Spooky Good Times

Last week, I saw a movie trailer that actually gave me chills. It really spooked me. Yes - ME. Amazing. Now, I am not one easily spooked or frightened by horror movies. Especially the so-called horror movies made over the past, say, 10 or 15 years. For some reason, these days people confuse horror with gore. Movies like Saw and Hostel are not horror. I repeat, not horror. There is nothing scary about torturing victims by cutting out their eyeballs while they scream, or seeing someone decap'ed by a weight machine. On a late Saturday night with a box of buttered popcorn, it can be entertaining, but, nah, it doesn't do it for me. Horror, to me, crawls into your head making eerie noises and whispering until you feel it peering over your shoulder and scaling down the spine of your back. It instantly causes your nerves to tense and covers your body in goosebumps. It makes you look in your backseat or leave the lights on in the spare bathroom. I haven't felt those things in a very long time. Especially in a movie theater. Not since The Blair Witch Project perhaps---which might I add is highly underrated in terms of great horror movies. If the sound of children outside their tent that night, then watching them run screaming into the darkness did not give you a slight rush of fear, you and your imagination missed out.

The trailer I saw last week was for The Strangers. Due out in May, it could be a terrible movie. This trailer however is a thing of genius. Cut and edited masterfully. Check this out:

With that chill, here is my personal list of scariest movies ever made. Please add more to expand my horror movie viewing pleasure:

1. The Exorcist. When released, we lived in NY. My aunt was visiting from Texas and saw it one of her first nights in town. The remainder of her two week visit she slept on my parent's bedroom floor. I had no idea what all the fuss was about---little girl, green vomit, devil---until I saw it years later. Holy crap. I had no clue what subliminal messages or images were - but during the flick I did ask myself several times - "Did you see that shit?"

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original). I grew up in Maine and NY. Moving to Texas was a cultural shock. Texas, I believed, consisted of dirt roads, carriages, lunchtime shootouts, and lizards. Add a chainsaw psychopath to the mix...again, holy crap. The grainy footage...scary. I did, however, applaud when that fat, wheelchaired bastard got it. Kid was getting on my damn nerves.

3. Carrie. With no knowledge of "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret" by the great Judy Blume, I also had no understanding of the monthly troubles the opposite sex encounter. With that said, I was perplexed and frightened from the very beginning of Carrie. Then, mid-way through, I silently wished to see all the "cool kids" dead. Then Carrie went psycho Jedi knight and killed them all. THEN, she walked home, killed her mother and met a horrific ending as the entire two-story house collapsed into the earth. Whew, I thought, it's over. Oh no. In the end, a classmate visits the "grave" where Carrie's house once stood. As she reaches down to place flowers Carrie's hand comes out of the ground and grabs her. Holy crap. Being a good boy, I did not use profanity, nor understood the proper way to string together or structure a line of profanity; however, when that hand came from the ground, I screamed 'mutha holy shit fucker ass'. My mom looked at me. She nodded.

4. Psycho. By today's standards, this movie isn't really scary-scary. It really is a cleverly disguised mystery. Can you imagine watching this back in the day at the theater when the seats shocked or buzzed during the scary scenes? Brilliance. Hitchcock was the man. Every scene is shoot with perfection. (I especially admire the above shoot when the detective gets it atop the staircase - wow.) Anyone watching the first 30 minutes or so wouldn't expect a cross-dress or skeleton mother to pop up at the end. Damn good stuff. Honestly, Hitchcock is truly incredible, but Anthony Perkins makes this movie one of my all-time scary picks. Watching him on screen makes your skin crawl. Spooky, creepy good. Norman is straight up trippin'.

5. Halloween. Normally black people yell at the screen, demanding the victims to do this or that. The first time I watched Halloween, I didn't say a word, except "Damn...I can't help ya. Go hide upstairs for a minute. Damn I don't know." The music, the shots, the mask...Michael Myers. Unlike Jason or Freddy, Mike was not the product of some hideous death; this kid was straight out the mental hospital. I could relate. Not that I came out the mental pad, but we had neighbors and friends who lived with crazy people. My next door neighbor's son, R.H., was nuttier than a Almond Joy and walked the streets every day. Sometimes he'd walk past and say, "Sure is a pretty blue car, Mrs. Collins." Damn car was white - but we'd just nod, drop what we were doing and slowly walk inside. Sometimes leaving the water running in the garden for hours before we felt safe enough to go outside and shut it off. Jason and Freddy are legit, but let me tell you something crazy is crazy. For instance, put me on a bus with strangers, point out one who has come from a mental institution. Until my stop, I'll watch his ass like an episode of Good Times. Watching Halloween was a pure joy. It actually made me think twice while trick-or-treating, especially with R.H. in the neighborhood.

BONUS: Not a movie, but all episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. Every time I watch this show---no matter how dated the cases, or how lame---I always find myself looking over my shoulder and turning on lights before entering rooms. What the hell is it about this show?? It could be a story about Civil War ghosts, but I'm still watching my back. Seriously, will someone kidnapp me? Is the ghost of Elvis in my media room? This show...amazing. One episode re-enacted the story of this crazy bastard who dug up a body and mocked the police with letters and body parts, providing clues of his identity. Crazy fool even removed the gravestone from one of his victims and tossed it into the window of a police car while parked at the police station. Crazy is crazy. It happened in 1982 or something. Yet it still scared me. Was it the show that scared me, or that the show was hosted by a guy who looked like a walking skeleton? I don't know. But I'd almost put any episode in my top spot.

Also, an honorable mention for The Omen (original). Scary movie, but I always thought that kid just needed his ass whooped. Devil or no devil, when I grew up, you don't be actin' a fool and showing up your parents. I don't know about you, but that's just how my parents roll.

OK...your turn.