Scared Stiff

So we’ve been talking about Halloween this week. Costumes, things like that. I could go into the various things I’ve dressed up as over the years, but I don’t have pictures to support my tale. So I’m not going to talk about costumes today. Nope. Instead I’m going to talk about one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen.

First off, let me just give you a little background. If you didn’t know by now, I was born and raised deep in Cajun country. Catholic churches abound here, above ground cemeteries are the norm, and my mom loved to scare the hell out of us as children. No lie.

To this day my sister believes all graveyards should have fences to keep the dead people in. It has nothing to do with zombies, and everything to do with a little lie Mom told her when she was throwing a screaming tantrum. They lived near a cemetery at the time and my mom told my sister that if she didn’t stop screaming, she’d wake up all the dead people who’d be mad at her. That’s when the fear of free-range corpses began.

Me on the other hand, didn’t need to be told about the dead people. I grew up in the days of Thriller, Children of the Corn, Halloween 1 and 2, The Omen, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. I knew all about being scared, but that didn’t stop Mom. Oh, no. She had to tell us about our great- aunt who played with a ouija board and had to be exorcised. Or about the floating coffin one of my great-great-uncles saw pass his house the day before he died.

Mom loved to torment us. Which means, to this day, ghosts, demons, and possession are my biggest fear. I watch Ghost Adventures even though it gives me the frissons something fierce. I watch The Exorcist even though it makes me nearly wet my pants from fright. I’m a glutton.

I thought I was over it really. I mean, once you’ve seen The Exoricst 1, 2, 3, and the prequel, well it shouldn’t scare you anymore, right? *snort* Then my nephew made me rent a movie called The Exorcism of Emily Rose and I found out the true meaning of fear. We watched it in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day. That did nothing to make me feel better. If anything, it probably scared me more.

That actress will forever be marked as “possessed” in my mind, I tell you.

I only saw this movie once and that was enough for me. There’s something about it that stirs up my most primal fears and my eyes start to water, my nose starts leaking, and all I want is to curl into a ball and pretend everything’s rainbows and lollipops. Yeah, I’m a coward when it comes to demon possession. Sorry, it’s a fatal flaw.