The Scariest of Them All
- Horror -
By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
SOME people don’t scare easy. I’m not one of them.
If you were watching a horror movie and heard someone hyperventilating at the back just as the background music swelled to the inevitable horrific climax, that would be me. If you caught “What Lies Beneath” in a Makati theater and recall hearing someone squeal during that crucial bathtub scene, that would be me. That click of teeth biting cuticles into a bloody pulp during the “Sixth Sense” premiere? Yup, me!
Now you know why I don’t watch scary movies all that much; I don’t fancy having a cardiac just as the bug-eyed zombies catch their prey. I can imagine people discreetly kicking my prone body to hide it under the cinema seats while they relish the gory scenes that they’ve paid good money for. Even my kids would be annoyed. This is the best part and you have to die now?
Blame my yellow streak on a potent imagination fueled by generous doses of mythical monsters from Pilipino komiks, the “Gabi ng Lagim” TV series of the mid-60s and a succession of chatty househelp from the South who regularly threatened us with sanguine tales of kapres, aswang, manananggal and other local ghouls to get us to finish our food, take our naps and keep still. The Taong Tuod of Mars Ravelo’s Darna novels similarly haunted me years after they chased the townfolk of Barangay Puntod. Just when I thought I’ve wrestled them down to oblivion, they resurrected themselves in my dreams.
