Terror

I started the kids out on folklore and ghost stories and then urban legends and collected what I could of family stories of strange encounters. 

Jake, from about age 9, could barely look outside after dark.  Oops. 

Chan and Ben seem totally unfazed, they walk outside in the dark, go on the back porch to drop of laundry and don't turn on the light.  I can't even go to the bathroom without the light being on, much less go on the back porch.  With the WELL. 

We started watching scary movies when Ben turned 11-even though he skips more than he watches and Chan rarely watches even parts of them.  No Friday the 13th or Halloween or any of the slasher/torture movies.  I still have not see any of the Saw movies, the Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills have Eyes and Jake has not seen Silence of the Lambs or Scream.  All considered classics of the genre.

We watched Fright Night (which is not as great as it was when I was 13!) and Critters, The Changeling, The Turn of the Screw, The Thing, the Fly (Jake refused to watch the end because it was so gross) The Fog, moved up to The Ring movies, Alien (all of them, even the really crappy one), Poltergeist, The Blair Witch Project.  Van Helsing, which is not scary, but supernatural, Dracula, the Underworld movies, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tremors (all of those as well), Cloverfield, The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining, Jaws, The Wolfman...all of the M.Night Shyamalan movies.  LOVE The Village, it's my favorite of his.  Hated Signs, dumber than a box of rocks.  We even saw The Last Airbender, which was neither good nor scary and was a travesty of one of our favorite series. (he also wrote the Stuart Little screenplay)

In the past few months, we have watched a few actually good movies that scared us both.  Case 39 had a couple decent boo moments coupled with a decent plot.  Decent=good in scary movies.  The Orphan was surprising at least, plus she's named Esther, which gives points.  The Orphanage was that great mix of suspense and mystery that I really like.  Last night we watched Insidious, which had a plot that made sense...ish, characters I liked and the scariest ghost effects I have seen to date.  We screamed (Matt too) like we were on a roller coaster.  Once, Matt and I went to see 1408 in the theater and in one spot, we jumped out of our seat an onto the floor simultaneously.  Nice to know we are both instinctively self-preservationists.  Does not bode well for the children, despite our mass collection of weaponry for when the goblin hoarde comes down from the north.

Found out today that our newest favorite scary movie will be out April 13, 2012 when Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods is FINALLY released.  He has said it is the last scary movie that will ever need to be made.  I am so excited!  Think of all the free time we will have, afterward.  No more wading through the reviews to find a scary movie that is not boob-infested (something I have worked harder at lately, Thanks, B), one that does not have men capturing and torturing women, one that does not have someone running around mindlessly chopping up other people.  Or, you know, all three. 

It's interesting to be at the end of an era, what will we fill that niche with?