A story, rather than a list
I've never been overly bothered by horror films -- perhaps I lack imagination, but (aside from when I was shown The Exorcist at the tender age of ten or so, but that's another story) I've just never been affected by them. Generally I just find them dull and rather silly.

Except this one time.

I'd persuaded a schoolfriend to come over and stay the night. We would've been about thirteen at the time: old enough, then, for my parents to leave the two of us alone while they went out to a party. They would be back late, they told us: we could watch telly until 11 but we'd better be in bed and asleep by the time they got back.

What we didn't tell them is that we had managed -- through a rather creepy schoolmate who operated a very profitable video rental business -- to obtain a copy of John Carpenter's sci-fi/horror flick, The Thing. As soon as the parents were out the door we stuck it on and settled ourselves down with our snacks.

Two hours or so later, we were huddled together on the sofa, eyes wide, mouths agape, terrified to move in case the goldfish might leap out of its tank and mutate into some weird alien monster. We wouldn't go into the kitchen because it was dark and the light switch was inside. My friend needed to go to the loo, but refused to go upstairs on his own.

When my parents came back, they were surprised to find my friend sleeping not in the spare room where he was supposed to be, but rather on the floor in my room because he was scared to be alone. Of course we told everyone at school how great and cool it was and no we weren't scared or anything, honest.

Anyway, still a great movie.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 16:11, 1 reply)

I'm not a horror movie fan
but The Thing is up there in the list of great movies of all time
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 18:11, closed)