WRITING PROMPTS

Scary Movies

’Tis the season

When I saw this prompt, only one movie came to mind. Carrie.

Just typing that sends chills up and down my spine. If you ask anyone who knows me what movie scares me the most, even they’d say Carrie. It’s become almost a joke, but at least we can laugh about it now.

My dad used to run the projector at the base movie theater when he was active duty, and Carrie must’ve been showing one night when we visited him, because I remember my mother talking about how bad the ending scared her. I won’t give the ending away in case you haven’t seen it. I don’t remember much of the movie at that point, but seeing it later as a kid frightened me like nothing else.

Up until a few years ago, just the sight of Sissy Spacek in the promotional photo for the movie would send me running out of the room in tears.

One day, I decided I’d watch it again. Alone. In the middle of a bright, sunny afternoon. I was trying to face my fears, but in a I’m-still-a-big-chicken sort of way. There’s one scene near the beginning when the light bulbs first flicker and pop; I nearly jumped out of my skin. I watched most of the movie with my blanket up to my eyeballs, but there was something different about it. Not the movie, because it hadn’t changed, but the way I viewed it.

Initially, I thought Carrie was the violent, crazy one. What I didn’t understand before was that she was the one who was being mistreated. When I wasn’t viewing it through my fingers, I realized how sad it really was. Carrie’s mother was the abusive, twisted one. And the kids at her school were terrible. I felt bad for her. I guess she got the ultimate revenge. Being able to finally view it for what it was seemed to lessen the scary factor. At least somewhat.

I bought the book not long after that, but haven’t read it yet. It needs one of those fabric book covers, so I don’t have to look at the actual book cover when I do read it.

This spooktacular prompt was inspired by Ellie Jacobson at Flint & Steel.