I figure if you read this blog, you may wonder what it is that scares me, considering that none of the movies I’ve done so far have scared me. For those of you with that question, I give you my list of the five scariest things imaginable.
1. Historic Cemeteries.
In another life I was surveyor Jenn, the girl that was sent out to find historic sites, objects and buildings. While the job itself was great and I miss it nearly everyday, the one thing that always got to me was surveying historic cemeteries. On the one hand it was interesting to spend some time checking out the games and making not of the handmade headstones made of local stone and carved by hand. Then there were the times when it was just me, in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere with no one else around for miles. Every noise you hear in the woods is cause for alarm. If you don’t believe me, let me take you on a tour of cemeteries in southwestern Indiana.
2. Abandoned Buildings.
Surveyor Jenn occasionally decided that she’d let her urban exploration side come out to play. Basically this meant that every now and then I’d stumble on an abandoned building, see no one else around and “let myself in”, usually through a missing window. At first it was exciting and I often took a lot of pictures, but I’ve also seen too many movies to know that a young girl in an abandoned house by herself where no one where she is, usually doesn’t end well. After a few too many encounters with rats, wild animals and homeless people I think I learned my lesson. Doesn’t mean I’ve conquered my fear though…
3. Dead Children.
There isn’t really a story to go along with this one, I just can’t handle scenes of dead children. Then again I once dated a guy that thought it was “cool” to show me pictures of fetuses in a dumpster and kids who had been murdered by their abusive parents. It doesn’t help that I did volunteer work at a home for abuse victims. If a movie has nothing else in it except for one dead child, that’s usually enough to disturb me. Take The Amityville Horror remake, with its ghost character complete with a bullet hole in her head. That made me a little jumpy even though the movie itself wasn’t that great.
4. Fire.
I woke one night to find that the power was out and everything looked a little foggy. Tried to open the bedroom door and burned my hand. The living room of my apartment was on fire and you had to go through that room to get to either door. I ended up having to physically move my bed, break out a window with my arm and just keep screaming until someone heard me and went to get help. The people in my building didn’t even hear my screams. Even today the smell of wood, plastic or cloth makes me sick to my stomach and I can’t be around campfires nor can I handle scenes of fire on film. I think that’s why the ending to The Eye disturbed me so much.
5. Graphic depictions of drug abuse.
Unfortunately I know what crack and crystal meth users look like firsthand, not by personal use but thanks to an ex. I can identify a crack spoon from 50 yards, tell you if someone’s using just by looking at them and I once even went off on a store clerk because they sold those little plastic roses that are really only used for drug pipes. I know what the drugs smell like cooking, know how to hide drugs in the human body and know how to mask the smell of someone smoking with certain things. Seeing anyone doing drugs on screen takes me back to a world that I no longer want to be a part of.
So there you have it, the things that scare me. Now I want to know…what scares you?
