Over on The Bathroom Monologues, John Wiswell lists 8 Things Hollywood Can No Longer Make Creepy.
Challenge accepted!
John's list:
1. Toys
2. Exterior shots of old houses
3. Non-threatening songs played suggestively
3. Non-threatening songs played suggestively
4. Children
6. The hero/heroine/stoner-best-friend leans into the unlit
house and asks if anyone is there.
6. Any lone person standing still on the sidewalk/yard/street, staring up at us.
6. Any lone person standing still on the sidewalk/yard/street, staring up at us.
7. Festering piles of bugs.
8. Skeletons
Why did John have two #6 but no #5? I don't know... maybe the "anyone there?" and "lone person on the street" were tied for sixth place.
Anyway, here is my attempt to make these creepy:
Late in the day, when everyone in your new neighborhood has retreated to the glowing isolation of their big screen TVs and small screen online lives, a lone child sets up an old steel card table on the deserted sidewalk. A torn and rain-stained sign on the front of the table says, "Lemonad - 5 cents". Instead of facing the street, though, she sets the table facing you in the old house you bought. You wonder about the parenting ethos of the neighborhood you've moved into, but think no more of it as you get to work on what you hope will be your peaceful third-floor writing office.
Long into the evening, as you work on your fixer-upper she is there, staring up at the exterior of your old house - staring up at you. You ignore her as the fading light shrouds the street in misty blackness. It's near midnight that you, stupid with fatigue and dizzy with the fumes of paint stripper, finally turn off the halogen work light and look out the window. Only then do you realize that she is still down there, behind the table and lit by the full moon. You try to open the grimy window to call out to her, to ask her if she needs help, but the window is stuck, frozen solid under six generations of old paint. With a rag, you wipe the grime and cobwebs away from the glass to get a better look. In the dimness, she is still staring up at you, untroubled by the swarms of mosquitoes that cluster around her eyes, nose and mouth. On the table in front of her are two naked Barbie dolls... and four rat skeletons, neatly wired together. Without looking, she is having the rat skeletons mount the dolls in an unnatural display.
Shocked, you lock eyes with the girl. Through the glass and from a hundred feet away, you hear her whispered singing: "Isn't anybody going to listen to my story? All about the girl who came to stay..."
Behind you, the lights in the hallway go out, and the child's voice comes to you from the darkness: "Ahhhh, giiiiirrrrlllll...... giiiiiiirrrrrrrrlllllll......."
"Hello?" you say. "Is anyone there?"
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
I had a good laugh at the end!
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