The Major Spoilers Podcast, best comic book podcast, ponders death, the devil, PBS, and the ratings system.
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7 Comments
1st of fear is the mind-killer… Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
That been said I have gotten scared poopless on quite a few movies, I watched Alien (the 1st one) when I was 7 and Silence of the Lambs when I was 9… Guess which one traumatized me more, that’s right, Alien! After watching Silence I was incredibly disturbed by the scene in which at the time I thought the girl was trying to climb out the hole and tiny dog was trying to pull her out to no avail but never scared.
But Alien scared me to pieces, because at the time I lived in a house with rats, and having something running just out of my field of vision was common.
Blair Witch Project and the Grudge (original, Buffyless version) are both movies who scared me for the reason I can relate to them. I have gotten lost in the forest with a map I couldn’t read and it’s not a fun feeling add creatures/apparitions I can’t actually fight and scare factor goes to 11…
Grudge, I had night paralysis as a kid and often woke up screaming while dreaming of a dark humanoid/feral figure with glowy red eyes slowly climbing the bed to stare at my face a few milliliters away… At one point I had my eyes open and was still screaming while my mom was shaking me (she was more afraid then me), so when the ghosts do the same in the movie I have flashbacks that make sleeping a tough order.
I don’t do scary movies. Not because I wuss out, but because I’ve never found the prospect of scaring myself all that interesting.
But on the subject of the devil, I am surprised no one brought up something that I’ve noticed, which makes me wonder if its only in my head.
In my experience, the Devil and Satan are generally two different characters. And not in the way that Satan is different from the entities collectively referred to as devils (ie demons). Any time someone is being tempted it is by the Devil specifically. Bad things and choices are blamed on the the Devil. When someone goes to Hell and interacts with the boss of Hell, its Satan.
Maybe that’s only limited experience, and I’m sure at least a few exceptions exist. Maybe the choice of the two is usually centered on tone; however they do seem distinct in story-telling.
The two celebrities whose deaths really affected me were Jim Henson and Phil Hartman. Both were taken from us far too soon.
Requiem for a Dream was NC-17.
Was it? I thought it was released in an R rated version as well…
In your discussion of scary movies, Stephen touched on one of my favorites with “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”
Disney went through a phase in the 70s and 80s where, in addition to making the standard family fare that we became accustom to (“The Cat From Outer Space,” “Freaky Friday,” etc), they gave us movies like “Something Wicked” and one of the creepiest movies I ever remember: “The Watcher In The Woods” with Bette Davis.
I watched this one again a few years ago as a 30-mphmph year old instead of as a 3rd-grader. Although incredibly dated to the 1970s, it hit all those tense beats that I love to see in a creepy movie.
I’d like to see that one re-released on Blu-Ray to share with my own kiddos.
LOVE Joe Haldeman. I rank Forever War along with Great Gatsby on my 10 best novels list.