I’ll be honest, I saw the movie “The Shining” before I read the book.  Saw it on channel seven, ABC’s channel here in the New York area.  I’m not sure how old I was, but I must have been in high school because the movie was in the theatre in 1980.

That movie frightens me to this day, even when they show it on the Arts and Entertainment channel.  I’m not sure if

I’ve ever seen the theatrical version and I’m not sure I want to.

The whole idea of being snowbound and trapped while the “strongest” of your party goes slowly mad and there’s nothing you can do about it is frightening enough.  The fact that the HOTEL itself is making it impossible for you to escape from him is even scarier.

The scene that scared me the most was not the famous and too-often-quoted “Here’s Johnny!” scene, but it’s the scene where Jack is menacing Wendy on the stairs and says:

Wendy Torrance: Please! Don’t hurt me!
Jack Torrance: I’m not gonna hurt you.
Wendy Torrance: Stay away from me!
Jack Torrance: Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.
[Wendy gasps]
Jack Torrance: Gonna bash ’em right the fuck in! ha ha ha

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The miniseries remake with Steven Weber (from the show WINGS of all places) didn’t half faze me.  I mean, this is the dude from Wings against Jack Nicholson for heaven’s sake.  It’s a no brainer.

The movie was made in 1980, but I’ll say SPOILER ALERT anyway.

The Shining is an example of chillingly great horror movie.  The final shot of Jack Nicholson frozen in the hedge maze…that haunted me for quite a few nights after that!

So what’s YOU’RE favorite scary movie????

Music soothes the savage beast and if you’re lucky, you’ll have a few of them around for the various Halloween parties you’ll be attending.  For help on your Halloween party playlist, you’ve come to the right place.

Here they are, in no particular order, five songs for your player.

The Eagles – Witchy Woman

Van Halen – Runnin’ with the Devil

Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper

Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

Michael Jackson – Thriller

Welcome to more BLOGTOBERFEST!!

I’m going to continue today to chat with you about a time that I was scared as a child.  This moment is so vivid in my mind that I can recall it clearly to this day.  Three words.

Crystal Caves Park

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  “Dahlia, don’t be so foolish, doll! I mean, two out of the three words are so nice!

What could be bad about ‘crystal’ and ‘park’?”

I do see the logic in that, but separating those two lovely words is the word CAVES.  Dark, underground caverns, which of course were on the verge of collapsing, trapping silly tourists inside in the dark.

As a wee child, about seven or so, the idea of visiting a cave seemed fun.  It was well lighted, there were guides, restrooms and a gift shop.  Great!  I was game.

Everything was going well until they got us deep in the cave, chatting about rock formations and crystal and the like.  Then, they announce they are going to turn off the lights, so we can see what it’s like to be in complete darkness.

Wait a g*dd*mn minute.  I did NOT sign up for this.  Whaaaaaa?

When those lights were turned off I literally could.not.see.my.hand.in.front.of.my.face.

Darkness.  How dark?

I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed.  Holy crap.

Even as I recount it I get the shivers.  The same things, the people, were there with the lights off as they were with the lights on right?

RIGHT???…was that a thump? In the dark?

This cave is pretty big, have they explored every single bit of it?  There could be anything here.

Somebody better turn on these lights. Eff these stalactites and stalagmites, get me to the gift shop.

Boo!

Books are frightening in a whole different way that movies, because your imagination has no boundaries.  With movies, once you see the “horror” manifested on screen, the mind tends to deflect the horror by trying to figure out how the special effects actually worked and wondering if they really used colored corn syrup for the blood. In addition, you can always look away from the horror on the screen.

But books…books make your imagination work overtime, taking the author’s words and twisting it into your personalized nightmare, images so horrifying that they may stay with you long after you’ve closed the book and [amazon-product align=”left;”]B004TPFNVI[/amazon-product]moved on with your real life.

And when/if you see the movie, that same scene is nothing like you imagined.  In fact, seeing the director’s interpretation of the scene may take all the “scare” out of it.

One of the scariest stories that I’ve ever read, and for some reason, they allowed us to read this horror in high school was “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe.  Even thinking about it gives me the shivers. I won’t go into details, but it is a tale of revenge.

It is free on Amazon.

D