The Express Yourself Meme is hosted by Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests. And their 'question' this week is what is the scariest movie, or book you've read that made you unable to sleep?
Now, my answer to this one depends on how long I go back in time. If I look at movies I watched as a child, the scariest movie I ever watched was Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I saw this movie on TV when I was 9 or 10. It's black and white, classic Hollywood B-movie science fiction and opens with a man unkempt and crazy-sounding trying to convince people that aliens have invaded his town and have been replacing people with identical replacements from organic pods. The story then flashes back to how it all began and shows the aliens arrive and begin to surreptitiously take over.
There's nothing unusual about this story, it's very similar to The Invaders, a 60's sci fi which I loved, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers scared me so much I had to check under my bed every night for years to come! The reason it scared me so much, I think, is the idea of replacement, of being copied and destroyed. And the way the aliens did it was by putting a pod under your bed as you slept (hence my checking under the bed). It didn't matter I knew it was just a movie, the idea hooked onto me like the closet monster does for other children and that concept still gives me the creeps, even now, although I don't have to check under my bed every night any more! ;)
Whew! That confession was actually cathartic - so, anyone else have a scary movie/book they'd like to get off their chest?
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One of the scariest movies I remember as a kid was an old black and white movie called THEM. It had giant ants in it. Need I say more?
ReplyDeleteMadeline @ The Shellshank Redemption
creepy, really creepy!
DeleteIt is funny that the films we watched as a child seemed so much scarier than they do now when we rewatch them!
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same effect as when we remember how fantastic a kid's TV show was and then we rewatch it and realise we should have left it as a great memory :)
DeleteCarrie scared the crap out of me. It was the first movie I'd seen that didn't end with a happy ending. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on that one - Stephen King's books make really scary movies!
DeleteYour pick is great! The premise of that movie really hits the psyche. Scariest movie I watched as a kid was "Amityville Horror." Scariest movie I watched as an adult was "Attack the Block."
ReplyDeleteAmityville Horror bothers me, always has, I find it really, really creepy. I haven't see Attack The Block.
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DeleteWe watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers in my History of Film class...we laughed. X) But of course, by then, so many scarier things had come out.
ReplyDeleteI think if I'd seen it in my teens or later, I'd have laughed too, because the two remakes did not have any where near the same impact on me :)
DeleteOh man, I loved that movie!
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