Because it's this time of the year where scary stories abound, I especially remember my best friend Jo-Anne and our own peculiarity of watching horror movies together. This weird behavior of ours started when we were still in college. It was awakened by our mutual pursuit of releasing our own stress and after the release we became our own stressors. For weeks after, we would scare each other aside from the fact that we also scare ourselves. It was unhealthy but the thrill of shouting on the top of our lungs and the temporary spine-chilling effect of those movies were priceless.
We both share a certain taste when it comes to horror flicks. We dismay those kind of movies where the protagonists are haunted by men, women or group of people diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. It is more delightful when movies involve ghosts and dead people whose hobby is to show up uninvited. We also do not dig in Hollywood horror flicks. For us, they are amateurish as compared to Asian horror movies. If you would ask us which movies topped our list, we would unanimously say: Shutter (2004, Thailand), Ringu or "The Ring" sequels (Japan), Ju-On: The Grudge( 2003, Japan), Sukob ( 2006, Philippines), Feng Shui (2004, Philippines), Phone ( 2002, Korea), The Eye (2002, China) and its remake "Naina" (2005, India). We had these "standards" when it comes to these movies but the truth is I do not follow these standards because honestly for me they all scared the worst out of me. In fact, I always had my eyes covered and had her tell me whether the ghost had appeared already. So, more often than not, I would join her at the middle of her "horror" shout.
When we finished our nursing degrees and started working in the same hospital, we still had not outgrown this behavior. We would rush to the same mall even after our afternoon duties and would watch the last show where the cinemas were always unpopulated.
Two days ago, I watched the horror movie "Coming Soon" (Thailand) with BIE, my brother and his girlfriend just to join the Halloween bandwagon. The movie had scared me (as all horror movies do) but the experience was different. There were no popcorn, it was on daytime and my armpits were all sweaty because we watched it at home.
It's been years since I last saw a movie with her. Maybe now we would have different standards when it comes to these flicks. The only constant thing is that we would always refer to each other as " the horror buddies" and the physical distance between us would not at all erase that fact.
