Fright Night

In honor of the holiday, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom will commence to list the things that frighten the bejebus out of her. Not real-life things, like decapitations and train wrecks and teaching. But Halloween-type thingies.

1. Halloween, the original movie. Let's just say that I am so old I have seen this movie in the theater. Granted, I was a tiny tot, but it put the fear of hockey-masked lunatics into me. One of my most frightening scenes is not what you might expect. It's the part where Donald Pleasence drives up to the loony bin at night, with that lady in the car with him, and it is a dark and stormy night, and what do they see but the inmates milling catatonically around the grounds, in white nightshirts, milling around like John McCain at a Presidential debate. That scene makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Not Grandaddy McCain, silly. The zombie loonies.

Let's take a minute to explore HH's movie phobia. I know. This blog is all about ME...but HH is just a granny sissy-pants when it comes to scary movies. Not at all brave like ME. I found this out when we rented Friday the 13th. The original. HH was laying in the floor, as people are wont to do in the $17,000 homes of Hillmomba. He was enthralled with this cinematic masterpiece, when all at once, near the very end, HH squealed like a schoolgirl at a Miley Cyrus concert, and jumped about 3 feet off the floor. That must have been really hard to do, what with staying all stretched out like he was still lying down. I can not figure out how he defied the laws of physics like that. And I am a professional. The part that spooked poor pitiful HH was when Alice is in the canoe out in the middle of the lake, thinking she's all safe and whatnot, drifting around to some soothing tune, and suddenly Jason pops up out of the water to drag her down. I think HH might have tinkled a little bit in his tighty-whities.

2. Carrie, the original movie. The end where Sue Snead goes to the rocky rubble of the White house and bends down to place some flowers...and Carrie's had pokes out of the rubble and grabs Sue's wrist. Eek!

3. In real life, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom does not like to look in a mirror in a darkened room. No. Just no. She is afraid she will see someone behind her.

4. You won't find Mrs. HM in any empty school buildings at night. No way, no how, what with the incidents she experienced at her school in Cuba, Missouri. It's on one of the old blogs around late October. I'm too lazy to look for the link. That's just asking for trouble, going into a dark building all alone. Not a companion, nor an emergency light, nor an act of Congress can drag Mrs. HM into such a setting.

5. See number 4 but substitute a church. Not that Mrs. HM has ever been in an empty church at night, but it ain't ever gonna happen anyhow. You'd think she'd feel safe there in such a sanctuary, but NO. No empty buildings at night.

6. Go to a graveyard at midnight and sling a dead cat with her friend Huck? Not Mrs. HM. She will not approach a cemetery after dark. She does not even like to look into one when driving by at night. Could this stem from her years of living right across the road from a cemetery, and hearing footsteps in the upstairs bedroom throughout the day and night? Who knows? But you won't find Mrs. HM looking for the vampire grave, or asking if 'anyone' here would like to communicate.

7. Devil and demon movies are a big No No with Mrs. HM. She read The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror. Though one is based on truth, and the other is said to be a sham, Mrs. HM quakes with fear at the thought of watching the movies. At one time, she DID watch a version of The Amityville Horror with James Brolin. That will never happen again. That red-eyed pig Jody thingy and that rocking chair and the wake-up time of 3:15 was too, too much for highly-suggestible HM, who woke up frightened at 3:15 every morning for a couple of weeks.

The Exorcist was scary just to read. Mrs. HM didn't need no peein' Regan telling an astronaut he was going to die up there, or pea-soup vomit, or that devilish little brat telling a priest he sucked. Again, the book gave Mrs. HM nightmares so extreme that she felt someone lay down in the bed beside her, or she woke up seeing shadows on the wall.

And while we're at it, The Omen is also off limits. And those commercials for The Grudge had HM reaching for the remote control to ward off new nightmares.

8. Absolutely no GhostHunters for HM after 10:00 p.m. Nope. Too frightening, what with things starting to go bump in the Mansion around that time, since everyone else has gone to bed.


So there you have it. Some of Mrs. HM's spook-triggers. Yes, they're only movies, most of them. But if anyone can be scared to death, it would be yellow-bellied, spineless HM.