Getting Over My Fear Of Chucky

Fear is a fickle thing, there are several types of minor fears, major fears, and unfathomable fears. What I saw in 2004 on the outside of the Regal Cinemas wall of posters was a moment I wouldn't forget because it was the second time in my life I saw something beyond my child's comprehension, but the first time I felt fear in my core.

It was a poster of Seed Of Chucky.

What I saw on that poster was a fear I didn't know I could feel just by looking at the grotesque look that I never thought could be created. I couldn't comprehend my reality to not be scared of something that doesn't exist but my brain made the horrifying images of what it did.

The first time I ever really got scared of a horror movie, I didn’t have to watch it, the cover was everything they told me what was going on, my mother and I finish watching the Incredibles in 2004, I was walking along the concrete to look at the movie posters. I didn’t understand what the movies were about, but I just love looking at the covers and seeing if I could understand the story. And then I stopped at this one poster, it stopped me right in my tracks as the overhead light spotlighted this poster. Comprehending horror is tricky at any age, most people are scared of scenes. I was scared just because of the picture on the cover, the cover told me that this scarred monster was going to do something with the baby. I was petrified to wonder what would happen to the baby in that carriage.

I remember going home and I didn’t even wanna put my back on the seat because I thought that if I put my back against the car seat that he would reach out and get me and I couldn’t get out, my mother did not know why my behavior was so strange and why I was so tense. My fear got the best of me.

The idea of something I did not know, and not knowing what sinister scary nature the monster would do. It developed various scenarios that would come out of nowhere. I remember being in a classroom and then that thought would hit me faster than the snap of a finger. I wouldn’t hear what my teacher was saying, I will just be looking down at my paper as my mind developed this very terrible idea about what that monster was, What would it do? Why did it look like that? Could it do something to children? What would it do to that baby in the carriage?

My mom and I were at K-Mart, and while she looked at the electronic equipment, I told my mom I would look at the DVDs. I wondered at all the rows of DVDs and looked as far as my gaze could carry, I went to the next aisle and I was curious about the DVDs in the glass case. I looked at all the titles of video games I would never play and shows I wouldn't watch until I was much older, but there was one thing in that case that I recognized. I saw the picture before I saw the title. It was Chucky, I remembered the title Seed of Chucky, and this one was just called the Chucky series. I went through the same feeling I did that night I looked at the movie posters. I recognized that monster and did not know that there were more movies about this thing. I was put in the same paralyzing fear and I stared at the scratches and menacing look of scars and a sinister face. I told her that this thing scared me.

When I told my mother about this, she did what she usually does poke fun at it. So any opportunity she had, she went for it as soon as she knew I had forgotten about it, she did this for years. When we would make our Friday afternoon K-Mart run after work and school, we would peruse through the cheap DVDs and find some snacks. While I was looking through one pile, she said, “Hey Sami! it's your favorite movie!” I'm confused as to what she's talking about, I look up, I get startled and say "fuck!" in the middle of the store, she laughs, I get mad at her for about five seconds, she put the DVD down, and then we move on.

A couple of years later, my mom and I were on a pre-Christmas shopping spree to find any Naruto memorabilia, we went to Spencer's after hearing they have Naruto merchandise. The Spencer's store had a unique atmosphere, the employees wore masks, and there was always an ice machine on to smoke up the store. There was thick fog all around, I followed my mom to talk to the employee, as we headed out, what did I see on a little chair at the entrance? A Chucky doll. I thought it was bad before when I saw the image on a poster, then on a DVD, and it was just an image. To see an actual doll made, I couldn't move, I pointed it out to my mother and she urged me to hurry up. I held onto my mom's navy blue sleeve and kept my eyes down.

I heard it move.

I still remember how fast that fear surged through my body after hearing the noise. Every time I see Chucky it's like gaining a level in a video game but I have no health meter just a fear meter.

As time went on, it wasn't just Chucky that terrified me, it was the genre of horror. I didn't want anything to do with it. My mother knew about my fear and did some harmless fun once in a while, my friends knew of it but never pushed it, then I made one friend that pushed me a little too hard to watch horror movies with her.

This friend utilized horror movies in her way, she had told me her parent had a love of horror movies so this parent of hers had forced her into watching horror movies. From what I understood from it, her upbringing was to conquer your fears fast by lying to that person to watch it. That tactic was done to her, so she found it normal and had no idea that she was doing it to me. She enjoys horror films and wanted me to enjoy them with her. When she wanted me to watch horror movies with her, she did just that, a trick. She said, “Hey you like Casper right?”

She had asked that when she was explaining the movie, The Grudge. It's a ghost movie, so it had that comparison, but the term vengeful spirit would have been a better choice of synopsis explanation.

On Friday, a friend of mine, my mom, and I went to Wal-Mart, and we found the movie. Seeing the poster it wasn't at all what she mentioned. Using a friendly ghost story to be the synopsis to describe a movie about a Japanese not-so-friendly ghost. It was terrible, but I had no idea what The Grudge was so I had to go off of what she was saying (even though I should’ve used my context clues). At first, I thought it was a boxing movie because of the title!

