COMMENTARY
Squelch film fear: Wear hooded sweatshirt, pray

By Barry Koltnow
Orange (Calif.) County Register

I was a teenage squinter.

There, I've said it. It's out in the open. I don't have to hide my head in shame anymore.

When I went to scary movies, I squinted. Even on a date, I squinted. Peer pressure couldn't stop me from squinting. It was the only way I could get through the scary parts.

I am now above squinting.

I noticed that I didn't squint once during a recent screening of "The Ring Two." Oh, it has some scary scenes (same dumb logic, of course), but I suppose I've become so mature that I no longer have to squint.

However, I was surrounded by people who were considerably less mature than I, and it was fascinating to watch how they dealt with their fears. And I'm not even talking about the woman behind me who kicked the back of my seat each time she got frightened. Kicking the back of the seat in front of you is not an acceptable method for alleviating the shock of scary movie moments.

Acceptable methods:

1. Hands over eyes with fingers spread. It doesn't count if your fingers aren't spread. Then it's the same as closing your eyes. But it has been shown that if you look at the screen through your fingers, the evil cannot harm you.
2. Laughing. The reason laughter works so well is the same reason that screaming works so well. If you make a loud enough noise inside your head, you can't hear the scary music, and if you can't hear the scary music, whatever's happening on the screen can't hurt you. It's a fact, Jack.
3. Scrunch down in your seat. A five-year study at the Harvard University School of Scary Science concluded that people who sit very low in their seats cannot be decapitated during a particularly frightening sequence involving an ax, machete or other sharpened instrument.
4. Go to the bathroom. If you were to ask all the people who run to the bathroom "during the slow parts" why they left, they would probably tell you that being scared makes their bladders jumpy. Don't believe it. They run to the bathrooms because they're a bunch of chickens and they can't stand the intensity of the movie.
5. Wear a hooded sweatshirt. I noticed that two young women sitting in front of me employed this method to save them from the creepy long-haired girl who climbs out of the well in "The Ring Two." After the movie, both women were still alive, so this method appears to be viable.
6. Pretend that you got an important e-mail on your Blackberry. I watched two grown men across the aisle use this lame method. One of the men — an Internet movie critic — stared at his Blackberry for what seemed an eternity (another excuse for not looking at the screen) and then rushed out of the theater.
7. Dig your nails into a friend. There are some societies, and even some neighborhoods in New Jersey, where the merits of scary movies are judged by how much blood you draw from the person sitting next to you.
8. Hold your breath. This is a proven method, although it could cause complications if the scary scene runs particularly long.
9. Pray. This is not to be confused with the praying you do in a boring movie, such as: "Please let this movie end soon." In a scary movie, it's more like: "Please let me live through this movie, and don't let Jason follow me home."
10. Stick your fingers in your ears and hum "America the Beautiful." This will annoy even the screamers, but you are entitled to do whatever it takes to make it through a scary movie.