Boy watching horror movies a scaredy-cat

The other night was the first time I have been without a roommate. He moved out, and I am still here taking summer classes. So what did I do? I watched a really bad movie about a masked man who sneaks into people's houses and slits their throats. It probably wasn't the best film to watch because of my newfound loneliness, and that turned out to be true when I kept the television on while I went to sleep so it wouldn't be too quiet.\nNow you are all probably thinking that I am a pansy, but I'm not. Okay, maybe a little bit, but you would do the exact same thing if you were in my situation. I'm not the biggest fan of horror movies and they really don't scare me, but the after-effects of thrillers sometimes get in my mind and make me believe there are things there that really aren't. So, because I get scared, I'm going to talk about a few things that scare people in movies.\nMurders\nSo this is obvious. People get killed and we get scared. To me this isn't that scary, especially if it is with a gun. Maybe violence has desensitized me to gunplay, but someone getting shot in a Mel Gibson movie isn't that terrifying to me. Maybe it's because I feel like knives and chainsaws are bloodier, or maybe I feel that Sergeant Riggs won't ever shoot me because I am not a bad guy trying to take over the world. That's really what it takes to scare me, being in a situation where I may be killed because of something I cannot control. If someone jumps me in the dark woods and chops off my head while I dry off from skinny-dipping in a lake alone, I should be killed because that's just dumb. Just make sure you're never in a dumb situation, and it's okay to check the toilet seat for bombs if you felt that "Lethal Weapon" was a movie you may soon be in.\nAliens, monsters and the living dead\nNone of this stuff scares me. I just do not find these things to be very realistic. When I walk out of a zombie film I never think that later that night I will have my brain devoured by dead people. Now if I were in any of those main characters' situations, I would be pooping my pants. If a little alien popped out of my friend's chest, first I would laugh… a lot. Then I would think, "Man that's a good trick." And a few hours later when I realized my friend wasn't joking, I would get off the spaceship and hitchhike back to earth. But that's just the thing; it's never going to happen, so I would never "fear the reaper," to quote The Blue Oyster Cult. And if for some reason vampires started walking the earth, I would fight for a while, but I wouldn't be that worried of getting their VD (Vampire Disease) and getting turned into a vamp because living forever on my friends' blood isn't too bad a life.\nThings that jump out\nNow this is chilling. Walking backwards through your darkened high school expecting one of the classroom doors to pop open and your psychotic biology teacher jumping out and trying to kill you with a scalpal is frightening. This actually happened to me at my school, but my teacher wasn't wearing pants. \nIf you too are scared of things that jump out and attack, then you are human. I don't care who you are, you will be scared if this happens to you, and I really don't have too much advice for how to not be scared of it. Just try not to think about it so much you pansy.\nMusic\nPossibly the scariest part of any film is the music. Whether it's the, "kill, kill, kill," in the "Friday the 13th" films or the really freaky Michael Myers theme, music is what makes us fear our soon to be killers. Now, I have never been in a life or death situation with a stalking madman, but I have been in many life or death situations with lions, and I have never heard the creepy music in the background. If this is what's so scary, then why do we get frightened after the film? There really is no reason to be scared of murderous villains if there is no music. Now if you start to hear music while you sneak around that corner, then you are in for a real scare. But if it's Motley Crue singing "Girl, Girls, Girls," you're in a strip club and you may only possibly be scared. \nSo what it all comes down to is that I get frightened by things that might actually happen. After I saw "Scream" the first time I was scared because my parents were gone that week and I had the house to myself. Now that I think about it, the only times I really get scared is when I watch a scary film and afterwards I realize that I am alone in an empty house. So maybe I'm just really scared of being alone, the type of alone that means no wife. Oh well, if that is true, I still can be a vampire.