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mommybird1. Name the three movies that have frightened you the most. Feel free to explain why.
Event Horizon. Eyes. Ugh. [shudders]
On The Beach. No, really. It's melodramatic and soap-operatic, and I was calmly comparing it unfavorably to the book (which is not great art either, but that's not the current point) until the very, very last scene. Jarring chord and the THERE IS STILL TIME, BROTHER sign. I think my heart nearly stopped. And I couldn't sleep that night.
Snow White Skeletons. It was just a brief scene, but damn it stuck with me.
2. Do you have an irrational fear? I mean something like a fear of spiders or clowns rather than a fear of inheriting an illness from a parent or of nuclear annihilation.
Shellfish. When trying to eat them I'm always sure that they're going to come to life and pinch me. This is, perhaps, why I almost never eat shellfish. Though I like crab enough that I will wrestle with them upon occasion. Lobster, ugh. Not worth it.
3. What is the scariest book you have ever read?
My fifth-grade drug education textbook. It was a small, cheaply printed softcover pamphlet titled Man, Pain, and Drugs and it attempted to explain why and how drugs in general were developed. Eventually I think it got to explaining all the different types of Bad Drugs, but the part that really made an impression was the bit early on about medeival medicine. How people thought pain was caused by demons, and so would beat someone with a headache to drive the demons away. And how people needed to develop drugs because they suffered from horrific diseases like St. Anthony's Fire.
St. Anthony's Fire, according to this probably less than authoritative text, was caused by eating bread made from grain that had grown in marshy areas and developed black mold on the kernel. An infected person's arms and legs fell off, and "many people were forced to live out their lives with only a head and a trunk to their bodies." Well. That kept me up a few nights, and had me taking jam-jars of tuna salad instead of sandwiches for lunch.
4. Have you ever seen a film or read a book that frightened you so much you couldn't finish it?
"The Adventure of the Dying Detective" I think it's in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes - one of those later anthologies, anyway. Somewhere about the line "I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra, infallibly deadly and horribly contagious." I couldn't go on. I couldn't even speak of it for weeks. Finally I made my father look at the end of the story and tell me if Holmes survived. It was only after I knew that he was going to be okay that I could read the whole thing.
5. Was there something that frightened you as a child that seems silly now? (For example, a weird shape outside your window, or a character in a movie.)
I saw a cartoon in which a little boy took a bite of chili and flames came out of his mouth, showing that it was spicy. I thought he was going to die. It terrified me.
6. Have you ever had any encounters with anything paranormal? Seen a ghost, used a Ouija board, had a precognitive dream?
Nope. I've been present while people were playing with a Ouija board, and have had a finger on the planchette, but have never seen anything significant. No ghosts, no precognitive dreams, nothing. I'm boring like that.
7. If you made your own horror movie or wrote a horror story/novel, what would it be about?
One night I had a dream, or more properly a string of dreams, in which I was a very different person in each, but a red-headed woman always appeared briefly just before the dream switched. In the last segment, when she appeared, I shouted at her 'It's you, isn't it! You're making this happen! Well, no more! I'm going to wake up!' I closed my eyes tightly and opened them (that being how I can usually wake myself up when/if I realize I'm dreaming.' It didn't work, which was terrifying, but I tried again and on the third or fourth attempt, it did work, and I woke up gasping on the pull-out couch in the den at my grandmother's house. If I were to render that as a horror story, the red-headed woman would then open the door and tell me it was time to get up.
8. If you could be (or should I say had to be) any creature of the night (e.g., a vampire, a werewolf), what would you be?
Your standard invisible, walks-through-walls, chain-rattling name-whispering ghost. I'm a traditionalist, and I don't like blood.
9. If you could communicate in a direct way with one deceased person personally known to you, who would it be?
Well, I'd say M, but as I'd probably go off on him it wouldn't be terribly productive. So I'll pick my paternal grandfather.
