Monday, August 29, 2011

Top Ten Signs You Watch, Read or Write Too Much Horror

**Images were removed once I learned a little more about the laws concerning using others' photos.**

To start off this top ten list, why don't I start with a little tale of a late-night walk I took last week?

I headed out for my usual walk at around 11:30pm. The moon was drifting in and out of visibility behind dark, patchy clouds. Halfway up the hill, I heard a noise and looked up only to see what looked like a man crouching at the top of the hill. I could see his head and part of his torso, which was nude. I froze. At first I was just trying to figure out if my eyes were playing a trick on me or if there was really some freak crouched at the top of the hill. He was just staring back at me, unmoving.

What would you assume if you saw this? Choose your own adventure:

A. Assume it is just a neighbor checking his lawn at 11:30pm at night, partially clothed. Walk by and call a friendly hello.
B. Think perhaps some guy got locked out of his house without his clothes on when he poked out onto his porch to grab the paper he never picked up earlier. call up asking if he's decent.
C. Oh my gosh, it's a fracking werewolf! Throw your hands up in the air and run, screaming, back to your home, hoping against hope he won't catch you before you can make it.

Your selection may say a lot about you...

Without further ado, here are the top ten signs you watch, read or write too much horror:

10. You always look up when you walk into a darkened room.

Oh, please, I knew you'd be up there. Most predictable move in the book!

9. Descending stairs with no backing into a dark basement is akin to Chinese Water Torture. You will tell them anything they want to know, so long as they don't make you go down there for a jar of pickles.

8. You profile your neighbors, specifically watching neighbor-kids for signs of the serial killer triad. You even go so far as to ask, "So, when did Little Johnny stop wetting the bed?"

7. You're prepared for the zombie-pocalypse, but could care less about the nuclear apocalypse.

6. You feel safer if you've had a bit of garlic with your dinner.

What? You don't like my new perfume?

5. You own silver bullets.

Where's your full moon NOW?

4. You've ever screamed "Double tap!" at an inappropriate time.

He's not really dead; come on!

3. You wonder if the mystery meat is human or animal.

For today's special, we have a CNA from Detroit, aged nicely.

2. You greet the shrill ringing of the telephone with sheer terror.

Who is this? What do you want? Why are you doing this? Oh, mom, is that you?

1. It crosses your mind that the weird guy crouched at the top of the hill might be a werewolf.

I'd love to hear some of your signs that you watch/read/write too much horror! Which option did you pick?

P.S. I have not forgotten Feature Friday. However, I am having issues with Google Reader and can only randomly access the list of the blogs I follow. This also explains why I have not commented on anyone's blog unless they've commented on mine first. Please bear with me while I work on the issue, thanks!

24 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

This was a fantastic post, excellent to read.
Hope you get your problem with Google sorted out.

Yvonne.

jan said...

This was a great post! I don't read, watch, or write horror but I know that I was terrified of the open staircase that led into my grandmother's cellar...afraid I would slip through and end up in some other dimension. And, of course, there was that bear-thing under my bed just waiting for an arm to slip over the side where he could get a hold of it...

MG Higgins said...

Yikes, spooky post. I can't sleep if my closet door is open. There are monsters in there!

Brittany said...

Hilarious post! I picked C, though I don't read or write too much horror. :) I loved #10, #8, and #2.

Crystal said...

Ha ha ha, awesomeness! In answer to your question, my closest answer is C. While I wouldn't assume the guy's a werewolf, I totally would've turned around and high-tailed it back home!!

#9 would be mine - I used to be frightened of unfinished basements!

Mark said...

Oh, man I hate that under the stairs stuff...now I'm going to be looking under my bed too;) It's funny how we all liek a little bit of the spookiness...my favorite holiday is def Halloween:)

Andrew Leon said...

Wait a minute, what if the reason you -don't- read/watch horror is because you -already- have issues with these things? I mean, I started profiling neighbors when I was, like, 7 or something. It just kept going from there.

Shannon Lawrence said...

Yvonne, thanks, me too! I've had a problem for quite awhile, but usually if I sat there and refreshed for awhile I could access it. I'm even having trouble viewing the GFC to follow someone's blog, but that does still come through if I sit and refresh for awhile.

Jan, oh yes, under the bed! I'm pretty sure I developed super human abilities to soar across my room from to or from the doorway as a kid. And both those fears existed well before I started reading horror.

MG, I still have to have my closet door closed! I absolutely can't sleep with that dark maw staring at me. I used to have to have my bedroom door open, though. No idea why the closet had to be closed and the bedroom open, but that's just the way it was. I outgrew the bedroom door thing...

Brittany, #10 is one that has me screeching at the TV regularly ("Why won't you just look UP!? I know something's up there!!!").

Crystal, the day I finally got to move into a house with a finished basement was the day I started my healing from the horrors of the concrete slab and unfinished stairs.

Mark, I love Halloween! Favorite holiday, even as a kid (yes, even over Christmas). I just enjoy the atmosphere.

