Halloween is upon us, and it got me thinkin’ that I should write what I know about scary movies. And so, here I go…

I live in a strange pickle where I enjoy scary movies, but bad language bothers me. This cuts out a remarkable amount of the possibilities for what I’ll watch. If you have that problem, here’s what I do, and maybe it will help you too. When I find a movie I want to see, I check it out on imdb.com. You just search for the movie, and then in the left hand column there’s a link you can click on called “Parents Guide”. This will almost always have a very detailed list of the scandalous content in the movie. Often there will even be a count of how many f-words are in it. Very helpful, eh?

Anyhoo, (I wonder how many of my posts say “anyhoo”), here’s a list of the scary movies I like a lot and why… and they’re not in order.

-What Lies Beneath (PG13, Michelle Pfeifer and Harrison Ford, Michelle’s character is haunted by a young missing woman.) This movie has a great story, a few good spooks, and is overall creepy.

-1408 (PG13, John Cusak’s character is doing research to write a book about haunted hotel rooms around the country and finally finds one that is truly evil.) I was very impressed by the creativity of this one. The hauntings are not your typical shadowy ghosts and bumps in a creaky house, etc. In one room you get a wide variety of crazy stuff. (I know “stuff” is a terrible description, but I don’t want to give anything away). You should see it if you haven’t.

-The Ring (PG13, Naomi Watts’ character investigates the death of her niece after the niece and her friends watch a mysterious tape that people die seven days after watching.) This movie was really scary to me the first time I saw it, although I was a teenage girl, but still, I think it does a good job of keeping the story moving and setting a very eerie feel throughout.

-Drag Me to Hell (PG13, Alison Lohman and the Mac guy/Justin Long, Lohman’s character is cursed by an old gypsy lady and is haunted by a demon for three days while she tries to stop the curse before the demon is supposed to suck her into Hell on the third day.) When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought it looked so stupid and cheesy. It turns out this movie is actually pretty awesome. I wasn’t really scared during it, but it was definitely very disturbing, and extremely creative. Parts were even funny while still disturbing, which made it even more interesting.

-28 Days Later (R, Cillian Murphy whose name is pronounced Killian, did you know that? Murphy’s character wakes up from a coma to find that the people of London have become zombies from a virus that induces rage.) I watched this a long time ago, and I don’t remember much about it except that I did feel scared during it. I remember the language is pretty bad, but I remember thinking at the end that I liked the movie a lot. Cillian pronounced Killian. No wonder he’s almost always the bad guy.

-The Haunting in Connecticut (PG13, no big names, a family moves into a house where a boy undergoing cancer treatments sees visions of some of the creepy things that went down there.) I just watched this for the first time last night, and I had low expectations. It was pretty good though. I was creeped out quite a few times, and the story was interesting, and the acting was mostly very good.

-The Sixth Sense was good; everyone’s seen it. I actually liked The Happening (R for violence) even though the whole idea behind it is very stupid to a lot of people (Nat included), but I bought it just fine, and I thought Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel did a great job. In fact I’d watch it right now if I had it. Maybe I have horrible taste in movies… er…

And then of course there are the classics that freaked me out growing up: Poltergeist, It, Alien, The Shining (thanks Pete)… but oh man, the scariest movie of my youth (to me and Nat)… hands down, ET. I still never ever want to see it again. That dude freaks me out. I haven’t seen it in probably 18 years, and I still can see that white tunnel thing… eek.

I can’t believe I forgot Hitchcock (thanks Angie!). Psycho and The Birds are great although I feel like I know Psycho too well. My favorite Hitchcock movies are The Man Who Knew Too Much and Rear Window. Oh yeah and Strangers on a Train is a good one.

Now if you don’t want a scary movie, but are looking for a more thriller type deal, a couple that come to my mind are Disturbia (Shia LeBouf) and Deceived (Goldie Hawn). Nat will forever make fun of me, but I still recommend Taken (Liam Neeson). I also liked The Invasion (Nicole Kidman).

Okay to wrap it up, the only thing more frustrating to me about scary movies besides the potential for them to be soaked in f-bombs and having no plot but chopping people up, is when the characters constantly do the wrong thing. Oh yes, let’s walk down into this dark basement where the lights aren’t working and I think I see blood and hear something creepy. There are a million of those. Or how about Quarantine (which I had kind of high hopes for), where some people are infected with a deadly violent virus and instead of staying locked in a room where the infected couldn’t get you, everybody runs around the apartment building until everybody dies. Sorry spoiler alert, but seriously, if you haven’t seen it don’t. The people are stupid and deserve to die. I’m looking forward to The Fourth Kind and Daybreakers coming out. Check out the trailers.

If you guys have scary movie suggestions for me or comments on my poor movie choices, do tell. Happy Halloween everybody!

Is this new season not very funny to anyone else? The Gossip episode was pretty good I guess, but the other two… err… I’m afraid.

Update: The season has been pretty good over all. I just caught up on the last three (up to Koi Pond), and they were good. Yay!

In case you don’t know anything about the movie, here’s a little idea what it’s about…

A much-larger-than-usual Matt Damon is pretty high up in a company, but decides to kind of take the company down by working with the FBI to record conversations about price fixing, and other sketchy activities. It’s based on a true story, and it’s a comedy (kind of). It’s rated R for a few totally unnecessary F-bombs… but I suppose they wanted one of their white-collar big whigs to represent the foul-mouthed jerk that every office seems to have.

Anyhoo, this movie was VERY weird, but I thought it was actually really funny. Matt Damon did an amazing job in that role. 100% believable. Throughout the film, we often hear what he’s thinking, and it’s hilarious stuff. Most of the time his thoughts have nothing to do with what’s happening, and they sometimes cover up important conversations. The character is interesting and the story is pretty entertaining throughout. It’s not one I’ll run out and buy right away, but I didn’t feel bad paying matinee price to see it… (although in Utah matinee price is like $5.75.)

I like this kid. She has two teethe now already. She’s a little crawling machine and she’s been saying “dadda” a lot. Nat’s been fishing and writing a ton. Both are going well. I have been editing a little, but mostly I take care of Jo, clean, do little projects, and I don’t know what else. Exciting, eh? Big things coming though… we’re going to Hawaii in October, Yosemite for Thanksgiving, and Folsom for three weeks for pre-Christmas fun stuff. I’m excited, man.

I took this with my phone. (So, yeah, I’m fake sleeping, but it’s a cute picture.)

Look at this sad sad picture…

Now, before you think, "Wow, Renee's the worst mom ever," here is the dog that bit her...

This is Daisy. She'll never be friends with my baby again.

One of Nat’s stories got chosen in the top 25 in a huge contest! It’s called Glimmer Train’s 2009 June Fiction Open. Way to go Nat. It’s a big deal guys. What a stud.