What's Your Favorite Scary Movie?

Pardon me for the cheesy caption line, there are some temptations you just can't resist. But, seriously? What's your favorite scary movie? When I was younger, I loved scary movies, they were easily my favorite genre. Luckily for me, I happened to have a friend who liked them as well and had a ton of them. The dramatic music, heaps of gore, and piss your pants moments just gave me the chills and always made for a fun night of trying to sleep. I liked to watch the good stuff too. The Shining, Stephen King's It, Red Rose, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, stuff that has cult followings now. I mean, come on, a movie about a guy who kills people in their dreams? That's a pretty good way to keep people up all night.

Lately, it feels like movies haven't been as scary as they used to be. I was starting to think that maybe I was just too old to get scared by make-believe anymore. The shock factor just didn't shock me anymore. Which brings me to the reason that I'm typing this blog up at four in the morning. I saw The Conjuring tonight. The movie had me jumping, squealing, biting my boyfriend's arm, and even screaming every once in a while. It's the first scary movie I've seen in a while that made me genuinely feel like I might piss my pants. You know what that made me realize? Scary movies don't have much shock value anymore. Most of them are all about suspense and no action. When you go see a scary movie these days and the dramatic music comes on, you tense up, preparing yourself for something that's gonna make you cry for your mommy, and it never comes.

It's gotten to the point that movies have trained us to expect to be let down... which is why The Conjuring is so scary. It's the first movie I've seen in a while that actually plays the dramatic music and then something freaky happens. All the movies I've seen before it have managed to make it even scarier due to the fact that, even though I'm preparing myself for a piss my pants moment, I don't really expect one. Well, The Conjuring says 'screw that' and jumps off the top of a wardrobe at you!

The movie was very refreshing amongst all the pseudo-documentaries and more-suspense-than-horror movies I've seen lately. I'm honestly quite tired of the pseudo-documentaries ones. Sometimes, when you try too hard to make something seem real, it all just seems that much more fake. But, what do you guys think? What's your favorite scary movie? If you've seen The Conjuring, what did you think? Feel free to let me know!

P.S. The Conjuring is apparently based on a true story. Call me silly, but I didn't know that until the end. Eeek!