30 Day Horror Challenge-Day 19: A horror movie that gives you nightmares

For the next 30 days (or whenever I stop being lazy and finish it), I will be giving my fingers short bursts of exercise by completing the 30 Day Horror Challenge, found here. Hopefully it will give you a bit of insight into what horror is for me. Don't forget to check back every day for a new installment.

Day 19: A horror movie that gives you nightmares

I'm sure that with this horror challenge people are losing respect for me by the post, so let me through any last cred I had out the window and answer today's challenge with the 2004 remake of The Grudge. Let's be uber clear here, I AM talking about an American remake of a decent Japanese flick, with Sarah Michelle Gellar in it. I stand here, unashamed (ok, slightly ashamed). There is a bit of a disclaimer here though. I have never watched a horror that has completely freaked me out to the point of giving me nightmares, or having leave the lights on. Never. But The Grudge was one of the first truly scary horrors I saw in the cinema. I had seen plenty of others before this, including the other somewhat slicker remake, The Ring, and though it had jumps in it, it was an easy bared experience. But The Grudge? Hell no. I have a brilliant audience to thank for one of the greatest cinema experiences I have had, as people were uneasy within minutes of the film, and quick off the mark to scream. 

Sure, everyone laughed at how silly we all were jumping at this silly little film, but we were still all in the zone for it, still jumping, still wringing every moment of tenseness we could from the film. I didn't have bad dreams after it at all, or even feel uneasy walking home in the pitch black dark, but one odd side effect of this group hysteria was I found myself on edge with some other films I watched, even if I had seen them before. Case in point, Resident Evil, a film I bemoaned as a bad adaptation of the great video game and just generally a bad zombie film in general. I had seen it before, with no worries, but I vividly remember lying on my couch, knowing exactly where the film was going to end up and- GAAAHHH! Where did those crows come from!? What the heck!? Why did that freak me out this time and not before? 

It wasn't a great film, but The Grudge was scary, at least with the crowd I saw it with, and it left a lasting effect at that informative time in my horror education.