Horrors! Will you be seeing IT?

Some of you early risers saw this post on Monday... then Las Vegas happened, its own kind of horror and we pulled it. 

HALLIE EPHRON: The big movie this fall is "IT," an adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 novel with a terrifying clown with red balloons as the bogeyman. The reviews are raves, with comparisons to one of my all-time favorite, "Stand by Me." But the trailer (which is all that I have the courage to watch) is terrifying. 

It ends with the question: What are you afraid of? 

Which got me thinking about the scary movies I've seen and the fears they embedded in me. 

"Repulsion" (1965) I'll never forget the scene in this Roman Polanski film with Catherine Deneuve in her nightgown, terrorized by arms breaking through the walls and trying to molest her. Hold the dark hallways with no exit and disembodied limbs. 

"Rosemary's Baby" (1967) I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when I saw Rosemary's Baby, filmed at the nearby Dakota. I still remember poor pregnant Mia Farrow eating raw meat, growing more and more hollow-eyed, and falling into the demented hands of Ruth Gordon. Yes, babies can be scary

"Les Diaboliques" (1955) I probably saw it at the Thalia in New York where they ran classic films. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, it's the story of a man's wife and mistress who drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in a murky swimming pool. Then the corpse disappears and strange things start happening. Best surprise ending ever and it stars the sublime Simon Signoret. Good for decades of murky water and bathtub nightmares.

What are the horror films that are, for better or for worse, embedded in your memory, and will you be seeing "IT"? 

JENN McKINLAY: Not only did I see "IT," but IT has turned into an epic prank war in my house. 

After my people dragged me to IT, I thought it would be hilarious to hide red balloons all over the house. I did not expect the joke to turn on me and now life-size cutouts of Pennywise (Stephen King's terrifying clown in IT) are randomly hidden all over my house by the Hub, the Hooligans and me. There are a lot of jump scares and profanity happening here! 

Truthfully, we're all having a grand time scaring ourselves and while IT the movie was terrifying, it was also funny, and the young actors were all brilliant. I highly recommend IT! 

As for what scares me, the scariest movie I've seen by far was Disturbia (2007) with Shia LaBeouf, playing a teen under house arrest who starts spying on his neighbors and thinks one of them is a serial killer. It was brilliant and almost excruciating (the suspense!) to watch.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I adore Stephen King, but there's no way on the planet I'm going to see IT.  Adore "Rosemary's Baby," one of my all-time favorite movies.

Three horror things. I did see "Scream," which was silly of me and I hardly remember it. BUT the guy who played the crazed psycho killer (Matt Lillard) is one of my stepson's best friends and was the best man at his wedding. That was disturbing.

Also. Years ago, Jonathan and I saw "The Game." It's one of those nothing-is-what-it-seems-some-things-are-tricks-but-what-if-they-aren't movies. We came home, and thought we were alone--when the living room curtains began to twitch. From inside, BEHIND the curtains.  I almost fainted, seriously. (A squirrel had gotten in, and it turned out to be hilarious.)

But my most un-favorite horror movie, so unfavorite that I truly wish I could un-see it, is "The Vanishing." (Not the Keifer Sutherland version, the real one, it's Dutch). You all, it is awful. AWFUL. SO disturbing that it haunts me to this day, and when one of us can't find each other in the grocery for instance, when we see each other we say--oh, I thought you had vanished. And then we shake our heads and shiver. 

Have you seen it? Do  NOT see it.

INGRID THOFT:  Chief Fraidy Cat reporting for duty!  I have no capacity for watching scary movies.  None.  I was recently subjected to the “IT” preview in the movie theater, and it scared the daylights out of me.  

I think it all begin during a fifth-grade sleepover during which, “Poltergeist” was shown.  Between the creepy little girl, maggots in the face, the creepy older lady, and tombstones bobbing in the swimming pool, I didn’t stand a chance.  I remember sleeping on the floor of my parent’s bedroom that night.

There’s an ongoing joke in my house about my inability to watch “Alien,” which is one of my husband’s favorite movies.  I’ve made it five minutes in on two occasions, but as soon as I hear the theme music of the Queen, I chicken out.  Keep in mind, I’ve never made it as far as seeing the Queen (the revolting character who terrorizes Sigourney Weaver), I’ve just heard her theme music and fled from the room.

So, no.  I won’t be going to see “IT.”

RHYS BOWEN: I am Ingrid's equal when it comes to fraidy-cats. I cannot take horror movies, apart from the ones where giant ants/ tomatoes swallow New York. But anything demonic, possessed.... count me out. 

I would never allow the light to be turned off at night again. I'm still a teeny bit afraid of the dark. When I go downstairs to our bottom floor and I have to switch on the light across the hall I always sprint to do it. Silly but true. 

Too much imagination, and maybe growing up in a house that my brother and I swear was haunted. Windows opened by themselves at night. Rugs flapped on the floor and I had this recurring dream of a hooded procession coming up the stairs to my room. So I think that's a good excuse. 

I have read some Stephen King novels but no movies. A publisher once offered me a very tempting sum to write some teenage horror novels. Uh, no thank you, I said.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I can watch old-fashioned horror movies from the days before they were filled with gushing blood and eyeballs popping off the screen into your lap (in glorious 3-D.) Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, ("Look, Damien! It's all for you!"), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 1970s version with Donald Sutherland was so subtly creepy.) 

One that has always lingered is the TV miniseries "Salem's Lot," from the Stephen King novel of the same name. It was, as I recall, shown on two nights. I can remember sitting between my mother and my sister, all of us clutching each other as one after another of the residents in the small Maine town disappear...and then come back. 

The scene with the teenage hero's friend tapping on his bedroom window, two stories up, gives me shivers to this day. I think it still stands as one of the best adaptations of a King novel ever. 

Oh, and another wonderful one from those days: "The Fog." Again, no gore or violence; just the creeping sense of characters being closed in and trapped. Plus it has Adrienne Barbeau, who makes everything better.

LUCY BURDETTE: No, no, no on horror for me! I'm with Ingrid and Rhys--I can't bear to be scared! 

My family was trained early on to vet scary movies and TV and steer me away. I still have nightmares about a few Ray Bradbury short stories that will not leave my head. And I did see "The Exorcist" when it came out, but that's it! 

Give me a romantic comedy any day...


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Can you believe I've never seen Psycho? Never WANTED to see it--couldn't imagine why anyone would. Nor have I seen The Shining. Rosemary's Baby gave me nightmares for years. So I'd say you can count me in the "no horror" group, except that I have seen Alien (and liked it). Maybe alien monsters are not as scary as human ones? Rick and I watched parts of Invasion of the Body Snatchers not too long ago. Hysterical! But still creepy. And he's made me watch John Carptenter's The Thing, which is really really scary, but good. Still, I won't be lining up to watch IT. Maybe once it comes out on video and I can leave the room if it gets too scary!

HALLIE: What are the horrors that revisit you from the movies, and are you going to see "IT"? I confess, after hearing Jenn's comments, I'm going! But not alone...