Run! Don't Just Stand There and Scream!

Who hasn't been watching a horror movie and watched a scene where a character is being stalked by a killer and instead of running for their life, they stand there screaming in terror? How many times have you yelled at your tv, "Run! Don't just stand there and scream," in a futile attempt to save them? The killer walks slowly toward them, as if knowing they will not run (perhaps the script gave it away), you continue to yell at your screen and they continue to scream in place. My verdict then - horrible writing. No one would do this.

I was wrong. People indeed do this. I did it (minus the stalking and the killer).

Let me set the scene for you. My bedroom was on the lower level of our house at the end of the hall to the right coming down the stairs and the family room was at the end of the hall to the left. Earlier that night, my mother asked me to make sure all the lights were turned off before I went to bed. As I headed down the stairs I noticed that all lights were off except for the television in the family room. I turned on the hall light, entered the family room and looked around to see if anyone was watching it. I did not see anyone so I turned off the tv. As I turned to leave the room I saw eyeballs staring back at me from the couch.

I screamed! And I screamed! And I screamed!

Even as the eyeballs lifted themselves from the couch and revealed to me that they were attached to a head, a neck, and indeed, a whole human body, I stood there and screamed. Even as that body was now rising from the couch, I stood there and screamed. The eyeballs on the couch could have had a knife and I still would not have run. My last words wouldn't have even been words, only cast-me-in-the-movie-right-now screams.

Eventually my brain registered that it was my mother but the screams continued being emitted from my body. As I screamed in her face, my mother searched frantically with her eyes around the room and down the hall, to see what I was so afraid of. She, too, was now terrified as clearly I was seeing something she should fear.

My screaming continued. My feet remained firmly in place. I had not moved a millimeter. My mother began screaming along with me but had some control over her brain as she also said my name. I can only imagine how scared she was at this point as she must have thought for sure by now I knew it was her, yet my screaming did not lessen at all.

Still frozen in terror, my screaming was now replaced by body shakes and crying. We never get to see this from the characters in the movies as they are dead at this point. Although my brain had identified the eyeballs as belonging to my own mother several minutes previous, it was in shock. You see, not long before this incident my mother had told me she was going to bed. No other family members were in the house. So when I saw the eyeballs belonging to the lady with the dark brown hair, peering underneath the dark brown blanket, on the dark brown couch in the dark room, I could only assume it was no one I knew. I was terrified. And all I did was stand there and scream. Just like those dumb characters in the horror movies.

My verdict now - brilliant writing!