The Devil Inside wasn't scary. So here's a list of things that are.

I like scary movies.


I’m not talking about the crazily gruesome Saw/Human Centipede variety. You couldn’t pay me to watch those.

But genuine horror movies, when done well, are awesome.

A good horror movie doesn’t just make you jump during the film—it does that too, don’t get me wrong—but a REALLY good horror movie will keep you scared LONG after you leave the theater. If you’re not cowering under the covers with the lights on for a week, the movie didn’t do its job.

Stephen King is, of course, the master of horror. The movies of his books didn’t really scare me, but I’m still haunted by some of his creations. I first read The Shining when I was twelve years old, and to this day, I STILL have to turn on the lights when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night to make sure that the chick from the bathtub in room 217 isn’t in MY bathtub.

Paranormal Activity didn’t scare me THAT much until my calendar fell off the wall about an hour after watching it. But it succeeded because I definitely debated putting baby powder around my bed to see if a demon stepped in it that night, and made Rosie sleep on the outside of the bed, just so the demon would eat her first.

The same thing happened with The Ring. I wasn’t particularly scared at the time. But when I fell asleep with the tv on a week later and woke up that night to snow on the screen, then realized it was EXACTLY seven days after I’d watched the movie, I went diving into my roommate’s room and insisted on sleeping in her bed. Turns out the cable was just out, but I wasn’t taking any chances!

But there’s nothing worse than a failure of a horror movie.

Trust me. I know from experience.

Because I saw The Devil Inside Friday night and it was the second worst movie-going experience of my life. The first being having to watch the anal rape scene in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sitting between my mother and grandmother on Christmas day. Seriously. It was up there with THAT level of bad.

The problem? There wasn’t a single truly scary moment in the whole movie.

Literally, the scariest thing that happened in it was when the characters walk past a fenced-in yard and a dog jumps out and starts barking from behind the fence.

I’m not kidding.

And considering that the previews looked super-scary, I don’t understand how it can have epic-failed as much as it did.


People in the theater actually booed when it ended. I’ve never seen that happen before.

I could summarize all of the reasons why it completely sucked, but I’m not even going to dignify the movie with that level of description. Instead, I’m going to give you a list of things that scare me MORE than The Devil Inside.

1. Stink bugs—I almost crashed my car on four separate occasions when I noticed stink bugs in my car. MUCH scarier than that movie.

2. ET—That little alien scares the crap out of me. I mean, he appears to me made of brown leather, his heart glows, he hides in your closet and eats all of the Reese's Pieces. NOT okay.

3. Twilight fans—these tweens are going to be running the world someday. Be afraid.

4. Joan Rivers’ face—do I need to explain this one?

5. Lady Gaga—I like her. I do. But I'm also scared of her.

6. Peeing on the third rail of the Metro—granted, I’m a girl and would have to literally be right on top of it to try this, and I have no intention of ever doing it. But if you really COULD get electrocuted from peeing on it, that’s scary as hell.

7. Cats—pure unadulterated evil. Except the ones that look like Hitler. They’re ok in my book.

8. Walt Disney’s frozen head—okay, say they find a cure for whatever killed him and bring him back. He’s just going to be a semi-defrosted head. I think if you’re dead, you need to stay dead. And if you’re frozen, STAY FROZEN.

9. The MVA—Call me sheltered if you will, but I never realized the scum of humanity that exists until I went to renew my driver’s license. I’d stay in the Overlook all alone for the winter over going back there, ANY day.

10. Those condoms that are advertised as being 40 percent thinner—I don’t know about you, but when it comes to something that’s supposed to be protection against AIDS, less is NOT more. I feel like if you use those, to quote Mean Girls, you WILL get pregnant and die.


11. The old ladies who walk around buck naked in the gym locker room—Like okay, I understand you need to change your clothes in there. But do you need to dry your hair naked? Or try to have a conversation with me? It’s disturbing!

12. The lion and tiger habitats at the zoo—every once in awhile, you hear those stories about the jungle cats just deciding to leap over the wall. And I know they can. So the lesson here is, do NOT taunt the tigers. They CAN eat you if they want to.

13. Walmart—I’ve never been there and I have no intention of going there. But looking at peopleofwalmart.com means that I know Walmart is scarier than that movie was.

14. The Loch Ness Monster.

15. Pennies--No, they’re not scary. But neither was The Devil Inside.  Then again, my brother swallowed one once.  So next time you're handing a penny, just remember, someone might have pooped that out before you touched it.  Come to think of it, that's pretty scary.  And gross.

16. The fact that someone actually green-lit this idiocy of a script and MADE THIS MOVIE. Seriously. Our society has reached an all-time low point now.

All I can say is the The Woman in Black better be actually scary, despite starring Harry Potter. Because I’m planning to see that one, and if it’s even half as bad as The Devil Inside, the creators of those movies are going to have something REALLY scary to fear.

Me.

Because I want a refund on both the money AND the time I wasted watching that crap.