Happy Halloweeeeeen!

It's been awhile since I've been able to enjoy this holiday, primarily because the EX loved it so...so it belonged to him? Psychological manipulation? But NO, I smite thee, EX memory, because I enjoyed the hell out of this holiday my whole life.

Speaking of Halloween, don't you think the original Halloween was helliscary? Particularly that part where Jamie Lee Curtis flees from Michael Myers and it is race to get the front door open? I pee my pants just thinking about it. Of course, this particular movie holds a special place in my sick and twisted memoryheart because it is the first horror movie I ever saw. Scene: Me, seven years old, at my baby sitter's house, they are having a drunkityass party. I am surrounded by horny, half baked teens and they have no idea I am there; they only know it is time to turn up the Styx and try to score a home run with their prospective girl/boyfriends. I am sitting on a drooping couch, transfixed. I could CARE LESS about horny teens and their pathetic pettings all around me. All I can see is the TV screen. A man is checking out the kitchen, a man is being lifted up and pinned to the wall with a knife. Other freaky things ensue. I was traumatized.

Later when I saw Halloween for the first time (with older, wiser eyes) I really did enjoy this masterpiece. Beautiful! Terrifying! Jamie Lee Curtis was a vision in virginal awkwardness. "Don't Fear the Reaper"!! Wire hangers! So scary. By the time I saw this movie in full, I was completely devoted to the Stephen King library. I was fully anesthetized.

I am sure there are studies out there that can explain why such a fatherless, grown-up-in-turmoil girl like me would dig on horror books, but I've yet to hear an explanation as to why I latched onto the Stephen King books like a baby to milk. Look here now: I will defend my love of the SK library until the day I die. Is he my surrogate father? Maybe. Did I see his stories as something far worse than what I had known, thus offering me some comfort that my life was far less complicated than it could have been? Definitely. But honestly--and I do not think I am alone in this--I found SK's narrative voice both familiar and comforting. Even when he was scaring the shhhhheeeeit out of me, the storyteller behind the terrifying story held me close and let me know that, despite whatever horrible thing was about to happen, He would go on. And thus I would go on. Silly? Maybe. But it was true for me.

My favorite horror movie? Hands down, The Decent. You can't get more horrifying than getting trapped underground with no known options of escape. Ohnowait! You CAN get more horrifying. Like when you are trapped with no hope of escaping and you are being hunted by pale batpeople full of liberal cannibalistic tendencies. The moment when the women are on the edge of hysteria, disoriented, upset, and the one woman pans around the group to expose the monsters directly beside them? AAAAAIIIIIIGGGHHHHH! I screamed aloud many times during this movie. I ask you: Who would willingly spelunk, ever? EVER?

So, my terror recommend is The Decent. And to take the edge off, watch Halloween after. What a lovely, gentle segue to Halloween night sleepytimes.