10. If you could communicate in a direct way with one deceased person *not* personally known to you, who would it be?
Robertson Davies
Event Horizon. Eyes. Ugh. [shudders]
On The Beach. No, really. It's melodramatic and soap-operatic, and I was calmly comparing it unfavorably to the book (which is not great art either, but that's not the current point) until the very, very last scene. Jarring chord and the THERE IS STILL TIME, BROTHER sign. I think my heart nearly stopped. And I couldn't sleep that night.
Snow White Skeletons. It was just a brief scene, but damn it stuck with me.
2. Do you have an irrational fear? I mean something like a fear of spiders or clowns rather than a fear of inheriting an illness from a parent or of nuclear annihilation.
Shellfish. When trying to eat them I'm always sure that they're going to come to life and pinch me. This is, perhaps, why I almost never eat shellfish. Though I like crab enough that I will wrestle with them upon occasion. Lobster, ugh. Not worth it.
3. What is the scariest book you have ever read?
My fifth-grade drug education textbook. It was a small, cheaply printed softcover pamphlet titled Man, Pain, and Drugs and it attempted to explain why and how drugs in general were developed. Eventually I think it got to explaining all the different types of Bad Drugs, but the part that really made an impression was the bit early on about medeival medicine. How people thought pain was caused by demons, and so would beat someone with a headache to drive the demons away. And how people needed to develop drugs because they suffered from horrific diseases like St. Anthony's Fire.
St. Anthony's Fire, according to this probably less than authoritative text, was caused by eating bread made from grain that had grown in marshy areas and developed black mold on the kernel. An infected person's arms and legs fell off, and "many people were forced to live out their lives with only a head and a trunk to their bodies." Well. That kept me up a few nights, and had me taking jam-jars of tuna salad instead of sandwiches for lunch.
4. Have you ever seen a film or read a book that frightened you so much you couldn't finish it?
"The Adventure of the Dying Detective" I think it's in The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes - one of those later anthologies, anyway. Somewhere about the line "I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra, infallibly deadly and horribly contagious." I couldn't go on. I couldn't even speak of it for weeks. Finally I made my father look at the end of the story and tell me if Holmes survived. It was only after I knew that he was going to be okay that I could read the whole thing.
5. Was there something that frightened you as a child that seems silly now? (For example, a weird shape outside your window, or a character in a movie.)
I saw a cartoon in which a little boy took a bite of chili and flames came out of his mouth, showing that it was spicy. I thought he was going to die. It terrified me.
6. Have you ever had any encounters with anything paranormal? Seen a ghost, used a Ouija board, had a precognitive dream?
Nope. I've been present while people were playing with a Ouija board, and have had a finger on the planchette, but have never seen anything significant. No ghosts, no precognitive dreams, nothing. I'm boring like that.
7. If you made your own horror movie or wrote a horror story/novel, what would it be about?
One night I had a dream, or more properly a string of dreams, in which I was a very different person in each, but a red-headed woman always appeared briefly just before the dream switched. In the last segment, when she appeared, I shouted at her 'It's you, isn't it! You're making this happen! Well, no more! I'm going to wake up!' I closed my eyes tightly and opened them (that being how I can usually wake myself up when/if I realize I'm dreaming.' It didn't work, which was terrifying, but I tried again and on the third or fourth attempt, it did work, and I woke up gasping on the pull-out couch in the den at my grandmother's house. If I were to render that as a horror story, the red-headed woman would then open the door and tell me it was time to get up.
8. If you could be (or should I say had to be) any creature of the night (e.g., a vampire, a werewolf), what would you be?
Your standard invisible, walks-through-walls, chain-rattling name-whispering ghost. I'm a traditionalist, and I don't like blood.
9. If you could communicate in a direct way with one deceased person personally known to you, who would it be?
Well, I'd say M, but as I'd probably go off on him it wouldn't be terribly productive. So I'll pick my paternal grandfather.
10. If you could communicate in a direct way with one deceased person *not* personally known to you, who would it be?
Robertson Davies
