Scary Movie Season Revisted

Every year October becomes scary movie season for our family. When we were still living in Syracuse, Camerron and I would pick out our favorite horror movies to watch to commemorate the holiday. We watched Scream together, Halloween, and many more. Doug wasn’t as big of a fan of scary movie season, but he would join us from time to time.

If Cal was home, he would suggest some of his favorites or a new thriller that he had heard was good. Cal’s favorite horror movie was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He and I rewatched it one year while he was still living at home, and I realized that it was a little bit too much for me. After he moved out, he suggested the movie "The Strangers" for Cameron and I to watch. Cal did warn me that it was one of the scariest movies that he had ever seen. We decided to brave it and watched it one afternoon while Doug was traveling home from Florida. I had never been so scared.

I have started to realize the last couple of years that I just can’t handle scary movies season anymore. The heart pounding thrillers that I used to love were just too much for me now. Thus, last year I switched over from scary movie season to Halloween movie season instead. I focused more on Brett and Meg's favorites that I found on Disney+ instead of the horror classis.  Shows like "It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" were more my speed. This year, I even bought the pumpkin shaped soundtrack to it on vinyl that Meg had recommended. Doug and I both really enjoyed listening to that. 

Last week on the Rewatchables podcast, the movie "The Blair Witch Project" was featured.  The film came out in 1995 and had become one of Doug and my favorite scary movies. When we first saw it in theaters, we believed all the hype about the Blair Witch.  As I listened to Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan talk about the film, the memories of the first time I saw it 25 years ago came back.  Even though we found out later that it was a made-up story, we still had fun showing it to all of the boys. They also enjoyed the unique movie style.  Doug listened to the same Rewatchable podcast on his drive home from work today and loved the walk down memory lane as well.  We talked about watching it again, but I knew I couldn’t. We decided instead to watch the Curse of the Blair Witch. It was a faux documentary that was made after the original movie was released.  It described the Blair Witch's legend and the film students who had gone "missing" while studying the myth. We watched it outside on the tiki bar tonight and even though we knew that it was not a true story, we both still found it scary. 

After tonight, I realized that scary movie season is over for both of us. That’s ok with me.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow had always been my favorite Halloween story and fortunately, I could still handle the animated Disney classic.