Apropos of Nothing

Halloween is not a common practice in my hometown.  In all my childhood, I can remember only one Halloween Party.  It was held inside the Baptist church which has been transformed to a haunted house by the mere posting of black cloth in the windows and turning off all the lights. I vaguely recall some "ghosts" and one or two horrific masks. I remember more the giggling of my elder sister and her best friend - due to the cute son of the pastor and some other boys in the vicinity. I don’t know if I enjoyed that party or not.  I just remembered it being very strange.

Unfortunately, the absence of a Halloween celebration did not exempt my hyperactive imagination from feeding. Horror movies more than made up for the lack of ghoul in my life.

I must have been barely ten years old that summer. An enterprising aunt went around showing movies in town halls and school auditoriums. Considering that the nearest cinema is at least an hour’s drive away, that venture must have been good business. Well, it should have been good business - if not for the number of nephews and nieces who gets to watch the movie for free. I settled in quite comfortably in a school chair and watched eagerly as "The Exorcist" rolled on the screen. I had no idea what the word meant and my aunt’s bootleg operation must have escaped any MTRCB grading system at that time. Thirty minutes later, I was running home. My heart was pounding and my eyes stinging because I could not even blink. Both my head and my stomach ached miserably. I ran past the high school, the elementary school, the town hall, the prison, the courthouse, the judge’s house, the market and finally to my mother’s arms. She had to make me drink a whole glass of milk before I calmed down enough to tell her that the girl’s head turned - like all the way around! - and that  something is on her tummy - writing on her tummy from the inside! - and her voice - that voice is NOT her voice!

It was years later - after college - that I was able to finally face up to that movie. There were two or three earlier attempts but I had to reach full adulthood before I was able to watch the movie from start to finish.  Last year, my husband and I watched the sequel to the same movie and I was ok (though my husband was not … hehehe). It helps that the storyline and the special fx were blah. Thankfully, the Hollywood curse regarding sequels still works.

Maybe it was that untimely exposure that I avoid horror movies as much as possible. One of the major quarrels I had with my then new bf (now my husband) was when we watched "Event Horizon". In fairness to him, he also thought it was a science fiction movie. To this date (at least six years later), I still remember the crew scratching each other’s eyes out.

Recently, you can catch me quickly switching channels over the trailer of ‘The Haunting of Emily Rose’. Last month, we have come into possession of a dibidi-dibidi (crack DVD) which contain 6 movies (in one disc) called the Nicole Kidman Collection. I will not be maximizing the bargain because I will be watching only 5 of the 6 movies. I have already heard my sister’s review of "The Others", thank you.

I especially cannot watch a Filipino horror movie. Today’s youth may smirk at the unsophisticated fx and formulaic story of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" but that movie haunted countless of my nights. People say that Kris Aquino’s title "Horror Queen" cannot be surpassed by her many baring billboards. Well, I’ll just have to take their word for it. I prefer to think of Feng Shui as a study of positive energies.

The recent phenomenon of Asian horrors  — the long haired girl which lives in video tapes, the running water, the cellphone call - are the banes of my movie watching. I love watching movie trailers and these scream flicks totally ruined my favourite 15 minutes before the show! Why can’t these countries limit their exports to electronics and telenovelas??

For many years after college and before getting married, I lived alone. My current address and the one previous to this are both located near cemeteries. I believe that I have outgrown my scaredy-cat syndrome. I must admit though that there were times I kept my lights on till morning - usually after inadvertently watching a scary movie.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Popcorn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.