I Hate Scary Movies
I don’t like scary movies. I really don’t. I don’t think it’s fun to be scared. It’s stupid.
When I was a kid I went to a friend’s house and her older brother happened to be watching a Friday the 13th movie on...what was that thing? Oh, right, VHS. (Remember when that was a thing?) Anyway, I watched Jason stalk and slash a lady. So that was nice. I didn’t sleep well for the rest of my life. Psychological scars? I has them.
The animated Legend of Sleepy Hollow is as scary as I can take, and to be honest, I don’t even like it all that much. It might be too scary. Watcher in the Woods? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? The Birds? OK, I’m alright watching The Birds because it’s not freaky. Everything else: NO, THANK YOU and WHERE IS MY BLANKIE.
Last week I went to Seattle to be with my sister while she had her first baby. My husband, Jdub, called me up one night and confessed to something. He’d been watching some stupid scary movie, Dawn of the Dead, late at night, when he heard someone start sobbing. It was my 7-year-old son, who had sneaked downstairs and watched part of the movie. Jdub wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but it was certainly long enough to see some scary, violent things. My heart flopped and sank. My poor child! I could feel the fear in his heart from a thousand miles away. Stupid zombies. I was angry at Jdub (for what? Watching a movie for grown-ups late at night after he’d put the kids to bed?) I couldn’t do anything about it.
Sure, it’s a good lesson for the kid to learn that if you sneak out of bed you might not like what you see, but it’s a stupid lesson, too. I don’t want him to be scared, like, ever. And if he wakes up with nightmares night after night, who’ll be the one who has to comfort him? Not Jdub, who sleeps like a stone. Dumb movies. If I could take back that moment forever for him, I would.
Jdub eventually got the kid back to sleep by explaining that to avoid zombies (that aren’t even real) you do the same thing as for a T-Rex: hold very, very still and they can’t see you. So they practiced T-Rex defense until the kid calmed down enough to sleep.
Ugh. But no more scary movies. Ever. OK?
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