Love Halloween but HATE the SCARIES?

We can be friends

Halloween decoration The typical decoration for Halloween (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

By Christi Brooks

I love Halloween. The kids dressing up, having trick-o-treaters, pumpkins everywhere...just all of it. Actually not ALL of it. I HATE scary movies. Hate them. I watch them, but I hate them. I only watch them during the day and usually the weekend prior to Halloween or Halloween weekend.

This stems from several things, but I think I was traumatized at a young age by a few movies that NOW I just CAN’T. I also think it is because I have kids now and certain things bother me more. It’s odd I know but I thought I would share the movies that I THINK destroyed any hope that I would love scary movies.

1. HALLOWEEN

mike LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 17: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white.) An actor portraying Michael Myers attends at the premiere of Universal Pictures' "Halloween" at the TCL Chinese Theatre on October 17, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) (Kevin Winter)

I saw Halloween one night with a group from my community theater group I was in as a kid. It scared the living daylights out of me. To this day I am scared of Michael Myers. So much so that when I’m walking my dog in the morning I’m actually looking for him. I know he’s not real but there is something about that movie that just stuck with me. So scary.

2. CUJO

Cujo movie poster Who decided to make a dog the subject of a scary movie?

I don’t know who decided to make a fluffy dog the terrifying subject of a movie, but they did. I guess I should blame Stephen King, but still. We didn’t have to put a “face” with the character to make it worse. Funny enough, same theater group watched this movie together. I felt bad for Cujo. It’s like he was misunderstood. Doesn’t mean it didn’t scare me.

In all honesty I think the real problem began with Disney. How you ask? This is how...

3. Watcher In The Woods

Watcher In The Woods Disney's scariest movie


I do not think you can even find this movie anywhere anymore. Trust me I have looked. We owned this VHS and for some reason my brother, my sister and I would watch it ALL the time. Every single time we would watch it it would scare me even more. It was about this family with two girls that move to this new house in the middle of nowhere of course. The house looked like a castle and there was creepy lady that lived on the property who of course had a mysterious past. It ended up with one of the girls being possessed by the scary lady’s daughter who had disappeared. Turns out the daughter had not died but she somehow was transferred to another world. All I know is that this was the absolute creepiest movie I had ever seen in my life. I bet it would still freak me out if I could find it.

The scary movies that they have now are so gory that I am definitely NOT going to watch those. I’m more of a rom-com girl now. I know those can be scary too but that’s just because they set unrealistic expectations. That is a whole other story for a later date.