The Joy of Fear

Happy Halloween! Let’s talk about our favourite horror, ghost or supernatural tales today.

When I was nine or ten years old I checked a book of ghost stories out from the school library and snuck it home.

Mom found it, of course. Somehow parents almost always do. 😉 I don’t remember having a conversation about that specific book with her but the topic did come up again and again. She didn’t understand why I’d want to read or watch such dark material.

There’s more than one type of fear.

The terror that comes from someone physically harming you against your will is nothing at all like the extra squirt of adrenaline that is released with a spooky story. It’s like comparing Mount Everest to a pebble.

Take The Others, for example.

The protagonist, Grace, lives in an isolated mansion with her two young children who are extremely photosensitive. To protect them she creates a life that keeps them away from the sun but one of the side effects of her many rules is that the family is incredibly socially isolated. When Grace decides to hire a few servants to help keep the estate going until her husband returns from the war things start to get really weird.

There are some deliciously frightening scenes in this movie (and none of them were gory!) Why are the servants so secretive and bizarre? why did the strange entities begin moving around in her home at about the same time her servants arrived? will she ever hear from her husband again?

The process of figuring out the twist in this movie before it was revealed at the end was quite entertaining. All of the strange moments sprinkled through the film do eventually click into place and the most terrifying scenes actually end up providing the biggest clues.

Respond

What are your favourite spooky movies, books or television shows?

 

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0 Responses to The Joy of Fear

  1. Twyseschoch

    Believe it or not, I really liked the Others!  But I still don’t like scary stuff, most of the time.  😀  

  2. We’re addicted to the show Supernatural.  It’s one of the few shows not on watch instant on Neflix so we wait anxiously for the next disc to come in the mail so we can find out what kind of demon is after our ruggedly handsome heros this time.  Love love love it.

  3. I love allll scary movies.

    • ..and I wasn’t done typing! A really good one I saw recently was “The Descent.” It was watched during a week of watching cave-themed horror movies, of which there are a surprisingly large number. “The Descent” was the best, and probably one of the best all-around horrors I’d seen in a good long while.

      Others that scared the poo out of me include 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, and Cabin Fever. And let’s not forget Fire in the Sky, which I watched when I was nine years old. Nine! My parents must have momentarily lost their marbles. I couldn’t sleep for two days.

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