Story time, everyone. Gather ’round. What else you do you have to do right now? Binge your 40th-something hour of Netflix? I’ve got movies to watch too, but this will just take a few minutes.
I’ve been keeping myself sane for the last few days (since Friday the 13th to be exact, the idea for this post already planned before finding out I’m off work for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time) by catching up on all the Friday the 13th movies. Why, you ask? Because Friday the 13th was the first horror movie I remember being exposed to. I may have seen others before it, but it’s the one I remember being terrorized by so badly that the story keeps getting brought up by family. Anyway, story time:
When I was 11, I was the youngest person in my church youth group. Yes, this story involves church. The kids who were younger than me were in elementary school, so the decision was made to put me in with the high school kids. Periodically, we’d have church lock-ins, basically a big sleep over inside the church. I remember two things from probably one church lock-in: playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark and discovering a Dorian Gray-esque painting in a back room and watching Friday the 13th, courtesy of my brother, who is about three and a half years older then me. Why the adults let him bring it to a church lock in, I don’t know, but, honestly, I would’ve ended up seeing it at home eventually. My mom was pretty casual about what we were allowed to watch. Funny thing is, after all these years, I can’t remember exactly which Friday the 13th movie we watched. For years, I told people it was Part 3, but the first one makes more sense. While rewatching the series this weekend, I had a really strong flashback to having seen the end of Part 2 as well, so I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE. All I know is that it was a movie from the beginning of the series and it was definitely my brother’s fault. Even now, he’ll occassionally text me with a horror movie title he’ll dare me to watch.
Here’s the thing about church lock-ins: NO ONE SLEEPS. So I didn’t have any bad reactions to watching whichever movie it was right away. About a month later, I had nightmares. Unfortunately, this was at the tail end of a long stretch of childhood insomnia that my mother was, frankly, just over. So, I have dreams about Jason chasing me and go knock on the door to her bedroom. She goes upstairs to my brother’s room on the third floor and all I can hear is, “This is your problem, you deal with it!” and then footsteps. Suddenly, I realize there are scarier things, like an angry mother and an annoyed older brother in the late hours of the night. I think I pretended to be asleep because I don’t remember an actual interaction. But I never watched another Friday the 13th movie until I was in my 20s and definitely saw Part 3 (in a theater, in 3D. Special screening.) Frankly, in my teens, I didn’t really watch horror movies unless I was with friends. The first horror movie I remember seeing by myself in a theater was Saw 3 and I had to keep talking myself out of leaving (out of fear, I happen to like the Saw franchise).
My favorite part of this story happened when I was in my early 20s. I’m gonna guess it was October, because I remember Friday the 13th being on TV due to it being constantly interrupted by commercials, probably on SYFY (pronounced SIFFY). I was unemployed and seeing a lot of movies to keep myself sane. I was also back living with my parents. I had probably just seen one of the Saw movies. So, I’m settled in front of the TV in the late afternoon watching Friday the 13th. My mom comes home from work, comes around the corner into the living and just looks at the TV. Then looks at me. After a moment she asks, “Is this the best idea?” It’s a great idea, Mom.
What The Flick 