Are You Afraid Of The Dark? Duggs Watches Midnight Mass

I love so many things about October. The temperature dropping, the Sun setting earlier, and of course, football. There is however one thing about October I do not like: Being scared. I understand that's a big part of the season, but it's just not for me. I'm a laugher, not a screamer. Believe me, I understand the desire to scare and get scared. I get that it can be exciting and thrilling and so why people do it is not lost on me. I'm simply not wired that way. My brain will not allow scary to be enjoyable. That may be why I love comedy so much. I've convinced myself "You can't laugh when you're scared, so if you're always laughing, you'll never be scared".

Growing up, I was terrified of Chucky, The Leprechaun, and IT, just to name a few. I never really thought of Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers. Those guys were still scary to me, but my imagination would really go wild with the less realistic figures. This is odd because it goes against what one might expect. The more realistic characters, (i.e. a man in a mask holding a knife) should be scarier, since that is more likely to happen than some killer clown from outer space, but my 8 year old self disagrees. Now that I'm older, I can watch those movies without an issue. I still don't desire to watch the movies, but I can watch them, which is progress.

Over the past few years, I've begun to push myself to watch things that I know will scare me. I'd like to say it's because I don't get scared anymore, but unlike Kevin McCallister, I still do. "Did you hear me? I'm still afraid!" Although I do still jump easily, even in non-scary situations, I've realized that if these things were real, they probably would have gotten me one of the first 12,138 nights I was alive. Also, I've come to appreciate the art. The Haunting of Hill House scared the hell out of me when it came out in 2017. I legitimately thought I broke my neck from a certain "jump scare" scene in that show, but the story was captivating and it had one of the best one-shot scenes ever. They even built the set a specific way with an open elevator contraption just so they could do this scene and it was wonderful. If I have to sit through some jump scares here and there to make sure I don't miss out on that kind of art, I will. That is why I'm going to start watching the third installment of this Haunting series, Midnight Mass and I'll be recording my reactions along with it. Let's get scared together!