Ravenblack

Join Date 07/2004

Imagination runs wild - Price for the love of horror

Anybody whose imagination has a habit of running wild shouldn't watch horror movies or play disturbing computer games.

I should tell myself that again.

I've just made myself a bit jumpy when I went to my bathroom to retrieve something. The light has been out for some time and I've been too lazy to replace the bulb. Since it's kinda dark, I almost thought I saw something horrible hanging from the ceiling. I left feeling kinda jumpy but thought I should bravely go take a look and reassure myself that there's nothing there.

There isn't, of course.

I laughed at myself. That's what you get for playing The Suffering all by yourself last night.

The Suffering is a computer game, genre action shooter from third or first person view. It's backstory is about this character who was convicted and sentenced to deathrow for murdering his wife and two sons. He claims he can't remember anything.(You're playing him.) The scene opens with you being locked in your cell, suddenly there is an earthquake. Next, you start hearing people around you screaming and a prisoner was dragged into the darkness. The gates are opened and you step out.

A guard at the gate tells you to stay put, suddenly from above, a creature with a blade for an arm spears him through his head. The guard falls to the ground dead.

From here on, you are fighting for your life as you try to find a way to escape the prison and find out what's going on. You'll soon find that the island on which the prison stands on has a very unpleasant history of bad things happening. In addition, you keep getting hit by strange visions of things might have happened on this island and of your deceased family.

You'll meet the most horrific creatures (probably ghosts of those who were executed in the prison.) The game designers did well, many times, I dreaded what's ahead, at the same time, I couldn't stop playing because I wanted to know what's going to happen next and learn more about the mysterious cursed island and its history.

The point is that this game really succeeded in creeping me out. (And people say Silent Hill is scarier, I cannot dare imagine!) The game is full of eerie, gory and disturbing scenes, combined with sounds (metal scrapping against the wall, chains, screams and ghostly voices) makes for a complete living-in-a-nightmare experience. (The game is rated M - it's really not for children!)

Horror movies can scare me really good too. I actually become afraid of the dark for a few weeks before things go back to normal (in my head) again.

I remember watching The Ring (the original Japanese version, which IMHO is scarier than the American version) - the one where the ghostly murdered girl with the long black hair comes out of the television to scare her victims to death. For weeks after, I was very wary of my television.

If you never seen this one, you really have to, especially if you are a horror fan. Almost everything else is mild compared to The Ring.

And still, I love watching horror movies.

I don't like lying half awake thinking horrible thoughts about what's under the bed or outside my window, but I guess the love of a good horror story far surpasses the fear. *laughs nervously*

A real good horror story doesn't reveal everything at once in the beginning. It isn't really about what you know but what you don't know. It reveals a little at a time. So, you watch or play on even if you are feeling really scared because you just have to know why the terrible things are happening. Good horror stories are complex tales of terrible things that are triggered by some innocent event that could happen to anyone, and then coming together in seemingly senseless and cold nasty ways to terrorise the innocent - like you.

For now, I'm feeling jumpy. I gotta be careful not to let my imagination play tricks on me and tell me there's something lurking in the dark corners of my apartment, or sneaking round the corner of my eye or that there's something watching me behind my back.

Who's afraid? Me? Hell, no... *shivers*

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H was playing some computer game--like I would know which one (Doom III, maybe?)--and I came over to kiss him goodnight and he about attacked me. I thought it was hilarious. Him, not so much.

Don't laugh at me; I try to *never* watch horror movies, but I accidentally saw "I know what you did last summer" with some friends (we hadn't seen trailers and didn't know what it was about) and when I got home and flipped on the light in my bedroom, there was a gun on my bed. It took a second for me to climb down from the ceiling and realize that it was just a cap gun my brother had been playing with. Freaky. And now everyone tries to tell me that it's not even a scary movie. If so, I'm not even considering movies like "The Ring."

You have a point about imagination, though--I think that's what does it for me. Good blog.

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Hehehe ....interesting and funny post Ravenblack, I remember having those feelings as a kid. Amazing how real it can seem eh?

Oh, and Silent Hill is/was good. (played it on PS)

~Eric

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Thanks for comments!

>> If so, I'm not even considering movies like "The Ring."
don't, Angloesque. It makes even Exorcist look like a walk in the park on a sunny day. Some of my friends feel the same way you do, they rather not go watch something that makes them lose sleep and gives them unnecessary anxieties.

Eric:>> Amazing how real it can seem eh?

As a kid I would hide under the covers. I might grownup now, and I can keep telling myself it's just a movie or a game, but the disturbing images stay. I wonder if human minds are made in such a way that watching horrible things happen to another somehow makes one want to do something to prevent the same thing from happening to oneself. Even if you know it is just a movie...

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Ravenblack,
I used to love being scared when I was a kid....Bring it on ......the scarier the better .........but now it's a little different I hate....I hate ...I hate scary movies.....that tense feeling of anxiety......my heart in my throat constricting my breathing......the hole in my chest that threatens to implode sucking the rest of me inside myself.....the music....oh how I hate their mood setting music.......'shite.. the musics on watch out for the blood soaked butcher knife weilding psycho spirit....that you cant kill because they're already dead but at the end we'll get rid of it somehow.'...
Nope....only comedies for me....maybe some documentary.....something where there's nothing going to get me.....I don't want to be scared......I don't want to run and hide.......but yet it is strangely intriguing.....I will just watch that new horror.......It's only a movie....I'll be fine......I am a grown adult....if I was a kid I would love this stuff......just one more........it's not real......AAAAAaaaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

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I am not really afraid of the paranormal... but isolation freaks the crap out of me, so movies like Alien(in space, no one can hear you scream) and The Thing freak the living crap out of me. The first Blair Witch has that same feeling for me... its the isolation... *shudder*

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Raven: Great post. I don't know how I managed to miss this one.

I like to watch horror movies, but I can't take suspense. My husband gets so mad at me because my cover my eyes if I don't know what's going to happen next. Signs scared the crap out of me, as did 28 Days Later and recently, The Butterfly Effect. My husband and I played through The X-Files: Resist or Serve right before he shipped out to the desert, and that scared me, too. Now that he's gone I won't watch anything scary because I'll be too freaked out. I'm a chicken.

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Join Date 03/2001

+23

One movie..

Event Horizon.

When it shows video of previous crewmen, hit slow. You'll have nightmares.

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Crusaders, that's what I tell myself exactly!

I forget it doesn't work each time.

Historyishere, I love the Blair Witch Project. It was dizzying though. There's a new one like that, Open Water. Something about two divers who come back up only to find that they've been stranded in the middle of the ocean.

Texas, I haven't got to watch Butterfly Effect yet, it sounds interesting.

I almost never watch a horror movie by myself - usually I'm with a friend or with my mom, who shares my delight of being scared silly.

XX: Event Horizon, I've watch that one a few times on HBO. That scene did get stuck in my mind, what stands out is where a woman had her hand through some crew guy's chest. Loved it.

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The Butterfly Effect isn't really a horror movie... its more a science fiction flick... but it IS creepy.....

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