recently asked some friends to recall the scariest motherfucking movie they ever saw. well, The Exorcist always tops on the discriminating cineaste's list. I agree, saw the film at a drive-in when I was a pup and scared me so shitless I've not seen it since. I still remember, as if it were last night's nightmare, certain scenes. good god! I get the shakes just thinking about it now!

but two flicks topped the list: 1) the U.S. remake of The Ring, which I agree is drop-a-load in your pants type of screamer, and 2) The Blair Witch Project, which is one freaky film, I think.

but The Blair Witch Project is not to every filmgoers taste. I've seen only two reactions from film buffs: terror or complete boredom topped by motion sickness. my reaction to the latter group of movie-watchers is a polite: HUH? the movie oozes creepy atmosphere and slowly builds tension, and it does what most horror movies do not do, which is it doesn't show what the fuck bumps in the night. we only get the protagonists sheer terror and our own imagination. and it is the imagination, which can cook up things so much worse than a latex or CGI monster chasing some hapless sucker down a darkened hall.

who has not scared themselves silly, especially alone, late at night, when everything is still, only to hear something creak open or shut like a door, or footsteps, and you know no one really ain't there. or the terror of interstellar cold when you stare up at the night sky and see how vast it is, it exists utterly and without human need, and you catch a glimpse, perhaps, maybe even flittingly, of your mortality and how indifferent the universe is to it.

but, um, er, then, perhaps that's why we go to the movies. and for some reason I can't convince my friends to watch what I think is perhaps the scariest movie of recent memory, the original Japanese Ringu which is pure atmosphere and dread. no for them the U.S. version is enough. a shame indeed.

and what was it O'Hara told mothers to do with their children? oh yes, let them go to the movies!