do you know who this girl is? no prize for guessing...A couple of weeks back, I was watching a horror-slasher movie about a bunch of people get killed one by one by a vicious ghost in a playstation game. Supposedly, when they died in the game, they will die in real life. Wanna know what's so scary about the movie?
Frankie Muniz (of Malcom in the Middle sitcom fame) was in it. And he doesn't cut out to play a side-kick. Apart from that, nothing else is so scary.
I'm a big fan of horror movies. However, I don't fancy slasher flicks. Seeing people get cut up in half or several pieces, decapitated heads or severed limbs aren't exactly my kind of horror movie. Its just too gross. Plain old-fashioned scary movie is what I savor.
Horror movies today are such a bore and lack genuine thrills. Even the storylines are weak. Most of them rely heavily on special effects. Too much CGIs (computer graphic image) had somewhat killjoyed the movie. They don't look real or frightening enough to jolt you from your chair or make your heart pumping.
When I was in standard 4 in the mid seventies, I witnessed a real life exorcism. There was this local maid who worked in one of the neighbour's just two doors away from my house, had been possessed by the devil in a form of pelesit.
Every night, we would hear her shrill of laughters and cries and it was so creepy. Being a nervously curious kid despite strong objections from my parents, I sneaked inside the house and saw a lot of people were reciting the Surah Yaasin. I saw the bomoh lifted a stick and started to beat up the floor but not so hard. It was as if he was trying to chase away the devil. I couldn't see the girl's face properly as she was lying on a thin mattress facing up the ceiling. When I heard sounds coming from the girl's mouth, I began to shiver. I had goosebumps all over my body. She spoke in foreign language that didn't make sense and her voice was so hoarse and fierce. She would then break into eerie laughter and then cry. This would go on repetitively while she's being cured.
Someone once said that a devil can sense your fear. While I stood there frozen from watching all those mumbo jumbo, she then turned her pop-eyed and ghastly face (mak oii, it was so horrible OK) to me and yelled, "Hey, apa kamu pandang-pandang hah!" (What are you looking at?). I almost fell off from the staircase. I will never forget that look from her face. Like the face of the devil itself.
True enough, I developed high fever that lasted a week.
With all that once-in-a-lifetime experience, I still love watching scary movies. I don't mind seeing Linda Blair spin her head and spit green vomit over and over again. Now that is one helluva scary movie.
*My top 10 scary movies (in no particular order)
- The Exorcist - nothing beats the crap out of you than watching this movie. After 35 years, still is the best scary movie of all time. best scenes - the head spinning and vomit spitting and of course the voice.
- The Omen I (1976) - Just one stare from that son of satan, all hell breaks loose (the zoo scene) and people die from freak accidents. The kid, Damien remains to be the creepiest kid in scary movie history
- The Amityville Horror (1979) - a family is terrorized by a demonic house. even the facade of the house is so creepy.
- The Blair Witch Project - this successful indie movie proved that eerie sounds, home video style camerawork and adhering to less is more principle (we never get to see the witch till the end) make for one hell of harrowing flick
- The Ring - I can never look at TV the same way again...
- The Sixth Sense - despite its surprise twist in the ending, this movie did have some scary moments like when Haley Joel Osment had a leak at night or when he felt that someone was following him in broad daylight and its none other than Bruce Willis himself...
- Dark Water (original Japanese version) - I had a hard time going into dim-litted elevators, alone and I've never been so scared of damp ceiling or sudden over-flowing water....after watching it of course
- Seven - the most disturbing serial killer of all time.
- The Eye (original chinese version) - the scariest scene had to be the elevator (again?) scene...totally freaked out!
- The Descent - imagine this. trapped in a claustrophobic area like a cave for example and there's something menacing lurking around you in total darkness
