I'm sitting here more wide awake than ever pondering something; what would be everyone's ideal scare, their favorite spook...if one were to be randomly spooked for fun? Would anyone prefer a zombie clawing at his or her front door, or a mummy climbing up from the basement? How about a cascade of spiders descending from an old crack in the wall?

The choice is yours, whether it be something as simple as a cobweb, or something extra creative! So...what would your spook-of-choice be?

Everything that happens in the 1963 movie The Haunting raises the hairs on the back of my neck. But most especially the scene where Theo and Nell are cowering in the bed and Something out in the hallway is pounding on their bedroom door, looking for a way to get in.

A similar favorite scare is from the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, where Something from outside is attacking the fortified home of Dr. Morbius.

An ideal scare for me always involves some unseen, unknown Something on the other side of the door.

-- Nephele

An ideal scare for me would be something bizarre or surreal. At least if by "ideal" you mean "interesting." Fast zombies would be perfect. More realistically, angry crowds work too.

For me it's anything supernatural that pops out of nowhere...just hearing things doesn't scare me as much.

Oh, interesting thread! Spook of choice?

Well, if we're talking about enjoying this spook (because there are some that I would not enjoy, like werewolves), I would say having a spirit of some type disturbing my dreams or popping up out of nowhere to "recruit me". Either that or a vampire chasing me through the woods at night (so long as I was armed with a stake).

Minecraft is the only game that has genuinely terrified me. Play it and you'll understand.

Ha ha...it's the Creepers, right? My boyfriend used to scream every time one popped up!

-- Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:07 pm --

I love this! Everyone has such awesome answers so far!

Not just the creepers. There's far more worrying things in that game.

Demonic hallucinations culminating with a dream of a young girl in white with blondish hair coming to tell me that "It's time." Her eyes glow red and I wake up in a different place than I was before I had slept.


Or, encountering something similar to this : Coffins used to be built with holes in them, attached to six feet of copper tubing and a bell. The tubing would allow air for victims buried under the mistaken impression they were dead. In a certain small town Harold, the local gravedigger, upon hearing a bell one night, went to go see if it was children pretending to be spirits. Sometimes it was also the wind. This time, it wasn't either. A voice from below begged and pleaded to be unburied.

"Are you Sarah O'Bannon?" Harold asked.

"Yes!" The muffled voice asserted.

"You were born on September 17, 1827?"

"Yes!"

"The gravestone here says you died on February 20, 1857."

"No, I'm alive, it was a mistake! Dig me up, set me free!"

"Sorry about this, ma'am," Harold said, stepping on the bell to silence it and plugging up the copper tube with dirt. "But this is August. Whatever you are down there, you sure as hell ain't alive no more, and you ain't comin' up.

Nice one, Orlock!

I love that story. It reminds me of the old jokes about Imperial Ratcatchers in Warhammer.

Yes, only spooks of enjoyment here...because they're fun and we enjoy talking about the dark side of life heh heh heh.

-- Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:14 pm --




Ohhh I'll have to check out both of those! I'm sure I'll love them!

An ideal scare for me always involves some unseen, unknown Something on the other side of the door.

Great answer, Nephele! If there was something outside of my door, here's how the situation would unfold:
Monster: (growls quietly)
Me: (annoyed out of my sleep): "Who is it? Don't you know, it's (insert outrageous time here) o' clock and I'm trying to nap after (insert activity here)?!"
Monster: (growls louder, trying to irritate)
Me: "Alright, alright..." (I scream, but only to humor the monster) "now, you don't come back until tonight when we can make this scare official, otherwise it won't count and I won't find it fun!"
*I then set the alarm for (insert outrageous time here) and continue sleeping.

...suddenly becoming trapped inside a building/ship/factory etc.

it's a recurring dream I'm having at the moment, due to the meds I'm taking for my blood/heart.

gp

If I were to choose a pleasurable scare, probably a vampire. The scary kind, not the sparkly kind, I can douse my girlfriend in glitter if I feel the need!

If you wanted to play a trick on me, then spiders. YUCK.

To really, truly scare me to my core, there's nothing like a malevolent human being. Vampires drink blood because that's what they eat. Spiders sit in my bath because they get stuck there (and possibly because they like being caught and carried outside.) Some people do things, knowing that they're wrong and hurting people, but they enjoy it, and that's much scarier than a fictional monster or eight legged creep!

I agree with you, completely! Such a thing is a huge fear simply because the threat of one's life being in danger is real, as much as we would prefer it to be fictional.