Andrew, I think the reason I started was because I had those issues already. For some reason I like to feed the beast. Haha, 7! Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was profiling the neighbors from an early age, as well. Maybe that's more the writer in us than anything else.

Andrew Leon said...

Yeah, that may well be. I did have stories (although I didn't think of them that way, at the time) about all the neighbors I didn't know. It all started with this one creepy lady that moved in next door...

Rebecca said...

what an awesome i loved this and yep watching to much spooky

Shannon Lawrence said...

Andrew, I had a story for every town home in a double row of town homes I lived in for awhile. I actually intended to write a book of short stories about it and never did. I should pull that project back out of my brain and dust it off.

Becca, ah yes, the spooky movies will do it!

Anonymous said...

Loved the post - and most likely very similar thoughts that would have gone through my mind hehe.

K said...

Okay, I have to try and laugh after reading this otherwise I might pee my pants.

I don't watch horror movies, I never have. The only scary movie I've ever seen is Silence of the Lambs,and I know there are a lot scarier movies out there, but that one did it for me and I said no more.

Now reading scary writing isn't as bad for me, I guess the visual impacts my brain differently. I don't read a lot of scary, horror fiction anymore, but as a teenager I found it exciting for the mystery in the story to be solved.

Now the news, I can't read it before I go to bed. The stories are real and therefore scare me in a different way, that "what if this happened to me," because it happened to someone else in real life. If I let myself read too much of the scary news, then I am up all night thinking about it and it's so hard to turn my mind off!

Amanda Leigh Cowley said...

What a great post! I had to answer c) werewolf (to the naked man question. I think all writers have over-active imaginations!!

Can I ask - what was really going on? Or did you throw your hands in the air and run away screaming?

Anonymous said...

LOL Shannon! I've got one for you...no matter whatever happens, the first instinct is to run to the isolated upstairs bedroom with no escape.

Horror fans know that is the first place the scary guy is going to go! :-)

Thanks for the blog visit and twitter follow! Hope you are enjoying the campaign!

Kelly McClymer said...

LOL! I can't watch horror movies, or I'd never leave the house.

Hello from a fellow campaigner!

Ummm. Double tap!!

Unknown said...

Great post, Shannon! Horror movies must be watched with The Hubby--I'm a wuss all by myself with only a fuzzy blanket to protect me on the couch. Love the little vampire/garlic pic, btw. hehehe

Christine Murray said...

These are brilliant! And also, in my case, very appropriate. The curse of an overactive imagination, eh?

Author A.O. Peart said...

There are horror movies that I can watch over and over (John Carpenter's Vampires or Robert Rodriquez's From Dusk Till Dawn). Instead of frightening me, they entertain. But some, like Hellraiser, are on a "no way" list. I can't explain why -- these movies just give me major creeps! Yikes.

BTW, thanks for visiting my blog and following. I appreciate it :-) I'm following you right back here and on Twitter.

Lola Sharp said...

Hi fellow campaigner! *waves*

Love this post. Hehe! (you picked some fab pix too) I'm 'guilty' of all of these. I'm totally ready for the zombie apoc. ;)

Huggles,
Lola

Andrew Leon said...

That sounds like an interesting idea. David Eddings did something sort of like that early in his career (very early... like, a full decade+ before Belgariad) called The Losers. It's a suprisingly good book.

Liz said...

Since I live in NYC I would not give that half-naked guy a second thought. But I love horror! Scariest movie I've ever seen? "The Descent" followed by "The Ring."

Deborah Walker said...

That is a great list. I'm looking foward to getting to know you, campaignerze.

Shannon Lawrence said...

TF, glad I'm not the only one!

K, true is definitely the scariest! I can watch or read horror before bed and be fine, but I try to avoid true crime stories and that sort of thing. They get under my skin.

Amanda, he was apparently tending to his lawn, I guess by picking weeds?? He eventually stood up and I saw he was in pajama pants, so I carefully headed up that way (waiting for the teeth and claws to come out), said hello and changed my usual route so as not to go near his house until I could figure he was long gone. I did consider throwing my hands in the air and screaming, though, whether werewolf or human, because I wrote a horror story about my late night walks involving the head of the Neighborhood Watch...

Christy, oh yes, rule number 1 right there! Run to the one place you can't escape.

Kelly, haha!

Alyssia, I figure as long as I'm crawling into bed with hubby after the horror movie I'll be okay, haha! That little vampire was cute, wasn't he?

Christine, oh yes, definitely the curse, but it's fun, too.

Angela, I love the funny horror movies (added Zombieland to that one, too), but Fred Krueger is my no-no baddie. Maybe it's because I've had nightmares and night terrors all my life, but someone stalking me in my sleep is just too much for me.

Lola, *waves back*, I had fun choosing the pics since I normally don't put them in my posts, so glad you liked them!

Andrew, I'll have to look that up. I know when I was originally thinking about it I hoped to tie them all up together in the end, but I forget how I'd intended to do it.

Liz, those were good. Haha at not taking any notice! I guess a naked guy would be a little rarer here in the Springs versus NYC.

Deborah, thanks!