Clowns and Rocking Chairs and Dolls! OH MY!!
Halloween is fast approaching and with it comes my annual viewing of Poltergeist. This is the time of year when television channels start to show their horror movie marathons and at any given time you’ll be able to find something scary on TV. I’ve never shied away from a good horror movie and really want to find one that will make me afraid to go to sleep. I’ve yet to find one, but there are films out there with sufficiently creep-tatstic elements. Here’s a rundown on my favorites.
Clowns
Clowns are just plain freaky. It doesn’t even have to be living person dressed as a clown. The clown in Poltergeist was scary as hell and what it did to poor Robbie didn’t help the clown’s cause at all. What with their painted faces and dead eyes and all. Pennywise made things even worse. While I didn’t care for the made for television adaption of Stephen King’s IT, the one thing I will never forget was seeing Pennywise hiding amongst the laundry hanging on the clothesline. Scariest. Clown. Ever.
Even though Killer Klowns from Outer Space wasn’t as much of a “scary movie” as it was a B-movie, the clowns were still kind of icky. I once read a tagline somewhere that said there was nothing scarier than a clown after midnight. It’s such a ridiculous statement, yet so true.
Empty Rocking Chairs
Seeing an empty rocking chair move is something that I’ve carried with me as something scary. I never liked to see things moving without a reason. If I get up from sitting a chair, I’ll normally stop it from moving before walking away. I don’t know. It’s a thing…what can I say. This effect has been used countless times in films and in television to the point of it becoming trite or gimmicky. The most recent place I’ve seen it is in the new Woman in Black trailer. At almost 40-years old, it still creeps me the F out. To me it says “something else is here” and that shit just doesn’t sit well with me. I want to see who or what I have to face. The unknown is still one of the best ways to scare up a scare and the moving empty rocking chair does just that.
Ground Fog in a Cemetery
This is something that I actually think is kind of cool and it’s also something I get to see on a semi-regular basis. I work across the street from a cemetery that happens to be one of the oldest in my area. My office is on the second floor of the building so I have a fantastic view and when the weather conditions are right, ground fog appears. If I can take a picture of it this winter, I will. This scene in films is normally used as a prelude to something awful that’s about to happen. It also normally involves a chick running, clothing optional, screaming her head off just as she meets the working end of a some sort of weapon. Then her body is either pulled away or slowly engulfed by the ground fog.
Porcelain Dolls / Sleepy Dolls
I hate these things with their frozen features and creepy expressions. If you see these in a film, you know they will eventually come to life and cause someone, somewhere some serious bodily harm. Of course the person who suspects these innocent looking things of wrong-doing will be looked on as insane, but I would believe them. Porcelain dolls…..I’m on to you and your shenanigans. You really want to freak someone out on Halloween, put one of these under the covers. The same can be said for those dolls that when you lay them down their eyes close. I’ve never liked those, not even as a kid. I had a pretty active imagination as a kid and always thought that one would open their eyes on their own. That can give a kid some serious nightmares. Lucky for me I’m not one to suffer from nightmares but if I did, I’m sure they’d be riddled with dolls.
Evil Children
There’s something just inherently wrong with having children be the source of evil. You look at a kid and you see their innocence and when they bust out with their evil, it seriously can get really freaky. Damien from The Omen, Regan from The Exocist, and all of the kids from Children of the Corn. The list goes on and on but there was something really unnerving about seeing Macaulay Culkin….the kid from Home Alone, play evil child Henry Evans in The Good Son. Let’s not even talk about the reanimated Gage from Pet Sematary or the twins from The Shining. Hell. No.
I’m sure I could come up with loads more and maybe someday I’ll do a part two to this post. In the meantime, be sure to let me know what scares the bejesus out of you and why.
Tags: cemetery fog, clowns, Damien, evil kids, Gage, Halloween, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Pennywise, Pet Sematary, Poltergeist, Porcelain Dolls, Regan, rocking chairs, scary movies, The Exocist, The Omen, The Shining, Woman in Black
