This week’s theme for Wicked Wednesday focuses on disturbing films we’ve watched and how they’ve affected us.
Confession time. I don’t watch scary movies, freaky movies, or disturbing movies. I once watched an episode of Unsolved Mysteries at 2am and didn’t sleep well for a week – I was about 13 or 14. The theme music to The Twilight Zone creeps me out, and I am transported back to age 8 when I caught a glimpse of pig faces where human faces should have been. My dad loved The Twilight Zone. I hated the show and was easily traumatized by it.
I still remember feeling really disturbed at the end of Planet of the Apes when Charlton Heston falls to his knees in horror at the sight of the Statue of Liberty in shambles. I was very young at the time. I had fallen asleep on the couch and when I woke up, my dad was watching the movie. I dozed off again and woke up to that scene. I can still see the scene in my head. I’ve since watched the movie myself and as an adult, I’m no longer freaked out, but the feelings from childhood of being scared that apes might take over our civilization have stayed with me. Not that I think such a thing is a possibility – but I remember the fear.
Maybe because I saw these things at such a tender age or maybe because I’m a wimp, I avoid psychological thrillers, horror movies, and anything that even looks like I might be scared by. I watched Sixth Sense and jumped out of my skin. Signs (with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Pheonix) made me cry each time something made me jump. I don’t like surprises – especially in movies.
Funny, I started writing this post thinking that I’d never watched anything that disturbed me or freaked me out. Apparently, I’ve watched plenty of films that have affected me. But they aren’t movies I seek out. I don’t like them, and I don’t voluntarily watch them.
I don’t mind a movie that makes me cry, makes me laugh, makes me think. But I hate being scared, freaked out, or disturbed.
I try to avoid those horror movies. Some of them don’t affect me, but others do. The Blair Witch Project freaked me out something terrible. I slept very little the following week. Jeepers Creepers was another one I was pressured into watching that scared the crap out of me. I have an over active imagination and I get nightmares quite easily.
I didn’t even like the previews of The Blair Witch Project! Yep, it’s my imagination that gets me every time too.
Hi Kayla,
I had similar tension with Signs and the Sixth Sense. If you ever decide to scare the shit outta yourself for a film, check out The Grudge…….creeeeepy.
RidicuRyder
/shivers. No thanks. 🙂
When I was 15, 17 I loved horror movies and saw dozens of them. One evening I went to the movies to watch Carrie. At the end there is this scene where a hand is pushed up from under the ground. Oh boy did it scare the hell out of me and I guess I kind of overdosed. It took me almost a decade before I was able to watch a horror movie again. It was Poltergeist on TV and even then I felt so freaking scared 🙂 I taped it and saw it the next day in broad daylight.
I’ve seen Carrie, too. I think the first time I watched it was at 2am – and I screamed when her hand came out of the ground. /shivers!
I avoid horror films too; but I don’t mind being taken for a psychological ride (like Silence of the Lambs!)
I think my imagination is too vivid to handle psychological thrillers. They make my stomach hurt and I worry. I know, I’m weird.
While I have never been a big fan of slasher movies, I avoid them at all cost I am a big fan of the psychological thriller.
Always loved the Alfred Hitchcock movies and such.
Also will read Stephen King and Dean Koontz, it is good to take and dip ones toes in the dark side now and again.
I will leave those to you. No thanks!
Me too!! I’d rather get my adrenaline rush from a dramatic fight scene than from something scary jumping out from the shadows. Scary movies are just too much for me.
I’ll take an action movie with car chases and gun fights almost any time!
I watch a lot of horror movies, and it takes a lot to disturb me.
When I was a kid I used to get scared a lot, particularly riding the cheap “spook house” ride at the fair, but it became an obsession with me, and I had to ride it again and again, until I could do the whole thing with my eyes open. I started actually examining the things I saw, figuring out how they were made, and that became my safety catch – when something gets scary in a movie, I start analyzing the technique that went into its construction.
That being said, visuals seldom bother me, but concepts do. Cronenberg often creeps me out, because a lot of his films involve horror that steals your body autonomy, and loss of self is my biggest creep factor.
I’m impressed. I don’t do scary rides, haunted houses, or anything like that, even though I know it’s all show and it’s fake. My mind runs away with me.
I do not like horror movies either but I like a good (psychological) thriller 🙂
Rebel xox
I’m not good with blood, gore, surprises, or anything that makes me afraid to look out the window! 🙂
I am not a horror movie person at all, blood and guts does nothing for me
mollyxxx
Me neither!
Not all people care for horror, and there is nothing wrong with that. That is why there are 31 flavors of ice cream, we all have different taste.
You are so right. 🙂
I’m late to the party, but I swear we grew up in the same skin. I have a memory of hiding behind the washing machine, to afraid to peek out because The Twilight Zone music was on. Boy, do I remember the pig faces. I think I even wrote a blog post on them.
When I went to see Signs in the theatre, I was the only person in the whole place who screamed at the scary parts. The Ex laughed his ass off at me. Scary movies…….brrrrrr.
And I watch them anyway!
I have similar reactions so I avoid them like the plague. /shivers