If you’re anything like me, you both love and hate being scared.
I know, it’s a weird sort of love/hate relationship.
But at the same time, it’s fun, isn’t it? That JOLT that comes with someone jumping out at you, or that jump tactic that modern horror movies use in some scenes. Your bones momentarily separate from your skin, your heart starts pumping quick, and it’s immediately followed by that come-down period where your legs are a little weak, but you smile because it’s over.
At least for now, or at least until someone has thought up another tactic designed to separate you from the control of your bladder.
That’s the fun that comes with fear, and it’s like a hyper-sensitive feeling that lets you know you’re alive.
With Halloween just a few days away, it’s tough to ignore what the season has come to typically represent; ghosts and goblins, vampires and werewolves, and all the horrors of the night. Well, maybe I’m showing my age by describing it with those beloved characters, but that was Halloween for me when I was a kid. These days it seems to be all about dressing up as the latest Marvel characters or even a particular image that “went viral” on the Web.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m all about terror and nightmarish costumes and imagery when it comes to Halloween.
What’s so scary about Thor, Iron Man and Captain America, anyway? Aside from those movies being “scarily” predictable and formulaic?
No, for me, October 31 belongs to the creatures and monsters of the night. Give me Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers over any of the Avengers.
I guess it goes without saying that I’m pretty desensitized these days, but obviously that wasn’t always the case. There were things that scared me as a kid, and one of them was actually pretty ridiculous in hindsight.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was terrified of a VHS cover. Yup, you read that right. The box artwork for a videotape was enough to stop my blood cold and keep me up at night, sometimes even calling for Jack or Lynda to come and soothe my frayed nerves.
This was back when the D&E convenience store in Outlook rented out VHS tapes and had them sorted by category. You had ‘Comedy’ and ‘Drama’ in different parts of the rack, and sure enough, ‘Horror’ had its own section.
The section that happened to be closest to the pop coolers. Because OF COURSE it was.
If I wanted to grab a Coke, I had to either have tunnel vision to avoid looking at *that* tape or I’d go without one. That, or I’d actually ask my mom or dad to go into the store with me so they could block the horror movie section.
For those who knew my father, he wasn’t exactly the movie-renting type, and the only thing he really went into the D&E for was 6/49 tickets, so you could imagine the incredulous look he’d get on his face when I proposed that he act as my bodyguard against a small, rectangular piece of pressed cardboard.
“You want me to WHAT?”
“It’s a tape I don’t like looking at, Dad!”
“Well then DON’T look at it! And get ME a Coke while you’re at it!”
Only I couldn’t avoid looking at it whenever I stepped into the D&E; it just drew my eyes in. Like how one can’t avoid looking at a car crash, my young eyes were reeled in to the freaky artwork adorned on this VHS box.
So I can hear you asking, what movie was it? What horror flick had VHS cover art that burned itself into my young brain and terrorized me?
Look no further than everyone’s favorite dream-stalking, fedora-wearing, blade-fingered mass murderer himself, Freddy Krueger. Specifically, Mr. Krueger’s third cinematic outing, which was entitled, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’.
The artwork shows a handful of teenagers standing on the blades of Freddy’s glove like as if they’re being served up to him, but what freaked me out about it the most were his eyes; wide, glaring, and monstrous in every way. It was like Freddy was staring right through me, and it always felt like those eyes were on me the second I would walk into the D&E.
Eventually, the D&E stopped carrying VHS tapes and did away with the horror flicks, so my young psyche was spared from any further emotional punishment. Funnily enough, these days I rank ‘Elm Street 3’ as one of my favorite horror movies.
It’s funny what can scare us as kids. I guess the fine folks who made the Freddy movies overdid it by scaring a kid before he even watched the movie itself.
Have fun this coming Halloween, whatever you’re doing and however you celebrate it.
Me, I’m taking the Justin Trudeau approach when it comes to trick-or-treaters – the candy will hand out itself.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
