spent a good deal of my childhood avoiding watching scary movies and TV shows because I’m an absolute sponge for scary-ass shit. If I see something scary, I will never, ever forget it. It’s like a tattoo of terror on my brain. I knew this as a child so I had to take preventative measures. Even hearing the theme song from The X-files had me bolting to my bedroom before I copped a glance at that weird spinny scream face that stretched out into a spiral in the opening credits.
I can handle it more now that I’m older and my brain has developed enough to understand the difference between logic and Fictional Melty Plastic Slithering Under The Door Man. I quite enjoy the odd horror flick these days but I have to be careful if they have any of my trigger cliches in them. Simply because the next few days of my life will be a bit horrific as I imagine myself in those fictional scenarios, making it impossible for me to do things like answer the phone, open the front door or walk across a deserted car park without freaking out. My main trigger cliches are those moments that happen really regularly in horror movies that could almost happen in real life. Like if my car breaks down on the side of the road and if I’ve just watched Wolf Creek, I’ll be 99% convinced that John the handy man is going to pop up in the back seat and bop me over the head with his gun. It’s the magic of cinema. It’s out of my control. Here are some other scenarios that will trigger a major terror attack if I’ve just seen a coinciding movie featuring said scenario.
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People who are alone, outside, at night, in thunderstorms
They’re either a serial killer or they’re being chased by one. Either way blood is about to be flowing into a drain somewhere while plinky plunky horror violins play death music. There’ll most likely be a close up of a dead person’s eyeball and I’d rather it wasn’t mine which is why it’s unlikely you’ll ever find me alone, outside, at night, in a thunderstorm. If you do, run… because there’s a serial killer after me.
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Knife lickers
Far from being grossed out when a dining companion of mine executes a full length lick of their knife I’m more likely to be thinking ‘Yep. You’re going to stab me 17 times with that knife aren’t you? Then you’re going to remove my shoelaces, tie them in bows around my wrists, write WIFE on my forehead with my own lipstick and THE COPS WILL NEVER KNOW WHY!!!!’
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Little girl ghosts
I was once at the supermarket and I turned around and there was this little pig-tailed girl in an old-fashioned pinafore dress with lace ribbons in her hair, with her back to me at end of the aisle. Instead of correctly assuming that she’d just come from a dress up day at her school, I assumed the opposite. That she’d been murdered in this supermarket in 1952 and she appears in front of random shoppers with her dead, hollow eyes and says ‘Caaaan you heeeeeelp meeeee???‘ while ghost worms crawl out of her nose. This weird strangled sound escaped from my mouth and I scurried around the corner to the safety of the fruit section. I saw her and her mother at the check out ten minutes later when my heartrate had returned to normal. I have to admit I was pretty relieved that other people seemed to be able to see her too.
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People becoming liquid
If someone is creeping me out and I successfully manage to get a door in-between us there’s always a little part of me that’s expecting them to liquify and slither under the door like the T-1000 in The Terminator and then re-form on the other side of the door and be scary again. It’s never going to happen… but it might.
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Pop-up evil mirror people
Mirrors are just horrible. If they weren’t useful and if I wasn’t completely vain, I just wouldn’t have them in my house. If you count the amount of fictional characters that have died via mirror murder they would take up a good percentage of cinematic deaths. You can’t argue with maths.
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Twins
I used to teach twins many years ago and they were lovely girls but I only had to catch a glimpse of The Shining on TV and then I’d spend a week nervously glancing at them to make sure a tidal wave of blood wasn’t about to go all tsunami in my class room. It’s completely irrational but that’s why Stephen King is so very, very rich because after watching one of his movies, his fictional characters take up more of my brain space than almost anything else. Evil genius.
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Water ghosts
Even Moaning Myrtle freaks me out. If I watch a movie that has a water ghost, baths are off the cards for at least a month.
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Which horror movie cliches freak you out the most? Which part of what horror movie is the most scary thing you’ve ever seen?
31 Comments
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I spend most of my time yelling at people for doing stupid things in horror movies, why do they go in to those scary houses?
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ME TOO! I’m like don’t run up the stairs! Don’t leave the front door open! OMFG!
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I used to think Jaws could get me. In my bed. Totally irrational. Sharks need water, obviously. Didn’t stop my brain from going into freaked out overdrive every time I heard the theme music.
Also. Freddy Krueger. He could get you in your sleep, for flips sake! Nowhere was safe!-
I’m like that in swimming pools. My brother was a lifeguard at our local olympic sized pool and I was the first person to dive in one morning and it was terrifying. I was like Jaws is about to come wiggling out the flappy hole at the end of pool and eat me.
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I was always in bed when X Files came on and I could hear that creepy music playing in the living room where my parents were watching it and it FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT. I still get chills when I hear it now as an adult and have never been able to watch the series!
Because of horror movies I am too scared to look into the bathroom mirror if I get up in the middle of the night because I am 100% certain I will see something. I also spend my spare time reading scary shit on paranormal sites about peoples “real” encounters, and reddit – so there is too much shit to list that scares me haha.
How you reacted to the little girl in the pinafore dress is EXACTLY how I would react too to something like that 😛-
I do the same thing! Reddit and ‘real life encounters’ make up a hefty percentage of my sleepless nights.
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We all know the way to avoid getting killed in a horror movie is never to have pre-marital sex… Oh… We’re toast.
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Oh totally. I’m completely screwed. My only saving grace is that my boobs aren’t big enough… but I’m also ‘side kick’ in appearance so I’d be the first to go. Right after the nerdy guy and dumb jock boyfriend.
