Sher's Drivel

Boo.

I get great satisfaction out of giving people a good startle.

Often, when I hear my husband -- calm, cool Christian with the oh, so perfect hair -- come home from work, I'll hide in corner or behind a door and just at the right moment, I'll jump out and yell "Yeeeeeeeeaaaa!"

Almost every time, he jumps and clutches at his shirt all wide-eyed and panicked. One time he actually screamed like a little girl and I was in hysterics for the rest of the evening.

The best fright I ever gave was to my good friend and one-time housemate, Laura. She's a very level-headed Veterinarian who doesn't really believe in things that go bump in the night, but at the same time hates spooky films because they scare the hell out of her.

I'd seen The Ring a few days before she did.

And I timed it perfectly.

I knew she was going to go see the 9:00 PM showing and I knew approximately how long it would take her to get home from the theater. And I knew she'd already be totally freaked out.

So, at the right time, I placed the phone call, hoping she was just pulling into her car port and would hear the phone ring as she opened the door... She didn't have an answering machine, so I just let it ring, until finally she answered all hurried and breathless... "Hello?"

To which I whispered: "Seven days..."

My God -- you would not believe the blood curdling scream I heard on the other end.

It was AWESOME.

Ghost stories scare the ever living shit out of me. I love them. When I was a kid, I read so many books about ghosts: from the "non-fiction" section (everything), The Amityville Horror (no, I have not seen the movie re-make), Blatty's The Exorcist, Stephen King, Peter Straub's brilliant Ghost Story -- and the movies... I saw them all. "The Changeling" is still the freaking scariest thing I've ever seen next to the Red Rum scene in "The Shining". Other top Scaries go to: "Rosemary's Baby", "The Omen", "The Lady in White", "The Sentinel ", and yes "The Poltergeist".

My first ghost movie that I saw in the theatre? Watcher in the Woods. My dad thought it would be safe because Disney made it. Hah. I had nightmares for days (we were living in England in the time, which added to my fear factor).

Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween... whatever. Creepy, but they didn't really scare me. Just the ghost stories.

So, when I heard that Stephen King's son wrote a book about a ghost that the protagonist purchased on the Internet via an e-Bay copycat, I had to read it. I hadn't read horror in years. It was my genre of choice in high school: I read everything by Koontz, V.C. Andrews, King, Barker, and various other authors. I stopped reading King after "Misery" when he announced that it was the last Castle Rock story that he'd ever write. I was like: Fuck him then.

But the grudge didn't hold over to his son, Joe Hill who wrote the 2007 "Heart Shaped Box" novel, about an aging rock star who has an eclectic collection of weird shit, including a ghost. (The website is great). I finished it last weekend -- it was a quick read.

Either I'm a big girl now who doesn't get as scared as easily as she used to or it was just an okay book. I'm guessing it's a little of both. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking that it would scare the ever living hell out of me if it were made into a movie. Don't get me wrong, it's actually worth a read if you are into the genre, but it does not hold all of the intricacies in writing that totally terrorize you like Anne Rice or Stephen King is capable of penning.

I actually hope it does get made into a movie, because it would be truly frightening with the imagery of the blacked-out scribbly-marked eyes of the ghosts (stolen from the X-Files black oil eyed aliens, I think).

Let me know if you have any great ghost books or movie recommendations for me, because they are few and far between and I am long overdue for a good scare.

Oh and happy Friday 13th.

“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” have you seen it?  Demonic posession is one of those things that I try not to laugh too hard about because part of me - a small part - just might think that it is a possibility.  To that end, I couldn’t even get through the trailer without freaking myself out a little bit, especially as the black-eyed ghosts/demons started turning up in her visions.  Those guys creep me out.  So no, I have not seen this movie - and have heard from a movie-standpoint that it is quite a good film - but I’m wondering if it’s worth a look.  Based on an actual exorcism, somewhere in Germany I believe, I think in the 1980s?

Anyways.  I made it through “The Exorcist” without breaking a sweat… the movie outtakes had some really creepy-crawly Linda Blair stuff (literally) that would’ve been very effective in the movie.  I wonder if a remake would be in order, with the souped-up special effects that are available to today’s filmmakers.

As for the book or movie that scares me to this day, give me a little while to mull that one over.  I’ll get back to yous all.

e

I have seen that movie. It was based on a true event that happened in Germany in the 70’s. Here’s what Wikipedia says: “The character of Emily Rose is based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young German Christian woman who died in 1976 after unsuccessful attempts to cure her from the alleged state of demonic possession with the means of psychotropic drugs. The court accepted the version according to which she was epileptic, refusing to accept the idea of supernatural involvement in this case. Two priests involved in the exorcism on her, as well as her parents, were found guilty of manslaughter resulting from negligence and received sentences, generating controversy. The girl’s grave is still a place of pilgrimage for many Christians.

German director Hans-Christian Schmid is launching his own treatment of Anneliese Michel’s story, Requiem, around the same time in late 2006. His movie stays very close (perhaps closer) to the real-world events and is a drama rather than a horror film.”

I LOVED the Exorcism of Emily Rose.

John and I want to see 1408.

