Beautiful Frauds

Criticwire Survey: Too Scary to Watch?

This week’s Criticwire survey asked us to admit to a movie that we’d avoided watching because we were just too scared of it. I assert my fearlessness and make an implied request for someone to actually scare the hell out of me:

I’ll confess to putting off seeing the French horror film Martyrs for quite some time, but that was more due to its reputation for shocking intensity than actually being scary. The reputation is well-earned, and watching it is a pretty powerful experience, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it frightening. Similiarly, I’ve avoided The Human Centipede, but I have no reason to expect that’s going to be scary at all, just disgusting. My benchmark for being legitimately terrified while watching a movie was seeing David Lynch’s Lost Highway late one night while completely alone at home. The first half of that movie is a masterpiece of psychological terror, and I’ll admit that I felt deeply uncomfortable being alone that night. That said, it’s a feeling I enjoy; if someone pointed me in the direction of a film twice as scary as that experience, I’d watch it in a heartbeat; while there are plenty of things in life that are too scary for me, the phrase doesn’t really register when it comes to the movies.”