Published: October 30, 2009 10:46 am      

Horror movies give editor the creeps

Blood-curdling screams, blood splattered on a stark white wall and a butcher’s knife wielding in mid-air have all been components included in horror movies at one time or another. I am not a horror movie kind of gal. I prefer movies that have a happy ending and all the characters are living and breathing when the final credits start scrolling during the final scene.

So, when October comes looming around with creepy, crawly movies on TV, I usually watch a lot of “The Donna Reed Show” during this time. However, she did have a Halloween episode, which creeped me out because she was trapped in a dark and dreary house with this mean, old woman who would not let her go home. Needless to say, I only watched it once — sad but true.

I have seen a couple scary movies in my life — mostly Alfred Hitchcock. When I was in junior high my mother had this brilliant idea of watching “The Birds,” made in 1963 starring Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Jessica Tandy. The movie focuses on a woman who moves to a California town pursuing a potential boyfriend when all of the sudden birds start attacking people by viciously. I will never forget a scene from the movie where all the birds are lined up and sitting on a telephone wire just watching and waiting to attack the innocent townspeople. To this day, “The Birds” comes to mind whenever I see a lot of birds gathered together. Thank goodness there weren’t any deranged chickens in that movie. Thanks Al.

When I was a kid my cousins and I went to go see “The Gremlins,” which if you think about was a little scary for 1984 and an 8 year old, but I thought it was kind of funny. My scared gene obviously had not surfaced yet. Those little green gremlins, especially Spike, were bad to the bone. If that wasn’t enough, we went back for more and saw “Gremlins: The New Batch” in 1990. I will never forget going to the theater and watching “Arachnophobia.” The only thing that I remember was that my mother and aunt were completely freaked out by all the creepy crawly spiders. I definitely think this movie scarred me for the rest of my life since I am now deathly afraid of spiders. Come to think of it, I don’t think Cordy is a big fan either.

There is one movie that I refuse to see — “Psycho.” I watched that movie for a total of 15 minutes before switching to another channel. Janet Leigh, who starred in the movie, said she could no longer take a shower after filming Hithcock’s classic. Come to think of it, I don’t think I would be able to either. The funny thing about “Psycho” is that I wrote a college paper pertaining to how Hitchcock filmed the gruesome shower scene. Better yet, my film class was assigned to write, direct and star in a horror movie. I wrote the movie, which involved a butcher knife and hockey mask. Apparently I can write horror, just not watch it. My film focused on a college student, me, who is murdered by a jealous classmate. The movie is a little campy looking back at it 11 years later. Needless to say, that has been my only movie credit.

So, this Halloween when all of my co-workers are eating popcorn and watching “Pet Semetary,” “Friday the 13th,” I will be curled up in my recliner watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” I have a feeling that if I watched any of these I would be typing my column from under my bed for a month.



Angie Bicker is the Lifestyles Editor for the Clinton Herald. She can be reached at angiebicker@clintonherald.com.