay home to hand out candy, but more than that, I'm glued to the TV as they spotlight the scariest scenes from just about every movie imaginable (and some never even before heard of!). This is like the Cliff's Notes version of horror movies. The cream of the Oreo. All of the messy blood, but none of the story to mess with!
Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments
I've always had a horribly active imagination. Coupled with an early and severe case of insomnia, I've had trouble sleeping my entire life on a good night. Add in a junior high sleepover w/a VHS of Nightmare on Elm Street, and I've bought myself at least a week's worth of sleep deprivation. As I got older, it only got worse. Teenagers obviously love to scare themselves, and of course I wanted to belong and, therefore, wanted to be scared, too. But I couldn't figure out how to STOP being scared.
No matter how ridiculous the movie, I could somehow, in the dark of night, all alone, wide awake, manage to convince myself somehow it COULD happen. To combat the lunacy, I would try to use my above-average intelligence (yes, it's true, I'm a genius, though this blog will prove a high IQ can still an idiot make!!) to explain all the reasons why I WON'T be dead in the morning. But my rational side and my crazy side would wage an inner war that would've certified me insane had anyone been aware. They would usually go something like this:
I hear something outside my window.
There's nothing there.
I definitely hear something walking in the rocks.
It's probably a cat.
Then why isn't the dog barking? We have a guard dog. She should be barking.
She's not barking because there's nothing there to bark at.
Unless the dog has already been murdered and whatever is out there is waiting for me to come look for the dog.
As an adult, I've tried to learn from my idiocy and just abstain. I don't go see scary movies. I don't rent them. I change the channel when previews of new releases are on. But.....the freak in me who WANTS to be scared can't help but still be tempted. I can see The Grudge in the TV Guide and instantly feel my heart race. I tell myself I won't watch it (again). Yet I change to that channel just to see what scene it's at. Then I'll watch it for just a few minutes. But as soon as it starts to get scary, I start trying to trick myself. I'll start putting it on mute. I'll start turning the channel back and forth to HGTV. I'll close my eyes and just barely peek open and see if only a glimpse of the screen is less scary that a full eyefull (it's not).
I also think I can fool myself by watching scary movies in the daytime. I watch a bazillion ridiculously embarrassing B grade movies on SyFy and Showtime. I pick movies that I tell myself even if for some stupid reason they COULD really happen, they actually CAN'T happen to ME because ____ (fill in the blank). Jaws can't happen to me, I don't go in bodies of water that I can't see through. Friday the 13th can't happen to me, I don't go camping or in the woods. The Grudge can't happen to me, I won't go to Japan. The Ring can't happen to me, I'd never watch an unmarked movie (though trying to explain away the paradigm of having already WATCHED the actual MOVIE The Ring to myself at 2 a.m. was no easy feat!!). Alien can't happen to me, my ass is NEVER going into space. I try to watch them w/my teenage son (when he allows it) and his bravado boosts me a bit. I keep hoping the video game rationale might work on me - the more exposure, the more desensitization.
But.....eventually it's nighttime, eventually everyone falls asleep but me, and eventually my own mind reminds me of the images I thought I so cavalierly laughed at during the day, but now keep my eyes wide open late at night.
Welcome to my nightmare.
Queen of my own Magic Kingdom, full of all the irreverent, obnoxious, and sometimes offensive sarcasm you know and love. I don't care what people think of me, but I do care if you like my blog. Read, forward, repeat.
