Memory Lane Monday: Scarred For Life Edition or What Were Our Parents Thinking?

Do you remember?  You do, don't you?  You remember that random scene in that one movie that had little consequence to the rest of the film, but it scared you.  Terrified you to your very core.  It gave you nightmares and scarred your wee child soul.  For life.
Or maybe it was a TV show.  Or a commercial.  Or a picture in a book.  Never intended to ruin your mind, but just create drama within the medium.  Oh but it did.  It created drama and fear in your brain.  It ruined you didn't it?

OK, I'm being overly dramatic, but you know what I'm talking about: we all had images we were exposed to in our childhood that were upsetting or terrified us.  And most of these came from children's books/movies/TV!  What were the grown-ups thinking?

So here are some things from children's movies/TV/books that scarred me for life:

-The Rite of Spring sequence in Disney's Fantasia 

 OK, I don't know how much Disney actually intended this movie for children per se, but this entire sequence of the movie crushed my soul and haunted my dreams. We start off with an awesome scene of dinosaurs. Hell yes.  Then a storm rolls in and holy shit it's a T-Rex and all the other dinos and critters are scared shitless, but the bad ass stego decided to take him on.  And then dies a horrible and dramatic death. Now I'm sad and scared.  But it doersn't stop there.  Then we get to watch as every dinosaur on the planet suffers a slow and agonizing death as we see the great extinction.  Yay.  I'm serious when I say this gave me bad dreams for a week.
 

-The "Giant Mouse of Minsk" scene from An American Tail

If I have one person in all of entertainment to thank for single-handedly scarring me for life more than anyone else, it would be one Mr. Don Bluth.  Most of the "kids" movies that ruined me, Don Bluth had a hand in (I'm looking at you Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven!) Really anything directed by Don Bluth belongs on this list, but I chose this scene from An American Tail because look at it!
 


Thanks for the nightmares, Don Bluth.

 
-In a Dark Dark Room and Other Scary Stories

 Yup, that's the same Alvin Schwartz who penned the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series which was just a treasure trove of haunting imagery.  Seriously, pick up any Scary Stories book and flip to a random page. Boom. Nightmare fuel. 

You didn't need to sleep tonight, right?

But In a Dark Dark Room was intended for very young readers and it haunted six-year-old me with images like this:

That cat could not give less of a shit.

 Yup.  Nothing like reading a small child a story that ends with an old lady's head falling off. (Spoilers)

 -Pretty much any episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

90's kids, this show was our jam, amiright?!  Every Saturday night, my butt was firmly planted in my favorite arm chair and I was glued to this show.  But let's be real, this show was scary as shit. The opening credits alone were pulled directly from your nightmares.  They were like the creepy VHS tape in The Ring but less...horse-murdery.  Pick any AYAotD? episode and there was probably a terrifying image that made hundreds of kids pee themselves.

Exhibit A

Fear of children? Check.

Exhibit B

Nosferatu haunted my dreams for literally weeks. 

Exhibit C

Thanks for that fear of indoor swimming pools, Nickelodeon.

Also, this:

This.  This was a goddamn kids show!!!


Beh.  I need to go back to therapy now.  
Sweet dreams, kids!

It's My Nightmare (UPDATED...lots)

You guys know I have a totally healthy fear of birds.  Well the creepiest of creepy New York birds, the Mourning Dove, has decided it likes my bedroom window sill.

See, it's waiting for you to die so it can "mourn" you with it's dead soulless eyes.

I woke up one morning last week to the sound of what I thought was an owl. I immediately freaked out. Of all the birds that scare me, owls are the most terrifying.  (And the most terrifying of owls is the Barn Owl.)

Source

Seriously. Look at that shit. It's the thing that births nightmares.

I jumped out of bed and went to the window. I couldn't see any critters, but I could hear the incessant cooing/hooting. I went to the kitchen where Boyfriend was up and making his breakfast. I asked him if he was hearing what I was hearing or if I had finally gone completely mad. He said he was definitely hearing an owl. We looked out of every window but couldn't see anything. Boyfriend determined it was on the roof and went back to what he was doing. I refused to give up that easily. Finally, I spotted them. They were not owls, but a pair of Mourning Doves. Scary Mourning Doves. They were hanging out on our bedroom window sill. I went to the window and banged on the A/C unit and the window until they flew away. Unfortunately, they've been back every day since. It's my nightmare.