It had me confused as to why she lied to me about the premise, but I didn't go back on our Friday sleepover promise to watch this movie. It was time I got over my fear of horror movies.

We put on the movie, I even opted to have the living room lights off and only have the kitchen lights on for a source of light to have. The movie began, clenched my hands on my jeans as I tried to keep myself calm. Then my friend screamed at me to scare me before the scary scenes came up. When she screams, it's louder and more unsettling than anyone that screams out of fright or to frighten someone. She was trying to get me into the horror film, but I didn't like it because it was for amusement. I didn't enjoy the horror film at all, to someone like me, it was cruel because I was tricked. She knew I couldn't handle that amount of horror, on a scale of one to ten, it was a seven, I needed to work my way up in those numbers to being OK with horror at my own pace. But again, she was 14 years old and just wanted to have some fun. She didn’t know how this was going to affect me in a way that extremely mortified me that I could not take it.

To watch a movie, you do want to know what you’re getting into but you also don’t want to be the subject of someone else’s amusement. So by being lied to, it was a terrible thing to know that someone lied to me just to get my reaction about a horror film in one of the worst ways possible. But that's my opinion.

Now, what did that have to do with Chucky?

Chucky came up into conversation here and there for our sleepover movies, She continually said we would watch Chucky, she pushed it and I told her it would never happen.

After that incident, I started to gravitate slowly into horror movies but with a different mindset that I want to know the story. Just knowing, it's a piece of fiction that had a lot of work put into it. It's just actors, writers, and a production all working a story out to present. Knowing the realism factor, helped me not be so scared. For anyone that wants to get a horror film look up the trivia because that is going to help separate the fiction from becoming a fear factor and not letting this fear completely overwhelm something that truly does not exist and there’s a stronger mindset going into a movie. And then everything came full circle at 18, and I was ready to watch one of the Child's Play movies. I would face the first fear a monster that only existed in fiction.

About four years later, I end up meeting a wonderful friend named Lincoln, I met this creative and caring girl at a comic book shop for a cosplay panel we were both hosts for. When we became friends, she told me she loves horror movies. At the time, my fear of horror films was getting very minimal. I only watched the ones I was comfortable with, she was much more neutral and understanding that not everyone is going to get into the same type of horror movies. It gave me a lot of comforts to know that she wouldn't push a horror film I did not like. In any horror movie we watched, she thoroughly explained to me what the premise was about. Never leave out any details and tell me if there is anything I need to know.

I had told her about what happened to me about my fear of the Chucky series and I wanted to watch one of the films despite some residual fear that lingered.

So she did the most wonderful thing for me, she put on the second movie of the series on Netflix. She said the sequel did not have all the frightening stuff from the first one. As mentioned, she loves horror films, she watched a lot of them while working on her cosplays and craftwork. She knew my level of courage for horror films and worked with it so we could both watch the film together. When she said it wasn't going to be scary I believed her because she didn't lie to me. I believed her because she didn't overhype the movie or pressure me into watching it.

What she did is one of my favorite memories, there are many memories that I have associated with a movie for how someone watched a movie with me or if it happened to relate to something going on at the time

On the final day of our summer sleepover, she made the perfect setup. Lincoln made us some wonderful grilled cheese sandwiches with Parmesan. Before she went to press play on the movie and went to the lights switch, and said, "I’m going to dim the lights, if you need them on let me know." I said, "Thank you."

And then I watched the movie, I was a little bit tensed up for the first couple of minutes because of that automatic feeling of wondering when something terrible will happen. And throughout the entire process of watching the movie, it wasn’t as scary. It was very stale and campy, which made it very easy to get through the film knowing that I’m not going to be scared since the acting was very hokey. And the plot was easy to understand but laughably terrible. But it just made me happy that Lincoln made sure that I was comfortable going into this film and didn’t want to put on a movie for me just to solely see me scared as my other friend did to me.

A couple of years after that, another wonderful friend came into my life named Darcy who-you guessed it, also loved horror films. She did the same for me as Lincoln did, she accommodated my fears, and she made sure to make the setting comfortable for me. One night on our usual hangouts, we call ourselves, The Batfamily, we would do our tradition in the batfamily to watch a horror movie together. Darcy, her boyfriend, and I would watch a horror film, I saw Child's Play come up and I said, "Let's watch it!" I knew I could do it, Darcy was flabbergasted by my courage and she didn't hesitate to put it on.

And you'll never believe it, I fell asleep watching the movie.

In my adulthood, it became the best time to watch horror movies with the friends I made that accommodated my fears. They wanted me to enjoy the horror movie and gave me a head's up if there was something on my fear factor list.

Am I going to watch the new Chucky TV show now that I've watched some of the movies? No, I'm not. I'm good.