Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Of Abnormality

Why are horror movies hardly ever terrifying?

Contrary to all the hype about scary movies leaving their audience white-knuckled, scarred for life, traumatized and sleepless for as long as they live- exaggeration intended- not one horror movie has given me any creeps.

We turned out the lights and sat down to watch Paranormal Activity two nights ago. Time passed, the clocked ticked the minutes away, we waited- and waited. Nothing. A little further on, a door creaked as an invisible gust of wind- or paranormal activity- shoved it. The burning Ouija board didn’t scare us, nor did the billowing of the sheets and the sleepwalking young woman. The screams seemed contrived and the man’s occupation flabbergasted us- did he really watch all those hours of tape all morning? When did he go to work, after all? The murder took place imperceptibly. All that was left behind was a bloodied knife and a murderer who sat down against the bed and rocked for hours, oblivious to every biological need.

We did add to our woes, of course. We had subtitles which were about as accurate as a meteorological department’s predictions. Sample this- fetching blankets became “seeking coverage”, day trader was maligned to “dates the traders”. Liberally sprinkled among the English words were some incomprehensible ones crowned by umlauts. Randomness prevailed, and the room was soon ringing with ghoulish laughter in the dead of the night.

It is another matter that I heard squeaks and creaking noises in my room the next day when I was all alone at home.

4 comments:

Ashwin Raghu said...

Hmmm... I watched Paranormal Activity a few months ago, although I won't say its the scariest shit I've watched it definitely had its moments.

Horror movies have to be watched on a big screen - but in India you can forget about it because there are always idiots at horror movies who seem to derive immense pleasure making silly noises just as its building up.

Having said that my friend and I watched The Ring at a night show in Coimbatore (with not many people in the theatre) and IT WAS SCARY! That's the scariest movie I've watched.

Have you watched The Others? Nicole Kidman..?

Oh and also, notice your pronoun here is we. Watch it alone ;)

potpourri4mysoul said...

Hmmm, horror movies don't scare you, eh?

I guess Goddesses are a courageous lot!:P

Jaya said...

Ashwin: Alone...yes. I'm sure this post will be promptly deleted when that happens :-). I haven't watched The Others. Scary?

Dhamma: The subtitles made it worse :-). I suppose I should try a horror movie alone on a stormy night.

Anonymous said...

yup.. watch paranormal activity alone.. and there sure are moments in it.. which give u the creeps..