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I avoid looking in mirrors or even a reflective window if I have to get up in the middle of the night because I just know something will flash behind me or COME OUT OF THE MIRROR.
I also have a huge fear of something or someone grabbing my ankle when I get in/out of bed, but I don’t see this as irrational because my sister did it to me as a child and I screamed the house down.-
Oh wow! I would never forgive a sibling for that. Never ever. I can’t sleep with cupboard doors because of monsters obviously.
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Oh the mirror thing is totally me. I get freaked out going to the bathroom in the middle of the night because I’m convinced I’ll die when I stare at the mirror. Also, x-files totally creeped me out too, I’m convinced my parents left it on so that as soon as the theme music played I’d hightail it to bed!
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I cannot understand people who can use bathrooms when the lights are out. I’m all ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY???
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I’m totally internally singing ‘La la la la la laaaaa la la laaaaaa’ whenever I’m near a mirror in my house at night – because otherwise there’s this fucked up voice in my head betraying me by screaming CANDY MAN CANDY MAN CANDY MAN and I’m 110% certain it still counts even if you don’t say it out loud.
After watching the Conjuring I couldn’t bring myself to raise my eyes to the top of my wardrobes. Just in case that grinning hag was crouched up there.
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Oh jesus I haven’t seen the conjuring. It’s going to ruin me isn’t it?
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I have to actively avoid horror movies now. For some reason, I always think the act of watching the horror movie makes me more susceptible to scary things happening to me. After The Exorcism of Emily Rose (don’t watch it!) I get freaked out if I wake up at the same time during the night twice in a row. Logically, it’s a coincidence/body clock thing but it does not feel that way at 5am!
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Oh I haven’t seen that but I’ll add it my list. Glutton for punishment.
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first to go, after nerdy guy and dumb jock boyfriend? So, third to go? And your order is off- ethnic minority, slutty girl, nerd or wacky guy (depending on whichever the minority wasn’t), jock/serious boyfriend, then the serious girl/virgin (if she dies at all). so you could survive, or you could go out second (but at least you’d go out shagging).
and what about dolls? Like when you thought you heard someone crying in your grandmother’s old room, but when you carefully walk in there’s nothing there but her old doll with its pale, china skin and unblinking eyes… sitting on the bed… your grandmother always forbade you to touch her doll, with its lacy dress and hair made from real human hair… it’s funny, your grandmother used to spend a lot of time brushing that hair and talking to her little doll… and one time, you were out of the room, but you could swear you heard a voice talking back to her… wait, wasn’t the doll looking away from you before?
I have watched a lot of horror films and most of them are shite (honourable mention to mister kubrick for ruining goldilocked twin girls for me forever. and let’s not even go to Deliverance country). The good ones follow you home because they make you a part of it, and put responsibility for the action back on you- don’t want to see Freddy- better not go to sleep. Don’t want to be hacked up by the Candyman- better not say his name 5 times in the mirror (even though you really really want to). don’t want to see the ring – don’t watch the video- but wait, didn’t you just watch the video in the film? why is my phone ringing- nobody has this number yet?
it’s when the people act so daftly that you would never find yourself in that situation that the horror is lost, and you realise you’re just watching gore-porn.
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I was going along the lines of the side kick friend. Think Scream – the bestie usually goes pretty early. That’s why Paranormal was so bloody creepy… totally believable.
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Fk, I hate dolls for precisely this reason…..
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Me too. Get them the hell away from me.
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Clowns scare the wits out of me!
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YES!!! I even hate the plastic Ronald McDonalds. How people can sit next to them and touch them is beyond me.
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I love horror, it is without a doubt my favourite genre. Every October I spend my nights watching horror in preparation for Halloween, the best of all the seasonal festivals.
The one horror cliche that never fails to have me shrieking in terror is the “there’s someone in the back of the car” scenario. It can be the lamest, most F-grade, awfully produced schlocky film, and as soon as this scene happens I am at pants-shitting level of scared.
Cars are terrifying places in general. A little while back I was working nights, and after I’d closed the store I hopped in my car, turned on the heater, and started home. A little down the road I had to turn right, and I looked out the window and promptly started screaming and nearly crashed the car into they pylon of a bridge.
My best friend’s husband had written “I know you killed her” on my window in the condensation weeks before, and I forgot all about it. When my windows heated up, the message re-appeared and scared the crap out of me. :S
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Me too! Even the act of checking the backseat creeps the shit out of me. Particularly in Canberra because there was a weirdo a few years ago who was targeting women at servos. So scary.
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Would you believe it’s the Vincent Price talky bit in Thriller that freaks me out. Yes. I am a grown up.
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Really? That’s gorgeous. I really like that.
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No horror for me at all. I’m scared of the Scary Movie franchise. Like. No. Just don’t. I mean, I understand it’s all in good fun, but show me one horror cliche, no matter how daft, and I’ll spend the next two weeks imagining all possible scenarios of encounter with one.
But.
I admit to being a knife licker. I know it’s against 235 etiquette rules, not to mention a probable way of inflicting pain on myself and creeping the hell out of nearly everyone I know, but I just do it. Should we ever meet, I’ll keep in mind not to do it around you.
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The thing that frightens me most in horror films is when there’s a scene where you know the killer is in the house, you’ve seen them slip in through an open door, or scuttle behind a curtain, but the victim still has no idea that they’re in danger.
I live on my own, and for the first few weeks in my flat, I would freak myself out thinking of all the possible places that a madman could be hiding, or whether I had left a door or window unattended long enough for someone to slip through. And then I got over it.
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