Cultured Views

Scary Movies…what scares you?.

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I sat and watched one of the latest ’spooky’ films on the weekend with my two eldest sons. They consider themselves connoisseurs of this particular art and assured me my blood would run cold. The film was ‘The Ring 2′ and ‘The Grudge’. Well, I have to admit, having already seen ‘The Ring 1′ and been considerably scared I was wary of the sequel. Yes, it was spooky, no I did not lose any sleep. As for ‘The Grudge’…a waste of my time. And for the record, I hate those ’slash and kill’ type films…they do nothing for me at all. I prefer the type that leaves your imagination to do the work, and I have a particularly vivid imagination.

Now I am a person who was, and still is to some extent, scared of the dark. I have always, in a morbid kind of way, liked a good scary movie, but when a really good one passes my way and I watch it, it still take ages for me to go to sleep at night. And actually, some of them were not really ’spook’ movies at all, just really eerie.

Here’s a list of films that have lost me plenty of sleep over the years:

‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ - Bette Davis in that chalky makeup; that budgie/rat on her sister’s plate.

‘Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte’ - This one really spooked me as a kid. Bruce Dern’s hand being cut off; the squirt of blood over the nearby statue as it was cut off; the meat cleaver in the air poised over the hand; the hand being revealed on the floor as a door opened; the head rolling down the stairs…it still gives me the creeps to this day.

‘The Blob’ (the original with Steve McQueen). Yes I know, this was pure schlock, but in all it’s black and white glory I still cannot look at a bowl of jelly…

‘The Birds’ - a classic. The scene where the school teacher (Suzanne Pleshette) is found dead on the floor.

‘Blackula’ - sorry, I was babysitting when I saw this and it scared the shit out of me.

‘When a Stranger Calls’ - every babysitters nightmare this one.  It is only scary though in the first 20 minutes…I stopped babysitting after I saw this one, too many of my clients had 2 storey houses.

‘The Spectre of Edgar Allen Poe’ - there was a scene in this where a woman in a white nightdress goes mad with an axe.

‘Premature Burial’ (with Ray Milland )- what more can I say?.

‘Pet Sematery’ - saw this just after my first child was born and I have been paranoid in the extreme ever since about small children near busy main roads. Especially semi-trailers. That scene where the little boy runs towards the road  sickened me.

And for the real humdinger, the one that totally freaked me out when I saw it at the age of fourteen…

”Trilogy of Terror’ - that one where the woman (Karen Black) buys an ugly little voodoo doll. She is told not to take it’s necklace off…it falls off while she is in the shower (if I remember correctly) and it goes on the rampage after her with a kitchen knife in her apartment.  That noise it makes…that final scene where she squats on the floor and repeatedly stabs it with a carving knife while waiting for her mother to knock on her door…I saw it once and that was enough for me. I did not sleep a full night for a good 2 years after that!.

Call me a big baby…but what does a scary movie do to you?.

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