Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Mirrors freak me out

Since it's mid-July and time to start ramping up the scary movies, I spent an hour and a half this weekend watching Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity.  And---I can't lie---I spent another hour and a half tossing in bed trying to escape my nightmare.  The movie slithered into my subconscious, exploited a random nightmare I had in fourth grade, and held me in its grip for about half a day (until I fell back asleep and had a nightmare that I got way too deep into the drug industry).

I prefer my scary movies to slip just a little bit inside my head.  I'm not really scared of people, so movies that use people as the main scare (e.g., Saw, The Silence of the Lambs, Hostel) may be entertaining, but they don't scare me.  I prefer my scares with a hint of the supernatural.

My favorite scary movie ever is The Exorcist.  It's creepy at parts, frightening at others, and satisfying in the end.  I also like The Shining, but I don't find it very scary.  But for the scariest movie ever?  For the movie that stuck with me for days and weeks afterward, not letting me sleep?  For the movie that found a fissure in the dam of my subconscious and turned that moon into a space station?

The Ring.  The American version.  Yep.  I'm lame.  In my defense, you have to admit that the washed out colors, the girl whose face hides behind a curtain of straight black hair, and---most importantly to me---the shot where the woman looks into the mirror and there's no effin camera.  Oh and the end?  When she takes the fly off the TV screen?  F r e a k y.  If Paranormal Activity scared me for 12 hours, The Ring scared me for 12 weeks.  Like I said: fissure in the dam of my subconscious.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

YES. The Ring DESTROYED MY BRAIN. Virtually nothing in scary movies actually scares me, I laugh through most of them, but someone only has to mention The Ring and I want to turn every light in the house and throw out my TV. The part where she comes through the TV screen is seared inside my eyelids.

What about The Grudge? Grudge 1 and 2 also messed with my brain, apparently proving that only the Japanese can successfully do horror anymore.

Anonymous said...

YES. The Ring DESTROYED MY BRAIN. Virtually nothing in scary movies actually scares me, I laugh through most of them, but someone only has to mention The Ring and I want to turn every light in the house and throw out my TV. The part where she comes through the TV screen is seared inside my eyelids.

What about The Grudge? Grudge 1 and 2 also messed with my brain, apparently proving that only the Japanese can successfully do horror anymore.

Anonymous said...

I saw The Exorcist on a huge screen at a drive-in movie over 30 years ago. I had nightmares for weeks afterward and, still, just the mention of the title "The Exorcist" scares me! "Entity" was another scary movie. I don't think I stayed until the end of that one!