The Fear Factor

What makes Halloween such a fun time of the year for everyone? It must be the spookiness of it all - and the fun.

• dressing up in costumes
• receiving (free) candy
• carving pumpkins and indulging in pumpkin pie
• scary movies

the types of scariness I prefer are supernatural. Ghosts, and goblins, and zombies - the completely unknown and improbable (yet possible). I don't like blood and gore (slasher) unless it's done in a clever way. I need the suspense, and not always the jumping out stuff too.

Saw I for instance, is just as much Sawing I can handle. It's just blood and gore. The first one was done in a twisted way which made it interesting and frightening. Saw II and Saw III, I heard, are just blood fests. What's the point? Just makes me squeamish rather than scared - and there's a difference between the two. One turns your stomach, and the other puts butterflies in it.

Having said all that, I think the best "scary" movies are the campy B movies - ones with Bruce Campbell in it. Movies that spoof themselves with a combination of suspense and laughter. Of course there are horrible B movies, and then the smart ones. It's usually hard to figure out which are the good and bad ones, and sometimes you just have to take the risk to watch it anyway. Then at least you have a choice of turning the tv off in horror (it's too awful to watch), or hugging a pillow and covering your eyes in horror. And I suppose there's a third reaction - watch the bad B movie, and make fun of it along the way, like in Mystery Science Theatre.