Scary Movie

On Saturday night, after my birthday party, Luke, Duncan and I headed off to AFDA to watch the student film festival. I was very excited, because the last AFDA film screening I had been to was incredible, and I was really looking forward to this one. Duncan and I were also trying out his new "English literature tutor" disguise, consisting of a smart shirt, tie, ponytail and glasses, and I thought he looked pretty impressive.

We got to AFDA at about 19:30, and soon realised that we had missed the boat, because the students were packing up and the last screening had just finished. We wandered around for a bit, and then got back into the car and decided to head off to Hyde Park to watch a movie instead. The boys had decided that M. Night Shyamalan's new film "The Happening" was the way forward, and I didn't protest, because he is one of my favourite directors. "The Sixth Sense" is one of the best movies that I've ever seen, and I prefer his atmospheric thrillers to the usual blood and gore of most horror movies.

So, having booked our tickets, we walked into the cinema just in time for the start - Mark Wahlberg teaching a science class, while outside in New York City, thousands of people start dropping dead. I won't go into details about the actual movie, just in case you want to see it, but the basic pretence of the film is that "something" is inexplicably making people commit suicide across the state of New York. Is it the government? Brain-sucking aliens? Cellphone radiation? No one really knows, but people continue to spark their own demise in a number of creative - and surprisingly gory - ways.

Now, I didn't mind the fact that the plot was pretty far-fetched, that a lot of the acting was bad, or that a lot of the dialogue was somewhat ridiculous. I didn't even mind the gore (but by the way, since when does Shyamalan use the gross-out factor? Okay, admittedly, it's not nearly as bad as most horror movies, like "Saw", but it was a little strange). What I did mind was the tension and the surprise factor. I have now realised that I am probably the worst person to watch horror movies or thrillers with. I spent most of the movie with my hands clutched around Duncan's arm, and whenever there was the threat of blood, I buried my head into his shoulder. At one point, I even had my hands over my ears. Duncan was quite tolerant of this - seeing "Pan's Labyrinth" with me had probably prepared him for it! At one point, Duncan went to the bathroom though, so Luke was forced to put up with me grabbing his arm and doing the head-buried-in-shoulder thing. This would've been okay, had I not screamed audibly just as whatever was coming to attack the innocent victims suddenly emerged.

I survived the movie - and may have almost enjoyed it - but I was significantly freaked out and rather edgy for the rest of the evening. I have to conclude that I am a terrible person to watch thrillers with - unless the other party happens to like losing circulation in their arm and can put up with me hiding behind them for most of the movie, and I have a feeling that those individuals are few and far between.