Why I Don’t Watch Scary Movies

  1. They scare the crap out of me.
  2. I’m gullible (hence #1).

I should have known better…

Oh, caution. This post is full of spoilers. If you don’t want to read spoilers for the movie, The Fourth Kind, don’t read this post. If you do read this post, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Last week my husband had a birthday. I took him out to dinner to celebrate (and also so  I wouldn’t have to cook). We had a marvelous meal and a marvelous time. When we came home, he wanted to rent a movie. He settled on THE FOURTH KIND. “Okay,” I said. I thought it was a werewolf movie. Humans could be the first kind, vampires the second, something I hadn’t thought of yet could be the third, and werewolves could be the fourth kind. Not so. “The Fourth Kind” refers to alien abductions (as in abducting humans, not getting abducted themselves). We rented it through something called Video on Demand on our PVR, which isn’t a very good service, IMO. Yes, you can pause the movie, but other features are glitchy. I’ll stick to my regular renting channels from now on, thanks.

Back to my point (if I had one). You see, I never watch scary movies because of #1 and #2. I tend to operate under the assumption that people are telling me the truth. Thus, when my husband, at 19, told me he “played the organ,” I thought he meant the muscial instrument. He thought he was being cleverly rude.

Don’t ask me why I thought I could handle a werewolf movie (I can’t). Let’s just say that I love my husband a great deal and wanted to make him happy by watching the movie with him. Of course, he kept falling asleep, leaving me glued to the TV kind of alone.

The Fourth Kind opens with the main actress telling you the story is based on real events, that she’s playing this real person, and that “archival footage” of psychology interview tapes and the like are interspersed throughout the movie along with the dramatic interpretations. Okay, I think, sounds kind of nifty.

The DH should have known better. He’s seen The Blair Witch Project. I haven’t. And I never will.

Basically, the archival footage in The Fourth Kind scared the stuffing out of me. I couldn’t sleep that night, or the next night. Finally, on the third day, I woke up with this niggling suspicion about one of the “archival footage” pieces in the movie. It shows a man killing his wife and committing suicide, and it plays while the dramatic version of the event also plays on a split screen. While watching the movie, yes, it did occur to me that it was odd that the police released this footage to the movie producers, or that extended family would ever allow such a thing. But the movie continued and I bought it all for reasons I won’t go into here. Let’s just say I’ve heard alien abduction stories before.

Upon waking, I ran to “the Google” and searched for whether the “archival footage” in the movie is real. And it’s not.

So there, I’ve ruined the movie for you. However, it might be fun to watch it anyway and laugh and giggle at all the places in the movie, where, in retrospect, the actors are telling the viewer not to believe what they are seeing (but Cindy got mightily scared anyway). Clues are strewn all over the place. However, no way am I watching the movie again to list those clues! Just clicking the link for the movie website and having the little video play scares me. Which is why I’m writing this post in the bright light of day. Even though I now know events in the movie are NOT based on real events that occurred in Nome, Alaska in 2000, my imagination still gets the better of me. And off into dreamland I do not go.

Do you watch scary movies? Have you seen The Fourth Kind? Did you buy into the “archival footage”? Or am I, as they say, a moron?

By Cindy

I'm irritated because my posts won't publish.

14 comments

  1. I don’t watch scary movies either. My number one reason is the same, but my second reason is: Once I put something into my head, it’s in there forever. I watched Hellraiser 2 in 1991. If I close my eyes and think about it, the scenes are all still there. :shudder: I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather look back on happier, saner images.

  3. it’s all fun and games with a scary movie!! though i do not watch them often, and they aren’t my favorite .. i prefer drama/mystery/suspense.. the odd scary movie can be ‘fun’ .. ! makes you appreciate how ‘calm’ (normal? boring?) your real life can be!!!! mwahaha ;p

  4. Okay, let’s see…two writers who don’t watch scary movies, and one non-writer who does….

    My little sister, also a non-writer, watches scary movies.

    Are we sensing a theme here?

    Like B.E., once I put something in my head… The original Halloween movie came out while I was in my first year of university. That night, all night, I dreamt about a headstone on my roommate’s bed.

    Even the Chucky movies bother me.

    Watched The Towering Inferno as a teen the same day my dad installed an electric heater in my room. Couldn’t sleep that night for fear the elecrtric heater would burn up the place!

    And Jaws… Can’t remember how young I was when that came out, maybe 13? After watching it, I’d check the toilet for sharks, no kidding. LOL.

  5. I must say, I did see Alien in the theatres when it first came out, with my dh, and it’s never scared me. That’s how far-fetched I need something to be. Anything that remotely COULD happen (like an evil force invading a doll – how many times as a kid did you get creeped out by doll eyes that wouldn’t close – I know I did)…anything within ten kilometres of the remotest possibility of actually occurring that is the slightest bit scary…I can’t watch.

    Action movies with tons of murder scenes? Those I can watch. Because they aren’t dealing with the unknown.

  6. I agree with B.E. I can’t get bad images out of my head. I don’t even watch the news for this reason; I read it online, and if the headline hints at violence and gore, I don’t read the story. Can’t handle it.

  7. I’m thinking maybe writers have overactive imaginations, Avery. Either that, or we’re more warped than the general population.

  8. Hilarious post, Cindy! 🙂

    I don’t really like scary movies, either, though I actually have fond memories of watching certain ones. Like The Changeling (with George C. Scott, not Angelina Jolie), which was not gory or jump-at-you stupid scary, but I remember it as the scariest movie I ever saw, and walked through the brightly lit frat house to the bathroom downstairs with my back against the wall the whole way.

    I don’t know if it’s age or what, but I avoid them more strongly now, and when I’m compelled or forced to see one, it doesn’t scare me as much as they used to. Weird, huh?

  9. Natalie, I had no idea The Changeling was made with George C. Scott.

    Now that you mention older movies, my scary movie phobia began with HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE. There’s a scene where a head rolls down the stairs. I dreamt about it for years!

    Then that reminds me of Jack Nicholson in the movie with the title I can’t recall, the movie with the “Here’s Johnny!” scene. I watched all of that one on the VCR. For years, and I literally mean YEARS, all someone had to do was wiggle a finger at me and say, “Red Rum,” in a gravely voice and I wouldn’t sleep for a week.

    Egad. I am a wuss.

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