I haven’t been using this blog to its full advantage, so I’m going to. Right now. Suck it up, this is a two week late Halloween edition of blogtastic Lauren’s life.
Most traumatic Halloween on record for me was probably in 2000. For the third year running I was scream. Along with three of my friends. Yes. Four screams all trick-or-treated as a group.
I thought I was a dude then. Still. Oddly, the wearing the same outfit as three other people. Not the reason for the most traumatic Halloween on record.
The reason for that would be:
The Blair Witch Project.
I know what you’re thinking. What parent in their right mind would let their 12 year old(yes, I was 12 in 2000.) see the Blair Witch Project on Halloween?
Well that’s a trick question, my mom not in her right mind.
My sister and dad went up north for the weekend and the conversation went something like this, if I recall correctly, “Hey Lauren want to watch this really scary movie at night with the lights off? You’re on the fence? Okay we’ll do it. It won’t be too bad.”
I was already nearly pissing my pants because I was much less of a hardass than I portrayed on the outside. This was very difficult because I was a 12 year old girl, which is not a hardass at all. So much the opposite of a hardass that when you’re acting like a scardey-cat people accuse you of acting like a 12-year old girl. I was worse than average at this point in time because I spent all my time pretending to be tough and never getting any opportunities to prove it(Catholic schools frown upon fighting, the most hardass thing I did was curse like a sailor).
So Gail and I curled up on our couch with all of the lights off and watch these three young people get lost in the woods and terrorized by a largely unseen mystic body who leaves them a scavenger hunt of body parts and creepy arts and crafts. Also piles of stones that the young people somehow knew were signs that she would kill each of them.
I mean just look at the craftsmanship.
I was wigged out in particular by the unseen cackling in the woods and the fact that near the end of the movie our power went out. Yes. I still am not sure if this was somehow forged by my mom, but we had to get out candles to go to bed that night. I was certain that our power going out was a sign that the witch knew we had seen her film(because clearly, with the witch’s name in the title she would have something to do with the production aspect. bare minimum perhaps some sort of executive production credit); and if the witch knew about that she would know other things like how I was thinking about her and would feed off my fear. Also let me take this opportunity to tell you about how my mom had allowed me to watch other horror movies in my childhood, and none of them did too well for my psyche. So after this minor neurotic breakdown in silence, my mom insisted I go to bed. And by go to bed, I mean I went in my room and waited sitting up in silence for the witch-beast to come and steal my soul. Because clearly something that evil is a soul stealer.
As soon as daylight hit the next morning, I rocketed my ass out of bed thrilled to have beguiled the witch one night after having known of her existence. I ran out of my room and was about to run up to my mom’s room and make sure she wasn’t dead when I tripped over a pile of rocks. Yes. In the hallway outside my bedroom, the witch had laid out a pile of rocks. Her signal that my time was running out. I may or may not have peed my pants at this point, I have no shame in saying that. I ran up to my mom’s room and she reacted quite blasé over the whole our house being invaded by spirits situation. She looked at my shaking terrified self and said something along the lines of suck it up, nothing is going to happen and the witch doesn’t come out in the day so you’ll at least be okay until nightfall.. I could not believe her especially after going into the yard and seeing some of the witch crafts pictured above (in retrospect, my mom had to have woken up reasonably early to put together all of the pieces to this. I would like to justify this as she was just so dedicated to whatever lesson and entertainment she was shooting for). I spent the next few days terrified to sleep. I recently found a diary from that time period in which I wrote about my terror then scratched out the phrase “Blair Witch” because I was so scared the witch would know that I was talking smack about her and turn up the heat. I didn’t hear much else from the witch until later that week when in my lunch I got really cute miniature recreation of the whole heart wrapped in cloth surrounded by a bundle of twigs made of a Swedish fish and pretzel rods. Precious. I realized my mom was behind it all and was able to sleep again, but was slightly confused until I found out she was trying to teach me a lesson. Didn’t totally know what that lesson was.
The moral of the story is either: my mom is brilliant or don’t believe everything you see on tv. I ended up getting a degree in theater and wanting to be in film so I don’t think I learned the latter. Which would you go with?
Lauren Uchalik 