We interrupt this Fashion Week to talk about Halloween and horror movies...

And I guess by "we" I mean "I".

Greg was out the door early and I had woken out of a much too blissful sleep (for once, with minimal tossing and turning) to really get up and get dressed, brush my hair and make myself marginally attractive. Instead I realized it was Friday, and that on Sunday Halloween would be here. And I got excited. So excited in fact that I decided to do a post on it. Or rather, I decided I'd open this up for a fun discussion on horror movies. Are you a lover or hater? What's your favorite?

I seem to be the only real horror movie fan in the family, maybe of ALL the family. Greg doesn't like them and will oftentimes taunt me when he finds me balled up in the farthest corner of the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, eyes glued to whatever macabre movie I have found on TV. But there is one movie in particular that I get made fun of for finding so chilling. That movie-

Pet Sematary

I had spent the weekend with my grandma and one leisurely afternoon we visited the library in her Over 55 community. I thumbed through book after book and settled on "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King.

I buried myself in my grandmother's couch and read page after page, becoming increasingly uncomfortable, all afternoon. When I went home I had my parent's stop by the video store that was conveniently situated a couple blocks from our house. I had to see it. And I did. And it was good. Good in the way that it chilled me to my core. Sure it was a tad cheesy (it was made in the 80's after all) but it was effective.
Ten years later, I revisited the old story and movie that scared me so much as a kid and found to my surprise that it was just as frightening, if not more so.
I had picked up a copy at the library a couple years back on a crisp Fall afternoon. Jack was only about 7 months old and Halloween was right around the corner. I sat outside in the library's patio and read it again with bated breath, this time looking for what could have scared my foolish 11 year old brain and what I found was even scarier- it was freaking out my 20 year old brain! That Stephen King is a genius in that way. Taking childhood fears (the loss of a pet) and parenthood fears (the loss of a child) and wrapping them together and burying them under your skin. It gnaws at at you. It makes you think.
After I read the book (which is one of my favorites, due to both writing and effect) I was left paranoid for a good week. Clutching Jack closer, watching his every move in case of any unseen (and largely imagined) accidents. Walks became nervous events, with me making sure Greg was on one side of the sidewalk and I was on the other because "cars Greg! Fucking cars are everywhere!"

*From one of the more unsettling scenes in Pet Sematary.

"Ugh! Stop reading that book!"
"I did!"

Eventually I got over it but the fact that it had such an effect on me made me mark it as one of the better horror movies out there, cheesy or not. Because like the cover sleeve of the book warns-
"As the story unfolds, so does a nightmare of the supernatural, one so relentless you won't want...at moments...to continue reading...but will be unable to stop."

And that is why Pet Sematary is my favorite horror movie.

It has been playing a lot on AMC and if you haven't seen it, I recommend checking it out. And I HIGHLY recommend the book for even more effective chills.




So! What's your favorite horror movie? Why does it freak you out?