Scariness is next to insomnia
Aug. 18th, 2004 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI went to see Juon - The Grudge recently. I didn't actually find it that terrifying at the time - more spooky than actually scary. But for weeks since I've been having recurring imagery from it floating around in my brain. It has, in fact, been far scarier after the fact than it was at the time.
I don't cope well with scariness, and this has been the case as far back as I can remember. I used to like having the light on in the hallway until I was quite an old child, and I still get nervous occaisonally sleeping in complete darkness. I remember disliking the first half of 28-days-later intensely because I found it simply harrowing - I just wasn't coping well at all, and if I'd been there without friends I probably would have just left.
I started playing System Shock 2 once, and stopped after half an hour - all I'd done was wander from room to room and encounter the odd shuffling zombie, but the tense atmosphere had definitely got under my skin. I quit and never went back.
Doom 3 I'm finding somewhat easier, but even then I can't play for more than half an hour at a time. I just get too tense playing it. Eventually I reach the point where I'm standing on one side of a door, unable to imagine opening it and facing whatever might be on the other side. This despite the fact that I'm pretty darn good at FPS games and haven't met anything I couldn't kill in less than 7 seconds. It's not the actuality that's scaring me - it's the potential. And if I think about what could be potentiality encountered, it's not the potential either - it's purely the atmosphere. Something about the game is bypassing all of my intelligence, grabbing my fear by the scruff of the neck and shaking it.
I think it's time for some nice GC games to calm me down again.
I don't cope well with scariness, and this has been the case as far back as I can remember. I used to like having the light on in the hallway until I was quite an old child, and I still get nervous occaisonally sleeping in complete darkness. I remember disliking the first half of 28-days-later intensely because I found it simply harrowing - I just wasn't coping well at all, and if I'd been there without friends I probably would have just left.
I started playing System Shock 2 once, and stopped after half an hour - all I'd done was wander from room to room and encounter the odd shuffling zombie, but the tense atmosphere had definitely got under my skin. I quit and never went back.
Doom 3 I'm finding somewhat easier, but even then I can't play for more than half an hour at a time. I just get too tense playing it. Eventually I reach the point where I'm standing on one side of a door, unable to imagine opening it and facing whatever might be on the other side. This despite the fact that I'm pretty darn good at FPS games and haven't met anything I couldn't kill in less than 7 seconds. It's not the actuality that's scaring me - it's the potential. And if I think about what could be potentiality encountered, it's not the potential either - it's purely the atmosphere. Something about the game is bypassing all of my intelligence, grabbing my fear by the scruff of the neck and shaking it.
I think it's time for some nice GC games to calm me down again.
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Date: 2004-08-18 02:17 pm (UTC)Try Eternal Darkness for the Cube. :)
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Date: 2004-08-18 03:20 pm (UTC)All fine.. all fine... all fine.. AAAGRH! The fire in that brazier just crackled and an ember fell! AAAAAGRH!
;-)
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Date: 2004-08-18 02:47 pm (UTC)Finally, I went with a couple of people to see "Sunset Boulevard", which I considered a harmless classic, and one of them completely freaked out and said it was the creepiest thing he'd seen in years.
Ha! I'd never even considered "Sunset Boulevard" a "horror film", but, to each his own.
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Date: 2004-08-18 03:19 pm (UTC)It's an okay zombie film (especially the bit with the military types), but it's no scarier than.. well, any other zombie film.
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Date: 2004-08-18 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-19 12:02 am (UTC)I mean, Audition was just a great film, that had some unpleasant stuff at the end. Ring was scary, but worth it for the movie. For some reason, Juon stuck with me more than either.
28 days later falls into the category of scary I like least - the "something bad is about to jump out and eat you" only it went on in at hat vein for so long my adrenaline was really getting to me.
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Date: 2004-08-18 10:43 pm (UTC)On a different note, the zombie genre is looked upon as kind of "Blue Collar" - ie, zombies are everywhere, we are them and they are us. Another point in their favour, I assume.
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Date: 2004-08-19 10:36 am (UTC)Open door
Start firing when door starts opening.
Stop firing when you run out of ammo
Look at the bloody corpse and see if it's still scary
If it is, blow it up.