Horror Fan: I'm Doing it Wrong

We file into the theater in an amoebic cluster, inappropriate jokes and raucous laughter echoing down the dark hallway. We are fifteen and sixteen and have finally been given parental permission to join the ranks of mall rats, and seeing the "scariest movie of the year" seems like the most logical way to kick-start our new freedom.

Even the poster intimidates us, so plain and yet so striking. A wide, bottomless eye stares out at me through a shroud of black, stringy hair. If not for the text spattered across the strands, I'd have sworn she was coming from the wall itself (in retrospect, it was probably done that way on purpose). I stare at the poster for what seems like forever, letting it all sink in and nearly jump in my skin when my shoulder is tapped. It's about to start and, like proper mall rats, we need to get front and center.

It's everything we expected and even more that we didn't. Violent deaths, houses with large, ominous windows, and plenty of dark corners for creatures to spider-crawl out of. We jump and assuage nervousness with forced laughter, and they tell me they'll never look at my cat the same way again. It's over far quicker than we would like it to be and we begrudgingly rejoin the ranks of obedient children.

I'll later hear that we all had trouble sleeping that night. Some swore they heard the low, throaty gurgle of the strangled wife, while others told me of the yowling boy that haunted their dreams. But, for me, it's different.  While the images had been beautifully frightening, I find myself overwhelmed no by fear, but by sorrow. They were fictional characters, but the anguish they felt was so real. How terrible an existence it must be, to be doomed to relive your pain for all of eternity, through no fault of their own. I pitied them, more than I had pitied the living (real or otherwise), and I shed my tears for them, like most would for the melodramas.

It is that bizarre reaction that keeps me coming back to the theaters, that strange desire to feel what they do. To watch these poor souls, forever trapped and lonely, and praying to whatever god will listen that I don't end up like they do. I no longer sit front and center, tucking myself away in the back row, where I can jump and yelp and even cry in peace.