Quiet. Don't make a sound. It might be right behind us. What was that noise? Don't turn around. It could be right there!
While this could definitely be the inner monologue of someone in a manic study group who's scouring the library for a missing USB drive, it's actually something I tell myself to get hyped up in scary situations.
Any Halloween buff will tell you: You're not getting your money's worth if you're not getting scared. This phrase may seem a bit confusing out of context, so let me offer you a few situations I ran into this year where I observed people getting the most (or least) out of getting scared.
Scary movie time: No jumping allowed!
The price of a movie ticket is $8 for one adult at our local theaters, and that's for your regular movie. If the film you're out to see is 3-D, then you've got an additional $2 to pay. Of course, we are lucky to be living in St. George. Ticket prices in bigger cities with better theaters usually costs about double those prices.
Regardless of ticket price, though, the fact is clear as a Proactiv model's "after" face that you (or your date) are spending money to see something scary. You're doing it on purpose.
My friend and I went to see a scary film a few weeks back. He paid. Suffice to think he'd want to get his money worth. Oddly enough, it seemed as though he was set on throwing his money away.
Now it's true that many so-called scary movies (if not most of them) are laughable. But that doesn't mean you can't get yourself in the mood and have a good time.
The film we saw was a little gem called "Apollo 18." It truly sucked. But sucking never stopped me from enjoying myself. I got as into the movie as I possibly could. I tried to wind myself up for startling situations, and I even found myself jumping a couple of times.
But something in the movie theater was pulling me down. To the right of me sat my friend who audibly sighed in annoyance every three or four minutes. Every time I jumped, he looked at me as if I were a naked homeless man trying to sell fresh salt-water taffy. His mood-strangling mood was literally taking all the fun out of seeing a bad movie.
He paid! If I had ponied up the bucks, I would want to make sure to get my money's worth. After all, this is two hours of our lives we are never going to get back. Shouldn't we make them enjoyable, or at least memorable?
You can make any good movie bad just by ruining it with your Debbie Downer mood. Consequentially, you can make any bad movie worse with the same attitude.
But, you can make any bad movie good just by picking out the best parts and making the worst parts even better. I mean, look at "Rocky Horror Picture Show!"
My friend did not get his money's worth because he refused to admit we were seeing a scary movie. Was it because he didn't want people to think he could get so easily startled? Was it because he was just grumpy from work? Was he a general sourpuss? Or was he just a captain sourpuss?
His money was lost, and all he got out of it was a set of dry back teeth from all the sighing.
Folks who don't realize a scary movie is scary because the audience has to suspend its disbelief for just a couple of hours get a rating of four out of five days locked in a closet full of whatever their phobias may be. People with acrophobia will be placed in a closet with a glass floor—suspended above the Grand Canyon. People with agoraphobia will be thrown in a field. Look those phobias up if you haven't heard of them.
Here's what will help you get your money's worth: Don't be afraid to let others see you jump in a movie theater. If you're a gal, it will get your man to hug you and protect you. If you're a guy, it may help your date see you've got a softer side. Or, it just might prove to everyone around you that you're so comfortable with yourself that you don't care who sees you get scared.
Welcome to the haunted house: Only idiots scream
Halloween is the perfect time to spend some hours and bucks on a good haunted house. Actually, Halloween is pretty much the only time you can do this. So when you think about it, getting scared at a haunted house is even more precious because most of them are only around about a month out of the year.
Captain Sourpuss and I went to Las Vegas to check out Circus Circus' Fright Dome. We read it was one of the best haunted attractions in America. I myself used to work at the No. 1 haunted attraction in America, so I'm all for sizing up the competition.
A ticket to the Fright Dome is about $40. Add to that the gas it costs to get to Las Vegas and back and you have a pretty pricey trip on your hands just to get scared.
I guess it's just naïve of me to assume anyone who would pay more than half a Benjamin to get scared would attempt to milk every scream for its dollar worth. I was wrong.
If you haven't guessed already, it was the same friend I went with to the movies who accompanied our troupe of Halloweenies to Vegas. Needless to say, he was a buzz kill.
