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The "Blair Witch" itch | page 1, 2
So it's no wonder that some men would rather concentrate on their girlfriends' fear than admit their own. For instance, I first saw "Seven" with my friend Gwen, an actress who routinely incurs emotional scars from scary movies but continues to see them nonetheless. Needless to say, we were both petrified by the movie and not too proud to admit it. When I saw it the second time, however, my then-boyfriend pooh-poohed the ending as "dumb" and kept pointing out how scared I'd been, and how cute it was that I'd jumped and flinched at the grotesque parts (when, truth be told, I had been a fairly sedate viewer this time around). At dinner afterwards, he actually pretended to pass out face-down in his penne alla vodka like the movie's "gluttony" murder victim. I indulged my boyfriend's foolishness: If he wanted to work out his fright by thumbing his nose at it and using me as a vehicle to express it, fine. At the other extreme, I also recall a guy from grad school -- a real player -- who loved to seduce women by launching into indignant soliloquies about the glass ceiling. He assumed that revealing some apprehension during "The Silence of the Lambs" would earn him brownie points with his date as a sensitive quiche-eater -- but she never went out with him again. He was convinced it was because she had a double-standard about emotional honesty. (He was also certain it wasn't because he'd failed to charm her, or to convince her that his fear was genuine.) But while male simpering might be repellent to many women, there are times when even the most he- Cal State-L.A.'s Fischoff, who felt "physiologically ravaged" for three days after seeing the original "Diabolique," doesn't think there's anything "childish" in adults' fear reactions either. "When a film obliterates our defense mechanisms, the child reemerges. What's reemerging is in the DNA of the human species. So we keep the lights on because we don't know what might happen in the dark. We take our clothing off our chairs at night because we don't want them to come alive. And yes, it's good to have someone in bed with you, to help you remember reality."
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