Sissy pants

I am a huge sissy. It's true. I have a really hard time watching and then recovering from scary movies.

I can remember attending slumber parties as a child and having to hide out upstairs reading a book while everyone else watched scary movies. I watched Silence of the Lambs, after reading the book, when i was 17 and I still occasionally have nightmares featuring Hannibal Lecter. When I was a kid Gremlins gave me horrible nightmares that kept me up all night. Even Goonies, a movie I LOVE!, gave me nightmares. At 21 I watched Along Came a SPider (that Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman masterpiece) by myself after dark and consequently had to turn on all the lights in my apartment in order to be able to spot any bad men who might try to kill me.

I managed the first 2 Scream movies relatively well, maybe because of the humour they seemed safer. But I never bothered with the 3rd as it looked boring. I refused to see the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead with Jeremy and have subsequently refused to watch special screenings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a variety of other horror themed movies.

Recently I watched Shaun of the Dead and loved it, but it's not really scary, is it? It's about lovable losers who just happen to be dealing with zombies that they don't even notice for the first portion of the movie. It's not scary, it's comedy with zombies.

All this is a buildup to the fact that I leapt over a major hurdle this weekend and watched, finally, 28 Days Later. It was really good. There was only one part where I had to cover my eyes even though I had probably seen the grossest bit already, but other than that, I really liked it. It was just so properly creepy throughout. The bit where Jim is walking through desserted London was so nicely done. And Frank and Hannah's creepy council flat was great. So much of it was so good, I feel silly for waiting so long to see it, especially since I haven't had a single nightmare yet. But at the same time, I'm glad I waited because now I've seen it as someone who knows London well, and while I don't think that's necassary to enjoying the film, it did help me. It's the same with how I feel about Shaun of the Dead, I'm glad I saw it after moving here because even though it would have been funny before, it made a lot more sense having acquired my own local.

I don't know if this will extend to other horror films, certainly not the really gory ones, but I'm proud of myself for sucking it up and watching this.

Although now we have to deal with the troubling fact that Oliver appears to have the Rage Virus. What else would cause him to bite us while he sleeps. Zombie kittens, the next wave of danger!