Stop the Scary-Go-Round, I Want to Get Off!!

I'm a huge baby when it comes to all things spooky. I have never been a fan of scary movies, I don't like shocking surprises and you couldn't pay me enough to set foot inside a haunted house. I remember watching the original Halloween when I was a kid. I was so petrified that I began burping uncontrollably, which caught me completely off guard. Here I was balled up on an old quilt in front of our car at the drive-in, burping like crazy. Now when I happen to catch a movie teeming with tense scenes, I find my body on the verge of a burp. I'm not sure about any medical explanation for mysterious gastrointestinal phenomena, but it happens. I also have a movie-viewing method I like to call "watching through the picket fence." If I think there might be a frightening scene coming up, I'll place my hand in front of my face and watch through my fingers. That way, if something creepy happens, I can quickly snap my fingers together.

Here are some of the things that still scare the bejesus out of me.

* When I see an image of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz, I feel like I might vomit. Just this morning I was thumbing through a copy of Entertainment Weekly and her creepy green grimace caught my eye and I froze. I will avoid future thumbing of that issue. Remember the scene when the house is flying through the air and she is riding her bike through the farm-debris-filled tornado turmoil? Eeek!! Please pass the Pepto.

* I refuse to watch the original Amityville Horror again for fear that I will lose all future prospects of a good night's sleep. Scary is bad, but true-story scary is horrifying. If I ever moved into a house that told me to get out, I'd be at the Holiday Inn faster than you can say "holy water."

* I watched The Ring only after someone assured me that it wouldn't be "that scary." As the Japanese horror movie re-make gods would have it, the following weekend my husband went out of town. Thanks to the fresh images of that swampy, un-dead little girl crawling out of the well, I hid under the covers with my cats all night long and refused to answer the telephone.

* I would like to virtually punch everyone who ever e-mailed me that terrible "optical illusion" that you stare at until a frightening, shrieking image pops onto the screen. I will send you the bill for my new anxiety meds.

* Crypt-Keeper-looking guys totally terrify me. Case in point: the limo driver from Burnt Offerings and the eerie old guy from Poltergeist. I just thought about Googling images of both and nearly needed to begin breathing into a paper bag.

* These are movies I will never watch again: Silence of the Lambs, Amityville Horror, Halloween I-XXIV, The Shining, The Omen, Nightmare on Elm Street and Burnt Offerings. Swarms of flies named Damien eating fava beans and shouting, "Here's Johnny" couldn't make me do it. Nope.

* These are scary movies I never plan to watch the first time: The Exorcist, The Grudge, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rosemary's Baby, and anything anyone tries to convince me is "not too scary" -- they're big fat liars.

I am quite content to spend another Friday night in front of a quirky romantic comedy. And the only movie-related-burping I want to experience will come from characters in another silly Seth Rogen movie.