Scaredy Cat

Requisite first paragraph in which I talk about how I'm a terrible blogger, etc.

So, this weekend is Halloween! I like to enjoy this holiday on the lighter side. No haunted houses or super scary movies - I'm just too chicken! I always think that I'll enjoy watching a scary movie, and I usually do during the actual watching, but then afterward when I'm laying awake in my bed listening to all the sounds that could potentially be ax murderers and masked psychopaths, I really wish I hadn't. I used to enjoy watching them more I think as a teenager, when I'd be piled in a friend's room at a sleepover with a bunch of other friends. Somehow that makes it less scary, even though it seems like "girls at a slumber party" is a pretty classic scene from horror movies...

Sometimes I watch scary movies but mute the worst scenes. The music is 80% of the scare, don't you think? The best example of this is The Shining. It is probably the scariest movie that I own and actually watch from time to time. The book is better in terms of a story, but the movie is so artistically scary, both visually and musically, that it is hard to beat. Those screeching strings as he goes slowly mad? Shudder!

In the end, I prefer thrillers or slightly creepy movies as opposed to the downright terrifying ones. I've still never seen some of the "big" horror films: The Ring, Paranormal Activity, or even the classics like The Exorcist, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

I am way more likely to read and enjoy a horror novel (see: my Stephen King shelf) than see a horror film. But even there I have my scaredy cat limits. I couldn't finish The Exorcist. And I can remember laying in my room, finishing reading The Amityville Horror, and then getting up and taking the book downstairs because I didn't want it in the same room with me while I slept!

So what about you? Scary movies and books, yay or nay? Why or why not? Which one scared you the most?

Happy Halloween!