spent a good deal of my childhood avoiding watching scary movies and TV shows because I’m an absolute sponge for scary-ass shit. If I see something scary, I will never, ever forget it. It’s like a tattoo of terror on my brain. I knew this as a child so I had to take preventative measures. Even hearing the theme song from The X-files had me bolting to my bedroom before I copped a glance at that weird spinny scream face that stretched out into a spiral in the opening credits.
I can handle it more now that I’m older and my brain has developed enough to understand the difference between logic and Fictional Melty Plastic Slithering Under The Door Man. I quite enjoy the odd horror flick these days but I have to be careful if they have any of my trigger cliches in them. Simply because the next few days of my life will be a bit horrific as I imagine myself in those fictional scenarios, making it impossible for me to do things like answer the phone, open the front door or walk across a deserted car park without freaking out. My main trigger cliches are those moments that happen really regularly in horror movies that could almost happen in real life. Like if my car breaks down on the side of the road and if I’ve just watched Wolf Creek, I’ll be 99% convinced that John the handy man is going to pop up in the back seat and bop me over the head with his gun. It’s the magic of cinema. It’s out of my control. Here are some other scenarios that will trigger a major terror attack if I’ve just seen a coinciding movie featuring said scenario.
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People who are alone, outside, at night, in thunderstorms
They’re either a serial killer or they’re being chased by one. Either way blood is about to be flowing into a drain somewhere while plinky plunky horror violins play death music. There’ll most likely be a close up of a dead person’s eyeball and I’d rather it wasn’t mine which is why it’s unlikely you’ll ever find me alone, outside, at night, in a thunderstorm. If you do, run… because there’s a serial killer after me.
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Knife lickers
Far from being grossed out when a dining companion of mine executes a full length lick of their knife I’m more likely to be thinking ‘Yep. You’re going to stab me 17 times with that knife aren’t you? Then you’re going to remove my shoelaces, tie them in bows around my wrists, write WIFE on my forehead with my own lipstick and THE COPS WILL NEVER KNOW WHY!!!!’
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Little girl ghosts
I was once at the supermarket and I turned around and there was this little pig-tailed girl in an old-fashioned pinafore dress with lace ribbons in her hair, with her back to me at end of the aisle. Instead of correctly assuming that she’d just come from a dress up day at her school, I assumed the opposite. That she’d been murdered in this supermarket in 1952 and she appears in front of random shoppers with her dead, hollow eyes and says ‘Caaaan you heeeeeelp meeeee???‘ while ghost worms crawl out of her nose. This weird strangled sound escaped from my mouth and I scurried around the corner to the safety of the fruit section. I saw her and her mother at the check out ten minutes later when my heartrate had returned to normal. I have to admit I was pretty relieved that other people seemed to be able to see her too.
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People becoming liquid
If someone is creeping me out and I successfully manage to get a door in-between us there’s always a little part of me that’s expecting them to liquify and slither under the door like the T-1000 in The Terminator and then re-form on the other side of the door and be scary again. It’s never going to happen… but it might.
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Pop-up evil mirror people
Mirrors are just horrible. If they weren’t useful and if I wasn’t completely vain, I just wouldn’t have them in my house. If you count the amount of fictional characters that have died via mirror murder they would take up a good percentage of cinematic deaths. You can’t argue with maths.
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Twins
I used to teach twins many years ago and they were lovely girls but I only had to catch a glimpse of The Shining on TV and then I’d spend a week nervously glancing at them to make sure a tidal wave of blood wasn’t about to go all tsunami in my class room. It’s completely irrational but that’s why Stephen King is so very, very rich because after watching one of his movies, his fictional characters take up more of my brain space than almost anything else. Evil genius.
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Water ghosts
Even Moaning Myrtle freaks me out. If I watch a movie that has a water ghost, baths are off the cards for at least a month.
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