Sometimes I Hate Horror

This past weekend saw the first bonafide, 100% summer weather here in Southern California. I decided (along with an annoyingly large number of other California residents) that it would be a perfect day for the beach. I dealt with the traffic, which on its own is enough to turn me into a blowtorch-wielding mass murderer, and the parking; I played human Frogger with the 10,000 rollerbladers on the boardwalk; dealt with the annoying Latino woman with, I swear, 25 Spanish-screaming kids, and finally found myself a relatively quiet stretch of beach. I laid out my towel—a bright pink and orange floral-patterned giant that I’m sure drew my sexuality into question (this is what I tell myself so that I feel better about the fact that the girls didn’t swoon once I took my shirt off.) I sprawled out in the sun for a while, picking up Stephen King’s IT and reading a few pages every once in a while. Once the heat got about unbearable, I shuffled down to the water and swam out away from shore.

It was once I had gotten a few hundred feet out that, out of nowhere, I had a stunning revelation. For years people have asked me what my favorite scary movie is, or what single movie terrified me above all others. I had never really given them a solid answer, because in all honesty, there were so few horror films that left me truly disturbed and scarred for life. There’s a ton that I love, but not many have really left me with an overwhelming sense of dread. Well, right then, with the cool water splashing against my face, I realized what the scariest movie of all time was.

It was a perfect day: the sun was bright, the horizon was sprinkled with the colorful pyramids of sailboats, and kids were laughing, playing in the sand. But out of nowhere, and for no reason, my mind heard DAH-DUH…DAAAH-DUH.

I suddenly realized how far from the shore I was. The lifeguards could never get to me in time if something were to grab my leg in its jaws and pull me under. Were the lifeguards even paying attention? Those colorful sails on the horizon looked less like brilliant rainbow beacons, and more like fins. And no joke, right then and there, I said aloud: “Damn you, Spielberg,” and started swimming towards shore. No other movie that I’ve ever seen has ever ruined a perfect day—especially a year or so after I’d last seen it. So now, for the first time in my life, I can say without a doubt, that the scariest movie I’ve ever seen is JAWS.

This may be a seemingly peculiar pick for scariest movie, considering it’s not really branded as a horror, but then what is horror? Is it defined as a film that scared us? Made us jump? Made us turn away from the screen in anticipation of what was about to happen? Well, then on all counts, JAWS is horror. I literally can not be in the ocean or even a lake without John William’s haunting two note theme creeping out of my subconscious. I see the shot of the woman swimming at night, as we move up from underneath her. I see the kid on the raft get torn apart just out past the mob of kids playing in the water, and nobody even realizes at first what’s happening just 50 feet out into the water. This movie messed me up! How many movies can we honestly say that about?

That is horror to me. That film is a perfect blend of all the different elements that go into making a movie. A director with a great vision; an actor in Roy Scheider who makes us truly feel his fear of the water; and the music, that DAMN music by the brilliant John Williams. It’s two fricken notes! Come on, how are two stupid notes enough to make my heart beat a little faster, make me kick a little harder, make me want out of the sparkling blue ocean on the first absolutely perfect day of summer? I wasted the rest of the day on the sand. My chest wouldn’t be so red today if I had spent a little more time in the water. So if you ask me, JAWS is the scariest film I’ve ever seen…and I’ve got the sunburn to prove it.