What’s a book or movie that genuinely scared you?

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When I was very young, 3 or 4 years old, I had an experience with a horror movie that scared me so much that I literally fell sick. This happened in 1987-88 when you could rent a VCR and a VHS tape and watch movies at home.

My uncle brought The Evil Dead movie along with a rented VCR. He was a young boy himself and he wanted to watch the movie because it had gained somewhat of a cult following in India as one of the scariest movies ever made. There were rumors that there was a cash reward for anyone who could sit in an empty theater and watch the entire movie but no one had won so far because they either ran out of the hall or got so scared that they died! Of course, now I know that such rumors were just a marketing ploy but as a child, I thought it was all true.

My mother told me to sit in the other room and play but I was so scared of the movie being played in our house that I didn’t want to leave her side. So I laid in bed with my head in my mother’s lap and covered my eyes with my hands. Of course, I couldn’t resist peeking through.

That’s how I saw the entire movie, and then I got so scared that I wouldn’t leave my mother’s side for weeks. If she was working in the kitchen I’d sit in the kitchen. I wouldn’t go outside and play alone or with friends. We had an outhouse for a toilet and I made my mother stand outside while I pooped every morning. If she didn’t agree, then I would refuse to poop!

After a while of this, I literally fell ill with typhoid. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence but at the time it felt to me as if I had gotten so scared that I had gotten sick.

Since then I’ve never been much of a horror buff. I saw The Ring and The Exorcism of Emily Rose in college with friends. But since then I haven’t really seen any horror movies at all. Not because I’m afraid I’ll fall ill again, but because I just don’t enjoy the sensation of being scared.

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