Based on actual events...

Words like these will get me every time.

The first scary movie I remember watching was 'The Amityville Horror' which my best friend Hilary and I went to see with our vivacious (that's 70's for Gay)  friends Del and Pep.  I don't think we saw an awful lot of the really frightening parts because I'm not sure who was more scared; and who's knees were raised the highest and who's eyes were covered most.  And the main reason for going with  male friends was because we thought they'd be able to protect us - ha!
(In fact Del has just reminded me that Hilary and I were so terrified afterwards that he couldn't control us in the car on the way home and he got stopped by the police - ah, selective memory).
It freaked my poor teenaged head out.  To think that things like this actually happened.  No, they did - it said it was based on actual events.  And following this, I couldn't ever look at the time 3:15 without wanting to barf with fear - let alone actually go to the loo at this time in the morning - no matter how painful.   And there was no reassuring Google back then to look up whether the whole thing *really was* based on actual events or not.  If I'd believed it might have been purely for entertainment and shock value then I'd have been much less worried about things that went bump in the night as I grew up.

'Poltergeist' was the next one.  And that, again, was supposedly based on actual events.  Blimey - there was a lot of this stuff going on out there - it really made you wonder what 'other worlds' we lived with.  And this was a lot more animated with chairs flying across the room and kids disappearing into television sets and a bit of a Scooby-Doo ending where you find out the house was built on a graveyard... bit predictable but it's the based on actual events that sells it to me.
'Blair Witch' had the hype of the millennium. Didn't it, though?  Actual footage and all that jazz?  Who wasn't desperately looking forward to going to see this, whatever they believed? And this time it wasn't just 'based on actual events' it was based on 'found footage' as well.  But for me, it turned out to be a bit of a "meh" film (probably as I'd only just tripped out of an Aberdeen bar at three in the afternoon carrying rather more Vodka in my veins than was entirely justifiable for that time of day so my levels of gullibility were, shall we say.... fuzzy to say the least).  And all that camera shake brought my hangover on rather suddenly, so...a pile of twigs.  That was the scariest part?  Seriously?  Although my partner at the time said the most unbelievable part was the fact we'd  swapped cash to watch this shite. True enough.

Cue the 'X-Files' .  Quite the most perfect TV series I've ever had the good sense to become wrapped up in. Only made irritating by the adverts that sliced through the drama, charm, fun and imagination of this spellbinding glory that never failed to deliver.  Okay, I know the X-Files never claimed to have been 'based on actual events' but it does lead me nicely to the film we watched last night.  Have you clicked to watch the teaser above?  Believe me - if you have even a milligram of  uncertainty about what might be Out There then you HAVE TO WATCH "The Fourth Kind".  I'd never heard of it before.  And from reading the guff on the back it looked like we might have rented a lemon because it said not only was the movie based on actual events, but it also contained actual footage and documented evidence.  Yadda Yadda... heard it all before.  But, I kid you not...I very nearly pulled the Hubs fingers off with the twisting and the pulling and the squirming I did.  And I can't remember the last time my mouth was so wide open without some kind of culinary delight waiting to be shoved inside.

Remember the Exorcist?
Now triple it.  I'm not kidding.  There's a scene that will have you gasping with shock.  Seriously.  Spewing, twisting heads and mothers sucking cocks in hell? Pah!
And it's based on actual events. Not it is - it says so.
(I'm really looking forward to our evening with 'Paranormal Activity' tonight - compared with this, it'll be like watching 'Pinocchio' and that was scary enough.  Right?)