Actually, that title is incorrect. I’m not allowed to watch horror movies alone. My husband has actually made this rule. I think he’s tired of the side effects.
Let me start off by saying that I absolutely love horror movies. I rarely find anything more exhilarating than being afraid. We usually go to movie theaters to see horror movies because I love to be around people who get so afraid that they scream. For the record, it turns out that I won’t make a noise but I will punch, mostly my husbands leg/arm/upper torso.
The movie The Ring scared me. I will admit it. There was just something a little too realistic about it for me. We saw this movie in the theater, this is when I discovered that I punch like Mike Tyson. My poor husband had bruises for weeks. When this movie came out on DVD, of course I had to own it. My husband and I watched it again, to the same effect, yep I still punch.
One night, it was Halloween I think, my husband had to work at night and wouldn’t be home until after 10:00pm. We live/lived in an apartment, so we don’t get trick or treater’s. This means that I could have myself a nice little horror movie festival, and not have to worry about being interrupted and having the fear circle broken. I started with the basics like Halloween (of course), Poltergeist and Carrie. The last movie I decided to watch was The Ring.
Well, after watching the movie and not feeling the regular thrill of fear that I used to get from watching the movie, I decided to watch the special features. Well, the special features weren’t special enough so I went online to see if the movie had any Easter Eggs (for anyone who doesn’t know what an Easter Egg is, it’s special features that are hidden somewhere on the disk. You usually have to do a series of button pushing to get them.); and it did have an Easter Egg.
The hidden scene was the entire video that the people watch in the movie, in whole. I thought, “hey cool!”, and proceeded to watch it.
Turns out that the video was freaky as hell! I tried to turn it off, but it wouldn’t stop! I had no choice but to let the damned thing play through. Did I think to leave the room? No. I continued to sit there watching it like a sucker.
The whole thing is about 2 minutes long and at the end of it goes back to the main menu, once it goes back you hear a ringing phone on the DVD. I laughed when that happened, but then my phone started to ring. That just freaked me the hell out. At the time we had caller ID but the display was separate from the phone, and I had forgotten to change the batteries on it. But as the movie proved, it doesn’t care if you don’t answer the phone, the creepy voice will leave a message delivering the amount of days until your death.
Luckily it wasn’t creepy voice, it was just my husband telling me he was on his way home and asking if I needed anything. I do recall almost crying with relief. When he got home I felt like I had to share the story with him. He laughed at me, called me some inappropriate name, kissed me and told me I had 7 days.
So I punched him, in the torso, Mike Tyson style without the ear biting. At that point he informed me that I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies alone at night anymore.
My question is, if he isn’t here, how can he stop me? 
I love this entry! I can just imagine how freaked you were when the phone rang! For me it’s true crime novels. Since we moved to a house in the country I can no longer read them at all without being scared for weeks after.
I cannot do scary movies. It can even be pseudo-scary (e.g., Jaws, Kiss the Girls) and I will have nightmares. However, I did give in to my husband’s requests and go see The Ring with him. It scared the be-jesus out of me. Never again. We now own it, but I don’t even want to look at the cover.
Pam - Glad you liked it
Oh my god, when my phone rang I swear I almost peed my pants. It rang like 3 times (we had an answering machine that picked up on the 5th ring) before I even had the nerve to look at the phone. I’ve done true crime novels while visiting my Grandma out in Ohio (she lives in a very country area with a lot of farm land around her) and those did not make for a restful nights sleep.
Allison - I don’t blame you for not wanting to look at the cover. This was one of those rare incidents where I actually scared myself worse than the movie had. As someone with an overactive imagination this does tend to happen a lot, but not usually to this degree. BTW, Jaws scared the stuffing out of me (still afraid of the ocean, Shark week on Discovery doens’t really help though) and Kiss the Girls freaked me out too (again, just a little too real).
You are my She-ro! I cannot watch most scary movies. I did watch The Shining years ago and still find myself saying Redrum. And I watched the original Friday the 13th. That was the movie that ruined scary movies for me.
THE BAD GUY MUST DIE AND STAY DEAD!
I love thrillers… but like I said before, the villian must not be able to come back and get me… EVER!
This entry was hilarious! I can only handle scary movies in the middle of the afternoon with tons of light streaming in or after I’ve found out all I can in great detail about what’s going to happen before I see it. Once I do that, then I might be able to rewatch it at night but I generally stick to the no horror/scary movie rule for myself. When I was about 13 or 14, I stayed up late and watch part of one of the Amityville Horror movies. After about 40 or 45 minutes I had all I could handle and fell asleep with the blanket over my head and me mumbling “It’s not real. It’s not real.” LOL!
Betme - I agree the bad guy must stay dead, which is why I’m usually not scared during horror movies. I guess I kind of expect it now so I’m usually not that scared during movies. But this one…
Bluesuit - Happy to entertain
Of course at the time I was practically wetting my pants with fear. I tend to research the hell out of movies too so that I can try to figure out what was going to happen. But I guess I wasn’t expecting the video from the movie to be that scary!