I am not a huge fan of horror movies. There are too many cliches or tropes. The sexually active high school girls always paid the price. When I was a kid and my sister used to be stuck babysitting me, she’d put on Friday Fright Night movies.The classics like Frankenstein and Dracula. I would hide behind the big chair during the scarey parts like when The Monster threw the kid down the well. I binged on vampires for a while but now it’s zombies thanks to the great writing and acting on The Walking Dead. (Could Norman be any more cool?)

That’s about it for scarey movies and tv shows. I’m a woman which means I am less visual than a man. Give me a scarey book any day. My imagination can fill in the blanks better than any author.

I think the scariest book I remember reading was Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. I didn’t pick up on the vampire angle right away but once I did, I was afraid to sleep in the dark. His novel The Stand also freaked me out and still does every flu season.

But overall, I’m not an easily scared person. At least fictionally scared. I get terrified over reality. LIke the people who drowned when their whale watching boat capsized off B.C.  Or all those Syrian refugees facing a frigid winter in makeshift “camps”. Or the thought of anything happening to a dog. Or a kid. Or an old person. Anyone vulnerable at risk terrifies me.

That’s why I don’t really like Halloween. Carol had a great line in the last TWD when she chastized her neighbor for smoking. “There are already too many things that could kill us.”

Amen. I don’t need fictional fears. I have a closet bursting with real ones.