I have to give this topic some thought. I've watched horror movies for a long time. Some stick, some really stick, and others...
But I couldn't let this pass.
This one is easy. Don't even have to think about it.
First: The original Friday the 13th. It wasn't the entire movie, but the ending. Seeing Jason's mom slashing and hacking wasn't all that bad, but when Jason came out of the lake and grabbed the girl in the canoe....no way...freaked my sh!t out, big time. I was at a buddy's house watching it. When it was over I had to call my dad to turn on the front porch light, and open the front door. I've never run faster than I did that night in 1981.
Last: Blair Witch Project. The whole "home movie" type thing, and the concept, really put a scare into the wife and I. Especially when going to her family's cabin after having seen that movie. The cabin is on a small lake in northern Wisconsin, surrounded by woods, out in the middle of nowhere. The scary part is waking up at 2:00 in the morning needing to hit the john. The issue, no running water at the cabin, which means a trip to the outhouse. No way! I find it hilarious because when my wife was in her late teens and 20s she would go to the cabin alone and read scary books. Not any more!
The one that did not have any effect: The Exorcist. The Mrs saw it when it first was out, and it scared her. I had never seen it. Sometime around 2000 we watched it, and she commented that she couldn't believe that movie freaked her out. We both thought it was lame. She would have seen it as a teen. I'm sure that it was to her like Friday the 13th was to me. That time of your life.
I used to watch a lot of those movies in the 70s/80s, but not so much these days.
I saw the original Friday The 13th in a theater on opening day, I believe, with a girl I was dating at the time. I loved the special effects, and while this gets derided as one of the gory slasher flicks, the reality is that most of the killings are off-screen. Anyway, I was loving the movie, and Alice (the lovely Adrienne King) is in the boat, and I'm leaning forward to get ready to leave when Jason pops up and I damn near broke my back slamming back into my seat. That movie is one of my all-time favorites, and it's kind of sad that its legacy was tarnished by the bad sequels, much like Saw. That first Saw movie - wow. The rest - eh.
Now, to one of the F13 sequels. Specifically F13 Part 3 - in 3-D. Saw it opening day. This was the one that told me the franchise was probably in trouble (I thought part 2 was actually pretty good). Two days later, we're in a softball tournament and get knocked out early. So we decide to go see this flick. I'm the only one whose seen it. It's me, my now-wife, one of my friends from the team, and his girlfriend. Another couple went with us, but they sat separately. Theater is crowded, but we find four seats near the back. Squeeze in and find out it's only three seats. My girlfriend sits to my left, I take the middle, and Mike takes the seat next to the wall and Cindy sits on his lap. Remember - I've seen this already, so I know what's coming.
It's 30 years later, so I'm not spoiling anything - there's a scene near the end where Jason gets pushed out of a hayloft and hanged. Yes, it's yet another fake death. But I'm the only one in our group who knows when the girl looks at him, he's going to snap his hands up and grab the rope. I'm sitting there with my arms crossed - reaching out to the girls. Jason grabs the rope, I grab the girls' arms.
You remember in cartoons how people start running but don't go anywhere? That was my wife. Cindy did move. Remember where she was sitting? She jumped into the wall.
And yet my wife is still here...
. It's been such a long time since I've even wanted to see a horror movie, I couldn't tell you the last one I actually watched.
