Horror Film Countdown Day 24 – Movies Anxious Parents Should Avoid

Welcome to our countdown to the most anxiety-inducing horror films for parents!  Today is day twenty four!

Each day, we are covering the films I both love and hate because they’re awesome and they give me panic attacks now that I’m a mom.

Can you believe we are already on #8?  Today’s movie could be a terrifying ghost story, depending upon your perspective…

Disclaimer: Trigger warnings are a given when you talk about horror, but I’m going to say it anyway.  Many subjects covered by horror films are disturbing to parents in ways we can’t possibly understand and each is unique to the parent and his/her experiences. Tread carefully and know your limits.  If this begins to be too much, there’s no shame in closing the window.  Also, this post contains some spoilers throughout. 

#8. The Others

This film probably doesn’t bother most normal people, I admit.  I am not a normal person however, so let me explain why this movie is on my list and so close to the end.  I realize it’s 99% my own version of crazy and I’ll be really surprised if anyone else can relate to this at all.

Anyway, here it is… this film about a rational, God-fearing mother who loves her children and does everything possible for their safety.  She lives on a gorgeous island just off the coast of Great Britain in a my version of a dream house.  It’s always foggy there and the haze is forever thick across the property.

The children suffer from photosensitivity and must not be exposed to light.  The mother has, because of this deadly condition, gone to great lengths across the house to keep the light out and away from them. Her analogy is perfect and provides an eerie sort of imagery; “This house is like a ship and the light must be kept out as though it were water”. Every door must be closed and locked behind anyone walking the halls. No door may be opened without first making sure the one behind has been closed.  This regimented lifestyle makes the world a dark, closed in and isolated place for everyone in the home.

Her rational mind that does not believe in things unseen begins to be tested as doors open and close on their own, things move around the house without explanation, her children see and hear things around the house.  Voices and crying can be heard with no explanation.  It’s a chilling sort of haunting… one that leaves you breathless in it’s realism.  You don’t see transparent people or dead hands opening doors, no “scared cat tricks” and absolutely no in your face scares.  The haunting is all too believable.  The mother becomes frantic, the children are terrified and the mysterious household crew seems to know much more than they let on.  She suspects they must be behind the strange noises and are trying to make her crazy to steal her home.

She becomes fed up with her situation and tries to leave the house.  She becomes so enveloped in mist that she loses her way… while wandering around in the white sheet of fog, she sees another shape wandering through the haze.  Her missing husband, assumed dead in the war, barely recognizes her, but seems relieved.  He returns to the house with her, but is not himself.  He is distant, off somehow in ways she can’t quite place.  He seems disoriented, almost as though he has no idea where he is.  He tells her he cannot stay, that he must return to “the front” and that the war is not over.  When she wakes the next morning, he is gone.  The occurrences continue and she becomes incensed having reached her limit with the irrationality of it.  Even though she tries to pretend it isn’t happening she knows something is not right.

She thinks she understands… she is wrong.

Once we realize what has happened and the horrifying truth of this terrible story becomes clear, we see a grieving mother who cracked and then forgot.  We see two preciously innocent children doing their best to understand.  We see a sweet lady and her friends trying desperately to help them all to cope with “their new situation”, to help the mother ease into it softly and to lead them through it with as little fear as possible. Even when she rejects them after realizing the truth; that they are ghosts… they still come to help her, because she and her children are also restless spirits, they just don’t know it.

So, why is this a film on my list?  It’s a twist on a ghost story where you realize you’ve been anxious for the ghosts as they realize who and what they really are.  The story is actually tragic and terrible and there’s really nothing to fear from it unless you are suffering severe postpartum and you worry you could hard your babies.  (In which case, see a doctor and don’t screw around with that)

Well, because it’s all because of a secret, terrible thought that comes to mind from time to time.  I’ve never shared this with anyone, so consider yourselves on the inner circle of my insanity from here on out.

What if I actually died in childbirth and none of this is actually happening?  Or, what if my fear of driving with my kids in the car isn’t because of just of stupid anxiety, but actually because I was in a car crash that killed all of us and none of this is real.  What if I am afraid to drive long distances by myself with the kids in the car because I’m afraid of triggering a memory I forgot?  Or, maybe I’m just in a coma dreaming about this after suffering major head trauma somehow… or maybe I’m in a mental health hospital and I’ve blocked the death of my children out of my mind because it was too horrible to think about.  I’ve slipped into some kind of euphoric, delusional state where I am living out the life of parenthood I expected to have, but its not really happening because I’m really in a white room, medicated and lucid someplace that smells like bleach… or maybe just all of this is happening in my brain the split second before I die and I actually died years ago, before I even had babies… in a car crash or a heart attack, or maybe I wasn’t as lucky as I think I was all those nights I walked for blocks to my car at 3am in Hollywood after the club was closed…

You may think, “woah, she’s a nut bag”, but really- take a minute to think about it… How would you know? Would you be able to tell which world was real if you never saw anything but what was right in front of you?  Most people are so caught up in the day to day and in their own heads, they don’t even really stop to take notice of their surroundings.  How many times have you said, “wow, where did my week go?” or, “I can’t believe it’s already October when it feels like it was just June last week”. What if that were actually true and you have no concept of time because you are no longer living within the world of the living and time moves differently for you now?

I changed the date on my block calendar a few weeks ago, like I do every morning and realized; it was six days later than the last time I had changed it.  I swore I had done it the day before… This film embodies that strange, secret thought in a way that absolutely terrifies and honestly it doesn’t bother me unless it’s been days since I’ve been outside just milling about doing my day to day work with the kids and the house, but it is something I think about, especially since this film came back into my life recently.

So, now you know my big secret fear.  I’ve often thought about writing a short story based on it and someday I might, so don’t steal my idea or I’ll have to kill you.

So that’s that.

Tomorrow we are going back to the 80’s to one of the scariest movies of my childhood.  Come back to check it out!