Mom & Me Four Archive

    That's right. Mom came out from her darkened bedroom at 0030, first to go to the bathroom, then to check if my excitement about the movie was being satisfied. She also invited me to sleep with her in her bedroom if I "[got] too scared, but you must bring your own pillow," she warned.
    Although there had been a promising bit about a woman locked in a jaw breaker who'd managed to survive and a bit about an obsessed detective also held possibilities, neither was well used in the context of the movie. By the time my mother appeared, hanging over the banister, I was suspicious that nothing was ever going to really happen in this movie: The story lagged from about 10 minutes into it; the situations had become so familiar as to border on boring; the "surprises" were bereft of horror-shock value. Although I was determined enough to see the movie through to the end, I wasn't so involved that I couldn't also attend to my mother in the bathroom. I knew I wouldn't miss anything important.
    As I was complaining to my mother about the movie, she decided to stay up and watch the rest of it. At the end, even though (or maybe because) all the mysteries were solved, the psychopath remained loose (often key to evoking a lingering sense of horror) and the "last" victim remained unrescued with no hope, as the credits begin to roll in the wake of the victim's last scream, "Noooo, Nooooo," I was disappointedly shaking my head. I noticed, peripherally, my mother was, too.
    "I guess I didn't get in on enough of it to get scared," she said.
    "Trust me, Mom, none of it was enough."
    "What was that other movie you mentioned?"
    I confirmed that she was referring to SE7EN, which I'd discussed when telling her what I knew about Saw.
    "Maybe we could watch that one."
    Not a bad idea. As I queued it on our rental facility, I got to thinking. "You know what, Mom, I'm wondering if there is an 'age' when people are most likely to enjoy horror and, once you're past that age, you're immune."
    "I couldn't tell you. I've never been scared by any of those movies."
    Neither have I, not truly, not even as a child. There are times, though, when the elements of horror grip me. They don't necessarily have to be a contained in a movie or story in the horror genre. Scarface, for instance, has that effect on me. The imbedded biographic tale about Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects has that effect on me, although the rest of the movie does not; not even the end. Unbreakable has some classic subtle horror moments for me, although they don't include the crime sequence toward the end of the film. Hell, the witch, Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty had that effect on me, I loved her, although I dismissed the rest of the movie.
    "Well," I said, "maybe I need to see if I'm beyond that stuff. Would you mind if I watch movies, over the next week or so, that I remember having a horrific effect on me?"
    "Not at all," she said. "I think I'd like to see that seven movie."
    I was about to say, "Good", when I recalled the scene in which a john is clad in a particularly viscious penile apparatus and forced to fuck a prostitute to death. "Well, I should tell you, one of the scenes is unusually upsetting, and it involves sex," I warned her.
    She leaned over the arm of her rocker toward me in the mock confidence, "You know," she said, "I know about sex."
    I laughed. "I'm sure you do, Mom, but I don't think you know about the kind of sex featured in the film."
    "If I don't like it, I'll just close my eyes."
    So, I guess I'm about to find out if memories of proper provocational horror would match me, now. It'll be interesting to view Mom's reactions, too.
    Anyway, to bed. As I've been writing this post, Mom's been up twice more. If I stay up any longer, there's a possibility that neither of us will make it to bed tonight.
    Later.