It All Started With Creature Feature Night

I love scary movies.

The scarier they are, the better.

Scary movies (and books) have been my favorites since a very young age.

When I say scary movies, I’m not talking about the “shock” movies that use sudden intense scenes just to make you jump. You know the kind – where the teenagers do dumb stuff, like opening a door when they know The Killer may be somewhere in the house… and is likely on the other side of that stupid door!  Or slasher movies, that attempt to startle you with as many gory scenes as possible. Yech!  No. I’m talking about creepy, psychological thrillers. Movies that make you think. Movies that scare you because they could be real.

Creature Feature Night

For me, good scary movies all started with Creature Feature Night on TV in the 1970s.

My family had one (yes, one) black and white television that was on a stand in the kitchen / dining room where we spent the majority of our time. We really didn’t watch a lot of TV when I was a kid, but when I was young, a new television program started and was shown every Friday night, called Creature Feature Night. Creature Feature Night consisted of two to three scary movies that were shown one right after the other. Because my parents knew how much I loved these scary movies, on Friday nights they moved the television into the living room (a room we never used unless we had company), and I would invite friends for a sleep-over to watch the movies with me. Mom made us popcorn, and then the movies would begin.

One of the movies from Creature Feature Night that I remember most was “The Thing That Couldn’t Die“. Jessica and her aunt scared me plenty! And that divining rod was pretty creepy, too. Creature Feature Night was just the beginning of my scary movie memories.

Scary Movies with The Aunts

As I got a little bit older, I got to watch scary movies with my aunts (who are about 10-15 years older than me). I remember one night in particular when my family and I were visiting my Grandma for the weekend. While my parents and older aunts and uncles went out for the night, my youngest three aunts tucked my brothers into bed, and let me stay up to watch the movie “The Birds” with them. Holy smokes that movie scared me!!! I cherish my memories of time spent with my aunts – the scary movies just made it even more fun!

The Basement Television Room

When I was a teenager, my Dad and Mom created a really cool space for us to hang out in the basement. There was an old slate pool table that came from my Grandma’s tavern, a ping pong table, a playroom filled with LEGO bricks, and a very comfortable television room. By now we had a colored television and this comfortable space was the best place to watch scary movies. My younger brothers weren’t too interested in this genre of movies, so I mostly watched the movies alone. In the dark. In the basement. In order to get to the television room, I had to turn on the basement lights, go down the steps to the TV room and turn on the end-table lamps in there, then go back to the top of the stairs to turn off the overhead lights above the pool table. No problem, right? The problem was – when the movie was done, I was always too afraid to leave the comfort of the TV room to go back up the steps to turn on the overhead lights, then go back to the TV room to turn off the lamp, and then head back upstairs. And forget the idea of turning off the TV room lamp and navigating my way upstairs… IN THE DARK! NOT happening! More often than not, when a scary movie was done, I would yell for someone to come down and get me. If they could stand at the top of the steps to turn on the overhead lights and wait for me, all was good. But, having younger brothers, they thought it was pretty darn funny to turn on the overhead lights, wait for me to turn off the TV room lamps, and then turn off the overhead lights as I made a mad dash to the top of the stairs. In the dark. Darn brothers.

I have NO idea what I was thinking when I watched “The Exorcist” alone in that basement TV room. I was literally too scared to move at the end of that movie. I had to yell upstairs for my Dad to come down and escort me back up to safety – LOL. Mom and Dad probably never understood why I watched these scary movies alone in that room when I was usually too afraid to head upstairs in the dark, but they were always there for me when I needed someone to come and get me.

Adult Girlfriend Night

When I was in my late 20s, I hung out with my girlfriends on our “girlfriend nights”. It was a time for us to leave our husbands home and enjoy a margarita or two (or sometimes three) together. I will never forget one girlfriend night when we got together at the house of one of our friends, whose husband was away traveling for work. We had our delicious snacks and appetizers, and our margarita’s on the rocks. There was always lots of talk and laughter before the movies – memories enough to last a lifetime. Occasionally we would watch a movie when we got together, and when it was my turn to suggest the movie, of course I would chose a scary one. None of my girlfriends really liked scary movies, but they knew I did so they agreed to watch my choice that evening. I heard about a movie that sounded like it would be really good, so we ended up watching “Prince of Darkness“.  This is probably one of my all-time most favorite scary movies to date. While I really enjoyed this movie, my girlfriends spent most of the movie hiding their heads under blankets. Silly girls. To this day, all I have to do is reach my hand forward and say the word “F a a t h e r” and it still freaks out my friends. Trust me. You’ll want to watch this movie if you haven’t seen it. Watch for the scene with the mirror and you’ll understand.

A Mom and Her Boys

Once my boys were old enough to watch scary movies, I couldn’t wait to have a movie night with them. I don’t think they share the love for scary movies that I have, but they tolerate watching these movies with me. Of course, I had to revisit my favorites from the past and share them with my kids. They were not fans of “The Birds” and thought the movie “The Thing That Couldn’t Die” was “lame” (as they put it). They thought “The Exorcist” was scary. They enjoyed “The Prince of Darkness” along with dozens of other scary movies they’ve watched with me. One of the movies we enjoyed watching together was “Insidious“.  Creeepy!

Current Scary Movies

I’m sad to say that there seems to be very few scary movies these days. Maybe it’s a genre that isn’t very popular. Maybe the movie writers have no new ideas that are really good and really scary. I page through Netflix and Amazon Prime trying to find scary movies to watch, and none of them sound interesting. I’ve watched a few through these channels, but they were real duds.

My sons recently told me about a couple of scary movies they heard about on the radio, and thought I would be interested in – “The Quiet Place” and “Hereditary“. I haven’t seen either of these movies yet, but I really look forward to watching them. I don’t want to watch the trailers because I prefer knowing very little to nothing about a movie before I watch it, but I have to say the movie “Hereditary” has me close to watching the trailer! I’ll report back once I’ve seen these movies to tell you what I thought of them…

While I haven’t watched these trailers, here they are for you to enjoy.  If you decide to watch them… DON’T TELL ME WHAT THEY ARE ABOUT! LOL

How about you? What are some of your favorite scary movies?