When I’m driving home from work in the middle of the night, there’s a stretch of Interstate 81 where I’m often the only car on the road. It’s where the highway splits-off, takes a sudden upward slant, and heads toward the Sno Mountain ski resort. And it sometimes gives me a mild case of the willies.
If there are other vehicles around I don’t think too much about it. But when I’m all alone out there I get a tad uneasy. It feels like I’m in the first thirty minutes of a horror movie, the part where they’re letting you get to know the characters – so you care about them once the slaughter commences.
Also, there was a (made-for-HBO?) movie several years ago, that often pops into my head when I’m traveling that road at night. It starred Meat Loaf, if you can believe it. Yes, good ol’ Meat drove around in an eighteen wheeler, picked up foolish hitchhikers and whatnot, and mutilated them inside the elaborately tricked-out rolling death chamber, hidden inside his trailer.
I remember making jokes about that flick when I first saw it, but it’s stuck with me – for years. I find myself thinking about it more often than the movie probably deserves.
And what if I break down on that desolate section of 81, and a “trucker” comes to my rescue? How will I know he’s really hauling Ritz crackers and/or medical waste? What if the pallets of tuna on the back of his rig are merely a façade, hiding an amputation laboratory with a blood drain in the floor?
Stupid Meat Loaf… he’s gotten inside my head, maaan.
But luckily, it’s only a few miles, and the uneasiness quickly fades. Once I reach the top of the “mountain,” everything returns to normal. That is, I start to see Pizza Hut signs again, and it’s not quite so Donner Party.
Is there a road, a house, or just a section of town or whatever, that gives you a case of the irrational heebie-jeebies? Tell us about it, won’t you?
And, while we’re at it, what movie that you know is retarded, has had an unexplainable lasting effect on you?
Use our fancy-pants commenting tool, and I’ll see you guys later.
Joe T. – I did break down on the Cross Bronx (or close to it) right near the City Island exit and some dilapidated high-rise buildings. At night. With my 2 cats. On my way home to Philly for Thanksgiving dinner. I was 20-something and my Dad came to rescue me. I waited in the a little convenience store – the kind that lock the customers OUT because the neighborhood is so rough. I have a vaguen recollection of getting high with the two clerks while waiting. With my 2 cats.
Driving across the New River Gorge Bridge always creeps me out. Low guardrails and a long drive over 865 feet of air atop a boulder studded canyon gives me the willies. But if I think about Richard Gere strolling through the real Point Pleasant in Mothman Prophecies I feel better.
Every Martin Luther King Blvd’s in the country freaks me out man!!!!
Salem’s Lot-thanks Steven King, you rat bastard, now vampires could come out of any wall, anywhere. I slept in a ball as far away from the wall for 2 weeks after seeing that movie at 12 years old.
For some reason I always feel safe in my car. However I do have this weird thing that happens when I get home late. I’ll get out of my car to go in the house and suddenly I’ll feel like something is chasing me. There’s been a few nights when I slammed the door behind me.
BTW, Laura’s right, the Grudge is awful man.
I saw a made for TV movie as a kid that has been w/ me for all these years. You should netflix it….good stuff. It was directed by Wes Craven (!) and it is called Stanger in Our House. Linda Blair was in it!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078330/
Oooh! Carlos reminded me of a road that creeps me out. Michigan Avenue down near old Tiger Stadium – actually, as long as I stay on Michigan Avenue, I’m fine, but if it’s even slightly evening-ish, I won’t turn down the street that leads to the old train station – that building freaks me out royally. Actually, if I’m being truthful, I won’t turn down that road during the day either, if I can avoid it. I’ll find another way to get to Mexicantown.
There’s this one scene in “Saving Private Ryan” that gives me the heebie-jeebies. This German makes his way up to a room where one US soldier ends up in a fight with him. They go back and forth and the German ends up on top of him and starts pushing a knife into his chest. The guy struggles and the German says, “Shhhhh, shhhhhh, it’s easier this way.” (or something like that). Gave me the frikken creeps.
There’s this one stretch of highway in Huntsville, AL where you’re coming down from an overpass that gives me some anxiety when it rains. The road isn’t drained properly (I guess) and small lakes form at the bottom of the hill. I’ve hydroplaned and almost hit the wall of death several times. The way I deal with it is to roll down my windows and speed through it while screaming, “Come and get me! Come and get me Mother F**kers!”