UPDATE: 3/19/13
They built a nest, you guys. Shit.

Now that the birds have built a nest, they're going to lay eggs. Nooooo! Now I can't scare them off, but I also can't scrape the nest away because my fear of birds is now battling my inner respect and love for living creatures. I'm the weirdest Druid ever, you guys.

UPDATE: 3/26/13
The nest is empty. It's a PAX East miracle. But now I feel sort of sad. What happened to the birdies? Did some tragedy befall them? Did squirrels attack?  Did it get too cold for them? I'm equal parts relieved and melancholy about it. Hmmm.

Weirdest. Druid. Ever.

Seriously.

UPDATE: 4/1/13

It's baaaaaaaaaaaack.  It's back and it's LOOKING AT ME!!!!

Worst. April Fool's Day. Ever.

UPDATE: 4/10/13 

Ok, now I'm really really torn. We're having a pretty big thunderstorm tonight, so I peeked out the window to check on the bird. It's gone and so is the nest. 
Now I'm really kind of sad, because It was all vibrating and stuff yesterday like it was laying an egg. I wasn't excited about having to wake up every morning to the sound of terrifying (and slightly ugly) peeping baby birds, but I feel sad that the storm blew away the nest or scared off the bird. I'm concerned about it.
And yet I fear it.

Seriously, just revoke my Druid card now. 

UPDATE: 4/11/13 (Last update, I swear)

If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that you can disregard that last update. I discovered that the bird and nest were perfectly fine and intact on the window sill after I  peeked out of our window this morning. Boyfriend and I were up very early to attend a friend's out-of-state graduation ceremony, which actually turned out to not be until NEXT week (of course we didn't learn this until after we'd already driven the 175 miles to get there, but I digress.) 

But the bird is ok. Yay.

Let the conflicted feelings continue...

The Woman in Black

Last night we went to see The Woman in Black, a Hammer Films production starring Mr. Daniel Radcliffe (or, DanRad as I like to call him.) The movie is based on the book, and there is also a stage adaptation of the book in London's West End where it's been playing since 1989. A friend of mine has seen the stage version and she said it was the scariest thing she's ever seen movie/play or otherwise. So naturally she and her boyfriend went to see the movie and they were both very impressed by it.


I've been dealing with a rather severe bout of depression lately and I was getting desperate, so I thought maybe scare therapy would help me, since it worked for Allie Brosh. I loooooove scary movies. Probably because they make me feel something deep and primal and it reminds me I'm alive. Boyfriend does not like scary movies. He gets very stressed out watching them.  When I rented Paranormal Activity, Boyfriend begrudgingly agreed to watch it with me and we had to pause the movie in the middle so that he could chill out for a moment because he was so uncomfortable. *Sigh* I hope I don't give him a heart attack some day.
We are both fans of DanRad-we love us some Harry Potter-and after having seen him on stage last year, we were really excited to see The Woman in Black even though the preview alone made Boyfriend crinkle his face and start sweating a little.


Fear, like comedy and beauty, is subjective.  What scares the daylights out of me makes someone else laugh. Usually at me. So I won't go on and on about how scary I thought The Woman in Black was, 'cause holy swiss cheese it was scary.  Whether or not other people think it was scary, it was beautifully made; the cinematography and costumes blew me away. I don't care who you are there was some damn fine acting in that movies too.  The story itself is not anything new-a fairly typical ghost/haunted house type of plot-but the movie as a whole was very well-made. A lot more goes into making a film scary other than just having a bunch of "boo!" moments that make you jump (but there were several good ones in this one.) I think the whole package needs to be complete: the acting needs to not feel like acting, there needs to be enough build-up to the scary parts, but the pay-off needs to be there, and the film needs to follow the rules it sets to maintain suspention of disbelief.  This movie fulfilled all of those requirements for me. It is definitely on my list of favorite scary movies. 

While the movie didn't scare me completely out of my gloom, it certainly gave me an ass-kick in the right direction. I'm feeling a little more "normal" than I have been, but I know it's not something that will just go away right away.  It's a process.  I do know, however, that between The Woman in Black and Samara from The Ring. I may never sleep again.

Yep.  Never. Sleeping. Again.