Spring Break
The Daily OrangeHalloween nightmares: Flicks to run and hide from
By Talia Pollock
Posted: 10/29/08, 2:56 AM EST Section: Feature
Maybe it's all the Halloween candy that hit grocery stores the week after Labor Day, or the spooky decorations plastered everywhere, but for whatever reason, I have been in horror movie mode for weeks.
Finding a movie that will scare the bejesus out of me is quite a challenge. Instead of your typical supernatural colliding with real world theme, I've found Sarah Palin impressions on "Saturday Night Live" to be way more frightening - because those spoofs are actually real.
I just don't get scared of the next to impossible - a concept with which Mr. M Night Shyamalan can't seem to come to terms. I'm really not buying this entire alien crop circle, isolated village, lady in the water, apocalyptic bioterrorist attack stuff.
Generating popular catchphrases, like Shyamalan's "I see dead people," along with producing popular Halloween costumes and recognizable sound bytes are essentially the only ways to define horror movie success.
If it wasn't for "Here's Johnny!" and "Seven days," films like "The Shining" and "The Ring" wouldn't still haunt our minds today.
The "Scream" disguise, the Mike Myers mask and the Jigsaw tuxedo all keep these scary movies on the map.
And if the theme songs from "Halloween" and "Jaws" didn't consistently send goosebumps up our spine, they would easily be forgotten.
But what is it exactly that allows fictional films to get our adrenaline pumping?
Psychologists have suggested that movie-goers are not necessarily so much afraid of scary movies as they are excited by them, and that they watch such films for the euphoric sense of relief at the end.
I've found the psychological thrillers are the ones that really get under my skin.
These are the ones psychologists claim cause nightmares, make you question every creak and lock every access to the house, cat doors and fire shoots included.
When I saw "Taking Lives" after having just broken up with a psychotic boyfriend, I slept on my parents' floor for nights, scared that he would come and kill me.
Finding a movie that will scare the bejesus out of me is quite a challenge. Instead of your typical supernatural colliding with real world theme, I've found Sarah Palin impressions on "Saturday Night Live" to be way more frightening - because those spoofs are actually real.
I just don't get scared of the next to impossible - a concept with which Mr. M Night Shyamalan can't seem to come to terms. I'm really not buying this entire alien crop circle, isolated village, lady in the water, apocalyptic bioterrorist attack stuff.
Generating popular catchphrases, like Shyamalan's "I see dead people," along with producing popular Halloween costumes and recognizable sound bytes are essentially the only ways to define horror movie success.
If it wasn't for "Here's Johnny!" and "Seven days," films like "The Shining" and "The Ring" wouldn't still haunt our minds today.
The "Scream" disguise, the Mike Myers mask and the Jigsaw tuxedo all keep these scary movies on the map.
And if the theme songs from "Halloween" and "Jaws" didn't consistently send goosebumps up our spine, they would easily be forgotten.
But what is it exactly that allows fictional films to get our adrenaline pumping?
Psychologists have suggested that movie-goers are not necessarily so much afraid of scary movies as they are excited by them, and that they watch such films for the euphoric sense of relief at the end.
I've found the psychological thrillers are the ones that really get under my skin.
These are the ones psychologists claim cause nightmares, make you question every creak and lock every access to the house, cat doors and fire shoots included.
When I saw "Taking Lives" after having just broken up with a psychotic boyfriend, I slept on my parents' floor for nights, scared that he would come and kill me.
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