Friday Night Fright

Friday is absolutely 100% my favourite day of the week.

In the “old days”, I used to look forward to Fridays because it meant joining friends at the local watering hole, unwinding after the work week with lots of drinks and maybe some shots, and usually some fun on the dance floor if a good band was in town.

But I’m old now, and I look forward to Fridays for a totally different reason these days.  I now look forward to coming home to either make a fun supper – like homemade pizza – or going out for supper with my mom.  And then, I get into my jammies at a ridiculously early hour for a Friday, and I watch a movie.

That was exactly what I was looking forward to all last week -  a short week that probably felt longer and more trying than it should have.  I was kind of in a funk – I guess a post-Easter let-down or something? – and each day, I told myself, “Just make it to Friday.  On Friday, everything will be OK.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone to the store and rented a movie.  I’ve watched many flicks over the winter months – movies I’ve PVR’d, and old ones from my old collection that I hadn’t watched in a long time (no Netflix chez moi)– but aside from the few movies I’ve seen in theatres in recent months, I hadn’t seen a “new release” in quite some time.

So Friday night, after a quick work-out, I treated myself to a plate of homemade nachos with all my favourite toppings (yum!), and then I walked down to Marcotte’s to rent a movie.  Mindless entertainment was what I was looking for – nothing that was going to make me think too much.  Either a good laugh… or a good scare…

I ended up with The Hangover III in one hand.  And Paranormal Activity 4 in the other.

I can’t seem to learn the scary movie lesson, which is that I should not watch them.  Ever.

Because somehow, I went home with Paranormal Activity 4. 

And I regretted it about 2 minutes in. 

*sigh*

Of course, it wasn’t just me sitting by myself on the couch watching a scary movie and jumping and gasping.  Of course there had to be an incident.  How could there NOT be an incident when I end up watching a scary movie?? 

Ever since my kitchen was painted, the door leading down to my basement hasn’t closed properly.  I have to slam it to get it to shut tightly.  I had gone down to the back landing to get a Diet Pepsi before the movie, and never thought anything of it.  When the movie was over and I took my empty glass and popcorn bowl into the kitchen, there was the basement door… standing wide open.

The sight of it stalled me in my tracks and I let out a loud, mournful groan.  “Ohhhh noooooo,” I literally whined out loud, feeling my heart racing in my chest.

All I could think of was my cousin Chris, who has told me several times that there are dead bodies buried in my basement.  I KNOW there are no dead bodies in my basement, but when I saw that door to the spooky, dark, cobwebby basement swung wide open… well, that was all I could think about right then.

It took a minute for my logical brain to kick in, and I was able to remind myself that I had opened the door before the movie to get the can of pop, and that it obviously hadn’t shut properly.  It had clearly swung back open because it hadn’t latched when I closed it.  Duh, Jill.  Not ghosts.  Just your own carelessness.

Didn’t stop me from sleeping with the hall light on, though, I can guarantee you that!

Oh, and here’s the REAL kicker – my friend Sara is a fan of the Paranormal Activity movies, and I remember her telling me about going to see it around Christmastime with her husband.  I also remember her telling me that the end of it kind of brought everything full circle.  Then I heard them talking about it a few weeks ago on the radio on the Hot 89.9 morning show, and they were saying it was a really good ending, and that fans of the franchise would be left with their jaws dropped.

So here I am watching Paranormal Activity 4 on Friday night, thinking I’m watching this movie that I’ve heard them talking about, with an amazing ending, but when it ends I was kinda like, “Huh?  How does that draw things full circle?  I don’t get why it was so big… I must not remember the other movies as well as I thought I did…”

After discussing it with several friends over the weekend, including Sara, I’ve realized that Paranormal Activity 4 is NOT the most recent movie in the series – the one I’ve heard friends and radio peeps talking about, with the big shocking ending, is is actually Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.

Which means that I still have another whole Paranormal Activity movie to sit through.

Lord love a duck.