SpaceCase Speaks

Last weekend, I watched not one, but two scary movies. This may not seem that strange for someone who likes scary movies.

I, however, do not like scary movies. But I did enjoy these. For the most part. I kind of ducked out of one of them for awhile.

The first - "The Mist," based on the Stephen King novel (short story? novella? whatever). Basic plot outline - a strange mist envelopes a small town in Maine, cutting off a group of people in a grocery store. Complicating matters, "There's something in the mist!" Yes, my friends, things are popping in and out of the mist, killing the grocery store folks one at a time in various and sundry ways. Add to the mix a religious fanatic, suggesting ritual sacrifices to appease an angry G-d, and you've got human drama to add to the other scary monsters.

I have to admit, I didn't watch all of this movie. I have a low threshold for scary monsters jumping out of nowhere, and an even lower tolerance for suspense, so I had to walk awhile for a while in the middle. I did catch the ending, which I won't spoil, except to say: "Whoa." But from what I did see - great performances all around, especially by Thomas Jane and Marcia Gay Harden.

The other scary movie we watched was Cloverfield, and I LOVED it. I loved the conceit of just a random schmoe documenting the monster invasion with his digicam because "people will want to know." It had a lot of truly unbelievable moments (the roof cross comes to mind), sure, but it also had a lot of moments that seemed freakily realistic (one character's almost catatonic freakout after seeing a monster attack). While I really wished that the girls, dressed in their finery since the monster crashed (ha!) a party, would grab a pair of sneakers or even slippers from one of the many abandoned stores so they didn't have to run all over Manhattan in their HEELS, for the most part I could understand each character's motivation throughout the movie.

Also, the special effects, in my opinion, were fabulous. The destruction of the city was freakily realistic, and the Statue of Liberty head rolling down the street didn't lose any effectiveness despite being shown in every trailer. It was really more of an action movie than a scary movie, but it had my heart beating pretty fast. A great Saturday night movie.

Speaking of which - I don't feel we missed anything by waiting to see these movies at home. I know there are a lot of movie purists out there who must see movies on the big screen, but... I'm OK with DVD at home. It's so rare for us to have good movie-going experiences, plus bad seats and noisy audiences make the high prices that much harder to swallow.

So there you have it - two scary movies as seen by a girl who doesn't like scary movies. Next in the Netflix queue - Juno. Which I suspect is a scary movie antidote.