Scary Movie To Watch

[Octavis Uberstine]

A few years ago, Sammy filled Emily and Henley in on the plot of the newly popular horror hit Midsommar, and from there a podcast was borne. The three friends have hosted the Headgum podcast since 2019. Each episode, often featuring notable guests, has Sammy giving Emily and Henley a summary of a scary movie, from cult classics to slashers to body horror films.

Emily and Henley, how did you get away with not watching some of the classics? I think Sammy recapped the Friday the 13th movie for you on a recent episode and I was wondering how you never caught that movie on TV or got roped into watching it during a sleepover.

Henley: One of my favorite things to hear about are interpersonal stories, and all the horror that arises between us. Movies like The Babadook do that so well, speaking of grief and how a family can become disfigured when they are confronted with managing loss in different ways.

In my 20s, I loved scary movies. I would pour a strong drink (something I don't do anymore) and curl up on my couch, with a pillow to cover my eyes. This was in the era of the delivered Netflix envelope; I could have scary clowns or poltergeists or vengeful demons show up in my postal box every Friday.

It became a sort of addiction. I am a total wimp in real life, terrified of thunderstorms, confrontation, and election season. The movies were an outlet, a release, against a tightly controlled world I had orchestrated for years. The movies raised my heart rate, taking me right into fight or flight mode, which in some way helped work out the kinks of my stressful life. Also, they were kind of fun.

But, I only watched them with a full drink in my hand, of course. As a woman in recovery, there is a lot to say about the pattern I had established. A strong drink, paired with Isolating at home, wrapped up with a spooky denouement. My scary movie cycle was far from healthy.

There are some obvious issues with watching the type of movie that keeps us up at night. First of all? They literally keep us up at night. Good sleep is key for my mental state, and heightened nervousness brought on by a horror movie only shows up the next day by making me a zombie mom. A scary sight.

But more troubling was the increased feelings of dread paired with, strangely, apathy, these movies seemed to create in me. I came to the realization that my own anxiety and depression did not need to be dosed with dread on steroids that are offered up in a grim movie plot. I am now 50 years old, and something happened this year under the subheading of "Life's Too Short for This" that scary movies now fall under. Life's too short to feel extreme revulsion or fear for an hour and 45 minutes on a Friday night. Life's too short to view a protagonist in a horrifying situation and yet become numbed and disaffected by her fate. Life's too short for all of that.

One, watching them is like hearing an old song from my high school days; they take me back. And me, sitting on a couch with a very large drink and a very small soul, doesn't need to replay in my head. I know that revisiting the horror of my addiction once in a while is acceptable, if only to remind me who I was and what happened and who I am now. But movies are long. I don't need to hunker down in those icky feelings. They are to be acknowledged and valued, but not binged-watched.

And, now that I have some years of recovery under my belt, I realize my addictions are not just to alcohol. I crave feelings. The big kind. I am addicted to distraction, because any sort of boredom or discomfort sends all the alarms blazing in my head, telling me to do something fast. This gets me flustered, and addiction doesn't do flustered very well. A scary movie takes flustered and quickly trades it out for fear or squeamishness or any other sort of interesting spooky diversion. But I know enough now that this sort of flipping the switch ultimately leaves me more anxious, more tired, more lacking in peace.

These movies and many more have been clearly recognized as some of the scariest movies of all time largely because of their undeniable influence on the horror genre. The films I want to share with you are some slightly grittier gems. A couple are among the most well-renowned recent horror movies, but most should be an enjoyable new find for horror buffs and newbies alike.

Last Shift is a relatively standard horror film. It involves a lone female protagonist stuck in an isolated location. She is a rookie cop working the last shift of a closing police station. There is a sufficiently fleshed-out plot with a few intruiging twists and turns. Most importantly however, once the scares start coming they do not stop. At all. This is the most relentless horror movie I have seen in recent memory, which acts greatly to its benefit.

Other movies try to beat the viewer over the head with jump scares so frequent they act as more of a reflex test. Last Shift earns your attention and drains your stamina with terrifying imagery, suffocating dread, and yes, a few well-executed jump scares. Because Last Shift is so straight forward in its setup, it does not earn a spot in the pantheon of great horror films. It works amazingly however, if all you want to do is make you and your friends terrified to go to sleep after watching it.

There is a well-worn horror rule that no matter how long you keep the monster behind the door, eventually that door has to open. We humans are great at conjuring up the worst things possible in our minds, which is why films like Jaws work so well. Eventually we do have to see the shark though, or the audience loses interest.

When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999 it was accompanied by one of the first viral ad campaigns for a movie. The ads were launched to convince the audience that the events depicted in the film were real. Many audience members went in believing that these film students actually went missing while searching for the infamous Blair Witch. This realism serviced the film greatly and let the audience craft the horror in their mind, a feat many films still try but fail to achieve.

Film is purely subjective, as is all art, and its quality cannot be measured objectively. So, to mitigate the risk of uncertainty within film preference, go back to the roots of fear itself. For maximum fright, either watch it alone or with a couple like-minded individuals. Hit the lights. Draw the blinds. Toss some Ouija boards on the ground and grab that creepy old Raggedy Ann doll your mom hung onto and embrace the scare. Follow the long-parodied trope of splitting up from the group because every horror director knows we are most vulnerable alone or in a small contingent.

My 3 year old daughter is quite sensitive and empathetic, and subsequently finds some of the kids TV shows aimed at her age group too scary, worrying or upsetting to watch. Even televised productions of books she likes such as the Gruffalo can be too scary for her. Anything with elements of peril, evil or where characters get particularly upset will probably be something she doesn't like watching.

This limits her to a few shows which she likes but she does want to try watching other things so sometimes we try and watch a new movie or show together. Very often though she becomes scared or upset and asks to turn it off.

Should we be trying to encourage or persuade her to watch these things, to try and help her with her emotional reaction? Or would it be better to just avoid these shows until she's older and presumably will have developed the ability to cope with these emotions better.

First of all, let me assure you that I understand your worry. I have been in your situation three years ago and it can be very alarming when your child finds "Ben and Holly" too scary ("The bird stole her wand! Waa-waa-waa! Turn it off now!"), doesn't listen to any kids stories ("Red-riding hood" was considered a horror movie) and doesn't allow any evil characters in a role-play games. It limits a lot their exposure to literature, theater and possible game plots. It seems to slow down their emotional development.

Try different shows. Sometimes the plot would be so interesting that curiosity will beat fear. In our case she started to watch Princess Sofia earlier than she agreed to Luntik (I am not sure you know this one, but it is aimed at age 2-3).

Find an environment where she is exposed to it together with other children. We have a wonderful interactive puppet theater where we watched many traditional fairy tales. She seemed scared but everybody else around were laughing so she decided that this is not that scary after all.

Siblings help a lot. I remember that a major progress happened when her older cousin came to visit for three weeks. She would organize all type of normal children games (with evil witches, dying, resurrection, volcanoes, doctors etc.) My daughter really wanted to join it and was very fast to accept these scary things as norm than she would ever do with me.

I was asking the same question as yours myself and I tried to find answer from other people who worked with my daughter, like preschool and school teachers. There was very little they could say apart from "all children are different, yes, maybe her reaction is strange but she is a normal child". I decided not to think about it as a disorder and our doctor advised against going to a psychologist about this issue (but if you are very worried ask them as well).

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