The Difficulty of Watching Horror

As most of you probably already know, Joss Whedon— the generous behind such many great works as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Serenity, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog— has created yet another box-office smash movie coming to theaters. Now, for everybody who immediately thought I’m referring to The Avengers (a movie I’ll still surely be seeing), I was actually talking about Cabin in the Woods.

Cabin in the Woods, according to reviews, is supposed to be a completely new look at the horror movie genre, taking many aspects of horror movies over the years and adding Whedon’s personal touch of greatness to it.

Since it’s already in the theater, I could simply go see the movie at any time (money permitting, which seems like it never does), but seeing a horror movie, no matter the director, on the big screen seems like a bad choice. In the past I have only ever seen 2 horror movies on the big screen— Scream 4 and Plan 9 from Outer Space. Granted, while the latter is hardly scarier than an anthill, at its initial release, it was meant to be a “go to the theater to scare your pants off” movie. As for the ever-confusing reasons I paid to see Scream 4 alone, only to be even more confused by its continued lameness, I cannot explain. Needless to say, I was more nightmare-prone after The Dark Knight than by these. These are of course not the only horror movie I have viewed, which leads to my dilemma.

I learned a long time ago not to watch any movie or TV show meant to have any sort of scare tactics after 7:30 at night (roughly cutting into sunset). Basically, in the words of the Barenaked Ladies, I won’t “watch X-files with the lights off.” For the most part, I’ve done well by this. I only watch Disney movies after working closing shift, and record things like The River for the next morning.

As it is though, even watching early in the day, I’ve had disruptions. One Saturday, after purposely watching Paranormal Activity around 3, still with most indoor lights on around me as well, I remained scared out of my wits for a week, continuously reminded of ghost stories I’d heard about my apartment building years before. I made a worse mistake when I chose to watch the Twin Peaks movie at bedtime, thinking it would be humorous like the show. A week later I finally chose to turn my hall light off.

Taking this into consideration, I feel it would be a bad investment to pay to watch Cabin in a dark theater, no matter the number of other patrons there, if I wind up having outcomes like these. Especially if I can wait for the DVD in the far future. Why not save my money for The Avengers. Or worse, the ever-depressing Dark Shadows remake I had waited in anticipation for years now.