The Screaming Memes

Okay, here it is Samhain, all Hallow's Eve. Most of the people at work were dressed for the occasion. I couldn't be bothered; I outgrew Hallowe'en at about eleven, which, not coincidentally, is the same year I murdered my inner child.

And I don't have any scary tales to tell. My life has been decidedly humdrum as far as spectres, spirits and apparitions go. The only long-leggedy beasties to interrupt my sleep invariably turn out to be canine and simply in search of an eye to lick.

Hell, I hardly even have nightmares any more. 

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I've retained an interest in all things supernatural. I believe in ghosts, for instance, and I don't care who scoffs. There have been far too many sightings down the millennia--even if 99% of them are fakes and frauds, that still leaves entirely too many inexplicable mysteries. I do suspect that as science progresses ever further, we'll first pick up and then eventually understand the underlying energies that are, I'm positive, at the root of all "Things From Beyond". And maybe we'll discover something (genetic? aural? who knows?) that predisposes people to pick up these energies. I know if such a thing exists, I lack it.

Well, almost. There is that little thing that happened in Ailsa Craig.

But I like to be scared. Not real-life scared, when the guy with the knife is coming for you, or when you see the words "President Palin"...vicariously scared, where you know you can shut the TV off, close the book, and whatever monsters you were just sitting eyeball to tentacle with will vanish in a puff of mundanity. 

Real frights are hard to come by, these days. Well-crafted Hollywood chillers have largely given way to torture porn; I haven't seen anything on television that remotely approaches the genuine creepiness of The Outer Limits or even some of the old Twilight Zone episodes. And it's been a long, long time since a book made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Maybe I'm just hard to scare. The Exorcist is widely regarded as the scariest movie ever made, with Rosemary's Baby in second on many lists; I found the latter a little disturbing and the former yawn-inducing.

That said, and for what it may be worth to others like me out there who like a good jolt, or a lingering sense of unease, some of the things that have spiked my scare-meter through the years:

Scariest movies: 

In third place, one I just saw last week called Vacancy. I saw this on the advice of a friend of mine who shares my taste in horror; even so, I was expecting a run-of-the-mill slasher flick and was (un)pleasantly surprised. The character development, acting, and semi-smart behaviour elevate this well above the ordinary. It's almost Hitchcockian.

Second: The House on Haunted Hill (1999), People are going to tell me the 1959 version was better, and maybe it was. This was was plenty chilling enough, thanks, viewed on the second night of my honeymoon in an old chalet on the shore of a black lake.

First: I gotta go with the crowd here and citeAlien. The original Alien is a masterpiece of creeping dread. There are times it's hard to watch...and those are times when nothing's happening. Pretty much the perfect horror flick.

Scariest book: The Shining, by Stephen King. Hands down. There's a scene in Friends where Joey puts the book in the freezer so it won't scare him any more. Yeah. That wouldn't work for me. I'd remember where I put it and before long I'd be hip deep in the snow of a Colorado winter, with no hope of rescue. I've played Danny Torrance in my dreams several times through the years, and probably will again tonight now that I've written that.

Scariest music: 



Dead Can Dance,  The Host of Seraphim

Something about the vocal track in this creeps me out. Until I heard this, I'd never thought "desolation" had a sound. 

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone.