What makes a good horror movie? I’ll admit I’d forgotten the answer to this, and shame on me, because I should be on top of current events in this particular genre. I’m a horror writer, Halloween is my favorite time of year, and I write B-horror movie reviews over at Cinema Knife Fight.
Maybe it’s because of that review column that I’ve forgotten what truly good, heart-skipping, made-ya-jump horror is like. In the past few years I’ve immersed myself in funny, terrible, so-bad-it’s-good scary movies. My view of some utterly awful stuff is rose-tinted sometimes by who’s in it—Meatloaf, Roddy Piper, Barry Bostwick, all actors I love—or some of the wisecracks in the script (the killer turkey in Thankskilling still makes me laugh every time he says “You got stuffed!”).
I can’t blame it all on always looking for the next bad/good B horror gem to review. I grew up in the eighties, and the eighties horror genre is a thing unto itself: gory, corny, full of one liners. Call it the Freddy Kreuger effect. I grew up on those flicks, and that’s what I learned to love and appreciate. But was I scared? And if not, did I want to be?
It turns out that yes, I did. I just didn’t remember.
Thursday afternoon, Jason texted me a picture. It was the DVD cover of the newest version of IT, which came out last fall. I bought IT, he said. We’re watching it tonight, I replied. We’d missed it in the theater, and I’d had a rough week. A scary clown sounded like just the thing I needed to soothe my stress.
That night, I made dinner, we fired up the DVD player, and hit “play.” I had many questions: Would this Pennywise be as good as Tim Curry back in 1990? Would I be able to stand these child actors? And most importantly, would I stay awake? (It had been a really rough week.)
The movie opened, and an amazing thing happened: I put down my phone. Normally when something’s on, I’ve been known to keep working on my phone or laptop, only half-listening to the TV, and okay, yes, indulging in a round or five of mahjong. But the rain started falling on the screen, Georgie lost his boat down the storm drain, and I was enraptured.
I jumped in all the right places. My skin crawled in others. I empathized with the kids and clapped when Beverly threw rocks at the bullies. And I loved, loved, loved, Pennywise.
Jason: You know, I think Bill Skarsgard might be even better as Pennywise than--
Me: Don’t say it.
Jason: I’m just saying--
Me: They’re different. That’s all. They just play Pennywise differently.
Jason: But--
Me: Don’t you dare disrespect Tim Curry or I’m leaving you.
After the movie ended, I went to the kitchen to clean up from dinner. I stepped out on the side porch to dump the cooking grease over the railing (don’t judge me).
It was pitch black out.
Below the porch, something rustled.
I screamed.
And that, my friends, makes IT good horror.
____
I need your help! My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess is in the running for best YA novel of 2016 over at the Preditors & Editors Readers' Choice Poll. Voting ends on Jan. 14 and ANYONE can vote! Please vote for my book here: http://critters.org/predpoll/novelyoungadult.shtml (it's listed twice, so please vote for the first listing). Thank you!
Maybe it’s because of that review column that I’ve forgotten what truly good, heart-skipping, made-ya-jump horror is like. In the past few years I’ve immersed myself in funny, terrible, so-bad-it’s-good scary movies. My view of some utterly awful stuff is rose-tinted sometimes by who’s in it—Meatloaf, Roddy Piper, Barry Bostwick, all actors I love—or some of the wisecracks in the script (the killer turkey in Thankskilling still makes me laugh every time he says “You got stuffed!”).
I can’t blame it all on always looking for the next bad/good B horror gem to review. I grew up in the eighties, and the eighties horror genre is a thing unto itself: gory, corny, full of one liners. Call it the Freddy Kreuger effect. I grew up on those flicks, and that’s what I learned to love and appreciate. But was I scared? And if not, did I want to be?
It turns out that yes, I did. I just didn’t remember.
Thursday afternoon, Jason texted me a picture. It was the DVD cover of the newest version of IT, which came out last fall. I bought IT, he said. We’re watching it tonight, I replied. We’d missed it in the theater, and I’d had a rough week. A scary clown sounded like just the thing I needed to soothe my stress.
That night, I made dinner, we fired up the DVD player, and hit “play.” I had many questions: Would this Pennywise be as good as Tim Curry back in 1990? Would I be able to stand these child actors? And most importantly, would I stay awake? (It had been a really rough week.)
The movie opened, and an amazing thing happened: I put down my phone. Normally when something’s on, I’ve been known to keep working on my phone or laptop, only half-listening to the TV, and okay, yes, indulging in a round or five of mahjong. But the rain started falling on the screen, Georgie lost his boat down the storm drain, and I was enraptured.
I jumped in all the right places. My skin crawled in others. I empathized with the kids and clapped when Beverly threw rocks at the bullies. And I loved, loved, loved, Pennywise.
Jason: You know, I think Bill Skarsgard might be even better as Pennywise than--
Me: Don’t say it.
Jason: I’m just saying--
Me: They’re different. That’s all. They just play Pennywise differently.
Jason: But--
Me: Don’t you dare disrespect Tim Curry or I’m leaving you.
After the movie ended, I went to the kitchen to clean up from dinner. I stepped out on the side porch to dump the cooking grease over the railing (don’t judge me).
It was pitch black out.
Below the porch, something rustled.
I screamed.
And that, my friends, makes IT good horror.
____
I need your help! My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess is in the running for best YA novel of 2016 over at the Preditors & Editors Readers' Choice Poll. Voting ends on Jan. 14 and ANYONE can vote! Please vote for my book here: http://critters.org/predpoll/novelyoungadult.shtml (it's listed twice, so please vote for the first listing). Thank you!
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