Horror Movies

I want to tell you about a few movies that scared me. They are Silent Hill, 13 Ghosts, and 28 Days Later. The only thing that provokes genuine fear in me regarding any horror movie is whether or not I can imagine myself in the situation it presents. That is definitely the case with these three movies. I am a parent who shares the fear of other parents about our children ever getting lost. That, added to the THOUGHT of having to search for a child in such a place as Silent Hill tripled that fear 100 times.

It was an eerily dark, smoky, and ash raining town that seemed to be devoid of any other life except that of the main characters. However, it was actually home to numerous demons as well as a dirty and ragged band of child sacrificing cultists. The whole time I watched the movie I could not help making parallels between myself and the mother who was forced to search for her daughter in that awful place. The amount of courage she needed, I thought many times, was insurmountable. I could not understand why the fear did not cripple her. The only satisfactory answer I could think of was anger. Sure, she had to walk through a dark hallway full of immobile and silent knife- and scalpel-wielding nurses, but I imagined her thoughts as she passed each one to be, “Not today b*tches!” That is easy for me to identify with because I know that although I would be afraid in such a place, the thought of something bad happening to my child would infuriate me to the point that I would fight a bear underwater if I had to in order to save her. I never want to understand how having a lost child feels because I believe that would mean that I would have to go through it. I am perfectly fine with empathy. NEXT!

This was pretty much the same reason for my fear of 13 Ghosts. The sense of a lost child was a part of the story, but it led me to another parental parallel type question. What am I willing to do for my child? I do not know that I would have given myself the luxury of consideration regarding the need to leap through swiftly moving blades. To do so more than likely would have paralyzed me in fear; therefore, my decision would have had to been immediate and resolute. To me, that was a “Just do it” moment. However, the father’s face, in those seconds he took to digest the enormity of what he had to do, reflected pure love for his children. The audience already knew what his choice would be. He was going to try, come hell or high water. It was deeply satisfying, and I remember yelling “Right on brother!” as he jumped.

(sighing) 28 Days Later saddened me beyond all description because I realized in the beginning 10 minutes of the movie that I identified with the wife hands down. There is nothing she did that I would have done differently and therefore what happened to her would more than likely have happened to me in that situation. There is no such thing, in my realm of perception, as choosing to ignore the helpless cries of a child. My husband would have had to sit on me to prevent me from opening that front door. As a mother and a “mommy type mom” specifically, I simply cannot understand the practical logic of protecting the collective if it means one child must die. That goes for ANY child. If I were ever in such a position, God forbid, I know without a shadow of a doubt I would die trying to save that kid. The “mother” in me would not be able to do anything else.

The common factor involving “parenthood” led me to fall headlong into a type of horror that defies adequate description. I thoroughly enjoyed these three movies, and I give them all five stars. They scared the hell out of me!