At first I was on the same page as he was. I found the place to be too loud and too crowded to be scary. The first maze we went through was nothing more than a guided tour by some bad actors through a maze of half-assed "Halloween" (the movie, not the holiday) decorations.
It would have been easy to fall into the "this isn't scary and it's a waste of time" mentality. So I took a step back and decided to get my money's worth.
The next maze we went through was different. I held our group back from the tour guide. We got lost. We got terrified. Well, when I say "we," I mean my mother and me. My friend refused to get scared.
What's worse is when I tried to explain my whole reasoning behind acting like a little girl, my friend refused to believe me. I pride myself on being a very Halloween oriented person. I love getting scared, and as the years go by, I find fewer and fewer things actually scare me.
So I have to make myself get scared. Such was the case at the Fright Dome.
It's amazing how quickly things turned around when I started shrieking like a Justin Bieber fan who thought the latest Chipmunks movie was just a sequel to "Never Say Never." Suddenly the actors started paying attention to me. Where they were ignoring me before, I found they were going out of their ways to focus on me. I sure fell like the belle of the monster ball.
It was on me to make the whole trip worth it. I could have easily left complaining about the dollars dropped on that excursion, and how much money and time we wasted. Instead I left feeling like the cash was well spent.
My buddy, however, came out with as sour a puss as ever.
If you're going to spend mucho bucks on a Halloween haunt, then you need to make the effort to be scared. If you stand back and pretty much dare the actors to scare you, and then don't react, then you're going to make the actors ignore you. I mean, who wants to waste time on somebody who can't be scared? You'll leave feeling disappointed every time.
So to those of you who are too cool for ghoul and refuse to get scared at haunted houses, I'm rating you one full year of a nightmare-filled coma. How you get there is of your own accord.
A free scare: Machismo takes precedence.
Getting your money's worth doesn't have to apply to only things you pay for. In fact, some of the most fun and scary times can be had for little or no money at all.
A few friends and I went on spooky tour of the St. George area a couple of weeks ago. You can find the video of this tour on dixiesunlink.com.
My goal for this little horror trip was to get scared of nothing. I had planned for all of us to take one car and get in the mood on the drive. Things hardly ever go as planned, though.
Two of my buddies opted to take a different vehicle. So the whole "group getting in the mood" tactic fell off my truck of terror. Those two buddies were most likely not telling scary stories during the car trip like my passengers and I were doing.
I can just hear their conversation now.
"Dude, that chick was so hot."
"Yeah. But not as hot as that other chick."
"Dude."
Needless to say, when we got to our first destination, I was in the mood to be scared. The two who chose the secondary vehicle were in the mood to giggle and laugh. I don't think it helped that there were two females in our group. I think this elevated the testosterone levels in the males. In other words, the whole "I'm too cool to be scared" mentality was taking over.
I don't think our group fully got scared until we came across a field of pissed off horses. I think that's when we all fully realized what hoofing it meant.
But even when we were faced with the real-life possibility of being trampled by a bunch of ponies that were far from "My Little," the two men's men still acted unswayed by the angry horses. Did the two guys run in Girl Scout fear like the rest of us did? Nay.
If you're going to intentionally seek out a scary place with the ultimate goal of finding something spooky, then guess what? You'll need to put a little work in yourself. You can't get scared if you're discussing shooting or girls or the combination of the two.
To my buddies, whom I adore, I have a little review. I think each of you needs to spend every night of next week in each haunted place we visited—alone. Either that or you can spend each night of the week with Captain Sourpuss. You decide.
Have a happy Halloween
If you want to have a successful spooky 31st, then you need to stop expecting everyone else to do all the scare work. You need to meet halfway, like so many meandering politicians, and get yourself worked up, too.
Otherwise, you'll be left feeling like you didn't get your money's worth. Have I said that yet?
What's your favorite Halloween activity? How do you get in the mood? Are you hell-bent on having a good time? Or are you like Captain Sourpuss—hell bent on proving to everyone that you will never have fun? Let us know. Find Dixie Sun and The Skewed Review on Facebook. "Like" us, and follow The Skewed Review on Twitter @SkewedReview.
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