Driving Mrs. Daisy – makes me want to never take an old bag for a long car ride for fear of committing capital murder.
So, someone named Limey is busting my ass. Wow.
I believe it was The Craft where two girls are in a garage and the door springs come off and kill one of them. i am a little scared to open my garage door since. Stupid I know but I have that image in my head every single time. I don’t remember anything else from that movie.
CHUCKY CHEESE CREEPS ME OUT
I remember as a kid seeing one of those “Herbie” movies in the 70’s. There was some kind of dream sequence where Herbie (a VW Bug for those not in the know) opens up its front trunk, which is filled with crocodile-like teeth and chases some kids or something. Not too clear on the rest because I tried to run out of the movie theater at that point.
Also, my Mom foolishly took me to see The Shining in the movie theater. I was 10 and not at all into it. Went into the theater lobby for several extended periods.
oh, yeah. And really long bridges freak me out to cross.
And reaalllly windy roads.
And narrow roads with teeny-tiny guardrails and huge drop-off.
i didn’t have much fun in the hills above Palm Desert – I think it’s rt. 74 into the San Jacinto Mountains. :::shudder:::
Funny how that stuff comes flooding back to you.
Bazooka! Cool … huh-huh…
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned The Shining yet. Gah. The twins were the worst.
The Ring put me off horror movies for good (so says I), but I love Shawn of the Dead and all the Evil Deads.
My gauge of movie goodness is how much I think about it the next day or two. Maybe your gauge is busted.
I’ve never been creeped out while driving. If I do get the jibblies, I just tell myself I’m the scariest thing in these parts, so whatever wants to jump out at me is gonna get a whuppin.
That, or a vision of a pasty balding man shitting himself. Either way, it’s going to be unpleasant.
Fields/farms, pecans grow on trees!
I need a bowl of corn a weiner and, oh, excuse me sir, I see you’re alone but I can tell you’re not lonely. Do you mind if I join you? Great!
Jeff,
You are just a piece of Man-ass waiting to be harvested on that road.
In st. louis they converted the old city hospital into condos. Me and the ex went and looked at the show model, to get there you had to walk down a creepy dark, dank hallway complety with dripping water. It was just eerie.
It reminded me of Session 9.
As a kid when I had to walk out to the garage to turn the light out at night I just knew that werewolves were going to get me.
When you hear a banjo (or more) playing, then start worrying.
I didn’t mention “The Shining” initially because I thought we were supposed to list bad movies. But yeah, empty hotel lobbies with o.c. levels of symmetry about them always give me the willies thanks to that movie.
Tilly: I had a home inspector once who kept punctuating his admonishments of what needed attention in the house with horror stories. For example, the washer connection had old hoses so he brought out the Wilfred Brimley voice and said something like, “1982. Larry Burman went on a ski trip for the weekend. His rubber hoses broke. He returned to a flooded house and a drowned hamster.”
You know, incredible stories like that which probably never happened. When we got to the garage he had this to say: “1992. Mary Waters. Had old springs in her garage door. One evening she raised the garage door for a smoke. The spring broke and took off her ear.”
I burst out laughing, of course. Which unfortunately killed the stories. But yeah, now I think of Mary and her ol’ ragged Van Gogh ear whenever I look at the garage door. Better replace them springs soon, I reckon!
As a child the Amazing journey 70’s ? where they injected miniature people into a guys body totally freaked me out! I was sick and frightened to death by it. Also Amityville horror, I saw a picture where Africans were eating maggots off of a dead body don’t even know the name of it perhaps The gate? was perverse to say the least, Also Hellraiser #1 was sooo bizarre.
Horror is my favorite genre, so good or bad, most “scary” movies don’t actually bother me. One of my wife’s favorites, though … “Beloved” creeps the hell out of me. Part of the movie revolves around the ghost of a toddler girl. You keep seeing the girl as how-old-she-would-be-if she’d-lived but she’s still got the baby mentality. A creepy, dead-eyed 20 something girl wandering around, moaning the baby-talk equivalent of ghostly wails. YEEKS ! Give me a good old fashioned zombie horde anyday !
Wherever there’s people who have McCain signs in their front yards.
And my scariest movie of all time that still freaks me out is either House of 1000 Corpses or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The old one. That guy in the van!! *shudder*