Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes
What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare?
Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Every great horror franchise is one very specific fear wearing a mask. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes certain nobody believes you. One is already inside your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family right now. Eight questions decide which of them was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child's Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
FIND YOUR NIGHTMARE →
01
What actually frightens you, when you are honest about it?
Every horror franchise is one fear, dressed up and handed a knife.
ANot being able to switch my own mind off.
BKnowing something is wrong and being told I imagined it.
CFinding out somebody close to me is not who I thought.
DSomething getting into my home and refusing to leave.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
It is very late and you are alone. What do you do?
Everybody has a ritual for this. Yours says more than you think.
AStay up. I would rather be exhausted than asleep.
BCheck the thing that moved, twice, feeling ridiculous.
CLock the door and work out who else is in the house.
DLeave a light on in the hallway. I always have.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
The first sign arrives. How do you react to it?
There is always a warning. There is usually nobody listening.
AI decide I am tired and imagining things.
BI tell somebody, and they laugh at me.
CI say nothing and start watching everyone closely.
DI call the one person who would take it seriously.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
How much of this do you think is your own fault?
The best horror always leaves that question slightly open.
AI let it in by not sleeping. It found the gap.
BNone of it. I was right and nobody listened.
CI trusted the wrong person. I should have known.
DWe moved here. I brought my family into this.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
What would actually keep you alive in a horror film?
Somebody always survives. It is rarely the person you expect.
AStubbornness. I simply refuse to go under.
BBeing right early, and being loud about it.
CKnowing the rules of the genre better than anyone.
DFaith, and people who will not leave me alone in it.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Who do you want in the room with you?
Almost nobody survives a horror film completely alone.
ANobody. I have enough to worry about already.
BOne person who believes me without needing proof.
CA small group, and I would still watch all of them.
DMy family. This was always about keeping them safe.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
It is over. What do you carry out of it?
Horror never really ends at the credits. It just stops filming.
AI do not sleep properly now. I no longer expect to.
BI trust my own judgment. That cost me something.
CI never fully relax around other people again.
DI know something is out there, and it knows my name.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
The lights go off tonight. Which thought finds you?
Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
AThat I have to sleep eventually, and it is waiting.
BThat it was real, and I am alone with knowing it.
CThat the call is coming from somebody who knows me.
DThat something is in the house with me right now.
REVEAL MY NIGHTMARE →
The Lights Just Went Out
Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
- You are the person who lies awake running through it again. Your own mind is where this
starts and where it does the damage.
- These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
- You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the thing itself. It is the face of
the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
- You know the specific loneliness of being right while everyone around you is being
reasonable at you.
- The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
have met those adults.
- By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the monster takes the mask off and turns out to be
somebody who was at the party.
- You watch people. You notice the small wrong notes in a conversation, and you have never
entirely been able to switch that off.
- The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
- Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the fact that you are the one who moved them all here.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
- Your fear is protective rather than personal. What frightens you is failing somebody,
not being hurt yourself.
- This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
- Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
standing in the hallway.
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Image via CBS
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