My grandpa liked to watch scary movies. I was too young to understand why then and unfortunately I’ll probably never find out why since I never get to see him anymore. But I believe it is a large reason that lead to my liking of horror films.
When I was little I spent a lot of time with my grandpa even though he would watch scary movies that I had to virtually peek though my fingers the entire time. To make it worse, during the scary parts he’d make this strange screeching noise and grab my arm or my back with his hand, as if the creature were going to get me. It rarely worked though, I always knew it was him, and if it did scare me it was just a good moment for a surprise scare, because I always felt safe with him.
Sitting as his feet or next to him sharing a banana split with fudge, he tell me to look at the parts I tried to look away at because I shouldn’t be scared. A large amount of the movies that he watched seemed to be about some sort of demon, or maybe those are the ones I remember for scaring me the most.
His advice to me was always that if I was scared, that I should put some holy water on my forehead to make me feel better, because if I was scared, it had something to do with me and not so much outside forces.
He would tell me, or really everyone about the dreams he had at night. Not that you couldn’t hear him from his room yelling something incoherent in the middle of the night. He would tell us that he fought the devil all night in his sleep. Basically they were just duke-ing it all night, and he thankfully made it through another night, but was ready if confronted by him again.
My grandpa always told me not to be scared of demons, whether I dreamed of them or not. I should face them, and if I was just too scared, I should run into a cemetery because the ground was holy.
I’m not quite sure why, but my grandpa told me that when he died, he wanted me to spend the night in the cemetery on his grave. If not he’d come visit me in spirit. Never seemed like much of a choice to me, but I’d certainly like to see him.
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That's the interesting things about horror movies isn't it? That we are frightened by such movies, yet, we are thoroughly entertained by them? As a kid, I had a fear of horror movies as well, especially zombie movies (i'll never forget that I got a week's worth of nightmared after seen the original "night of the living dead"). We know that we really shouldn't fear these movies because well...it is just cinema, but as kids that is something that is hard for us to realize. It seems like you realized this way before me because I was still having nightmares from scary movies all the way up to my teens. I can't say I get too many nightmares now, but I wonder what sort of ideas you have about why you have your nightmares? Do you think it is just random, or do you think events trigger them? I don't know, but I would say that mine are usually triggered by something (whether it is a book, a picture I see, or a movie).
ReplyDeleteJen-
ReplyDeleteThis is such a thought provoking post. Please forgive the following word vomit, I have just always been throughly perplexed by horror movies. I always did--and largely still do--claim to hate scary movies. But, of course, I watch them. I never really chose to watch them, at least not consciously, but it ends up happening and afterward I feel a strange sort of accomplishment. I reward myself for sitting through the gore and fear without pissing myself. I also keep a tally of how many times I yelp like a sissy. It's usually more than I'd like to boast.
I liked your comment about how most of the movies had demons in them and your grandpa would tell you to rub holy water on your forward. See, for me it's those ones--the ones with the demons and stuff--that really get me. If there's any possibility at all that it could actually happen then I'm a goner. Take "What Lies Beneath" for instance...see, that straight up had me not bathing for weeks--not really, but I was super scared because I felt like something like that was actually feasible.
Have you seen "Shutter Island"? I didn't really think it was scary...more so suspenseful, but I heard somebody categorize it as a "scary movie". I thought it was phenomenal. Scorsese is brilliant.
I digress, but, I enjoyed your post a lot. Fun memories of grandpa and fun tangent about movies for me!