The psychological thrillers from the 70s are the ones that always get me - Warlock Moon, Sisters, The Sentinel, etc.

Did you ever see Identity?  Now that was one FUCKED UP MOVIE.

I was 11 yo when the teevee commercial trailer for the movie “Scanners” hit the airwaves.  That gave me nightmares for years, most of them revolving around that part where you see the veins getting all huge in that dude’s arm.

I have yet to actually SEE the movie.

(5 minutes later)

Holy shit!  Here it is on YouTube!

http://tinyurl.com/yrwjgr

Screw that… It’s been 26 years and I’m STILL not seeing that.  Since then I’ve seen enough Cronenberg films to believe Scanners will probably give me WORSE nightmares.

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The scariest movie I’ve seen recently was “The Descent”.  I saw that in the middle of the night at a film festival with a packed house and an amped-up crowd, though, so I’m sure it was a combination those factors that made me scream like a woman at the top of my lungs multiple times through the course of the movie.  Along with practically everyone else in the theater - everyone screaming in the manner you associate with amusement park rides:

http://tinyurl.com/3yqond

Of course Descent’s trailer and DVD packaging completely blow the biggest spoiler since Castaway’s “He gets off the island.”, so if any of you decide to see The Descent, please do your best to just pop the thing and watch it completely cold. Suffice to say its a story about a group of noobs who find them self pitted against one of those cruel intersections of mischance and are thrown into a disastrous situation as in Castaway or any number of trapped-in-a-blizzard stories.

I’m looking forward to seeing “Room 1408”, which has gotten mixed reviews, but looks plenty scary to me. 

Like you, Sherry, its ghosts and supernatural stuff that cover me with chicken flesh.  That clown in Poltergiest.  Those sisters in the Shining. Stuff like that.

Ed

okay, okay.  So maybe that exorcism movie isn’t as scary as I think that it may be.  I will say that “Alien” ranks right up there on my list of scare-the-hell-outta-me movies, mainly because I was exposed to it in the third grade when it was released.  I remember seeing the commercials - “in space, no one can hear you scream” - on our 13” TV, and a classmate had a comic-book version of the movie that he lent to me, for kicks.  Let me tell you, I remember to this day trying to explain to my grandmother (who was babysitting) why I was terrified to go to bed, and later on sneaking in to sleep in my brother’s bed for the safety of his company. 

When I was finally old enough to rent the VHS tape, “Alien” had all kinds of wonderful cinematic elements that tweaked every nerve in my body until I was a taut, spring-loaded bundle of anticipation and adrenalene.  I watched it with my Dad and I can conjure the scraping sound of the metal diapragms opening and closing in the ventilation ducts as the Tom Skerrit-character is using his rudimentary “beep...beep...beep” motion-tracker to find the alien.  Oh, and never quite getting a good look at the beast, described as a “perfect killing machine,” ratcheted up the tension.  Just a fabulous, fabulous movie and one that I have had many many conversations with my Dad about - another element that made it so cool to a young girl.

The sequels left something to be desired.  “Aliens” was a fun romp and I couldn’t believe that Hollywood resurrected that beast to once again plague my dreams and paranoid moments when alone in the house.  I was in high school this time, and I saw the movie in the theatre with Jennifer Krohn who embedded her vollyball-strong fingers into my forearm (yeouch).  Basically the same plot, but on a larger scale, with better effects and better technology (for the movie characters).  It was a good popcorn movie.  “Alien 3” bothered me on many levels, mainly because they screwed up the life-cycle of the alien to better suit the plot, but I appreciated it because Lebbius Woods, famous architect, designed the sets.  He guest-prof’d at PSU a few semesters after I’d graduated, but I was too shy to walk up to him and engage a chat about the movie prop design business.  Don’t get me started on “Alien 4: Resurrection.” What a waste.  It was a father-daughter movie outing because we’re both fans of the original movie.  And I don’t think that either one of us saw “AVP,” even though my Dad is a fan of the first “Predator” movie as well.

I’ve gone on longer than I thought.  I guess that I’m a big fan of suspense/thriller movies, not the “shock horror” crap that is out there today ("Hostel," “SAW,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” and their “2” sequels).  Also up on my list is “The Thing” (John Carpenter remake), “Silence of the Lambs,” and “The Hand” (the original - seeing that disembodied hand crawling back/crawling after it’s prey was chilling).  I was always a big fan of Bela Legosi (sp?) and Boris Karloff and would watch the Dracula/Frankenstien/Wolfman movies on Saturday mornings.

Oh, and the opening sequence of “Scream” just kills.  Literally had me ready to turn the movie off (I was home alone, and soooo glad that Sherry was nowhere NEAR me!).

For books, Stephen King has the high ground no doubt.  In “The Stand” his description of the hero escaping New York City on foot via the Lincoln Tunnel, in the dark, with decomposing bodies and goodness knows what else all around him makes my skin crawl.  I also loved “The Long Walk” a la Richard Bachman.

Okay, not very original, but this is a tough one.

Of course, those who know my movie tastes which range from the sublime to the absurd, know that I can watch some stuff that others simply can’t tolerate i.e. “You liked Mememto? Watch Irreversible - Memento on Steroids”

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