Until tonight, I had not seen a scary movie in fourteen years. Fact!
The last one I saw was The Blair Witch Project in 1999. I was with my friend Sarah in this huge, crumbling old theater in Minneapolis in the middle of the summer. Halfway through the movie the air conditioning broke, which meant you had a packed auditorium of terrified, sweaty people watching a movie that takes place in the freezing cold. It was surreal. It was also scary, because that movie is hella scary — or it was, before the whole controversy about the movie being [REDACTED] went viral, which in case you didn’t know, children, was before anyone really called that “going viral.” Back then, it was just memes and land lines for most of us. Word still got around.
But see, I don’t like scary movies. Life is horrifying enough on its own. It’s incredible to me that perfectly sane, healthy people pay money to see scenes of fake murder and mayhem. However, my younger sister loves scary movies and she’s got a good reason for everything she does, so when she asked me if I wanted to go to a showing of the original Halloween tonight, I said no but then I said yes. She almost fell over.
“Scary movies are so goooood!” she texted me. “Not gross ones like Hostel or Saw, but like, truly classic scary movies are the best and this one is tops.”
Not knowing the ins and outs of the genre and with only a perspire-y viewing of Blair Witch* under my belt, you don’t have to take my word for it, but man Halloween is good. The movie came out in freaking 1978 which makes it older than me: there’s a reason we’re still able to watch it on the big screen once a year. The only person on earth affected by a Halloween spoiler would have been me until last night, so I’ll go ahead and say it: the fact the first death doesn’t happen until there’s a half-hour left in the film is crazy awesome! It’s good filmmaking.
After the movie, I walked home in the rain. I looked behind me a couple times, but mostly I just felt glad to be alive.