Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I remember thinking this as we sat down on the sofa and flipped on the TV.
And when I recall thinking this in the past, it definitely was NOT good.
There was the time when my daughter was just a wee-little snap and I showed her a scene from the movie, “Beetlejuice.” She was 4 years old and I played the part where two ghosts are trying to run new owners out of their house by making them dance around the dinner table to Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O.”
It’s a really funny scene and super-catchy for kids … right up until the moment that the dinner party collapses into their seats while the shrimp cocktails jump up like hands and grab their faces.
SHRIMP … GRAB … THEIR … FACES!!!
My daughter quietly turned away from the screen muttering, “Why did hands come out of the table?” … along with something about the phone number for Child Services.
I would spend several years explaining that hands don’t really jump out of tables and that shrimp aren’t devilish creatures. Rather, they’re something that should be devoured ravenously after boiling them to death and tearing off their outsides. (That didn’t go well, either.)
If you’ve been there, you know brushes with scary movies and kids don’t usually end well. They cause sleepless nights … for me! Because my wife would make me go down and sit with her, or read to her until she fell asleep, or respond to cries in the middle of the night that the shrimp wanted their tails back. Ever had to check under a bed with the help of a flashlight and a rusty machete? Yep, did it to myself. I was usually the cause.
And even though she is now 13, this is what I was thinking as the two of us sat down to watch: “The Shining.”
“The Shining,” of all movies! NOT … GOOD! SHRIMP … FACES!
My daughter and I have been reading the book, and she started to ask about watching the film, a movie my wife had strictly banned until she was 38. But for some reason she relented on two conditions: 1) It was viewed during the day, and 2) I approved of watching it with her.
Which is just straight up unfair because she knows darn well I don’t have the common sense of a sock with a hole in it. Of course I’m going to approve! I have clearly demonstrated this with all the irreparable psychological damage I’ve done in the past.
As we sat down together, I remember thinking, “maybe this ISN’T a good idea.”
It’s “The Shining,” after all. Jack Nicholson’s scowl alone will keep you up at night. Blood pours from elevator shafts. There’s a naked dead woman in a bathtub who comes to life. Late 1970s polyester was NOT a good look.
But we locked in and did it. Watched the whole thing. Straight on through. And how times have changed.
“That was it?” my daughter asked afterward, visibly disappointed. “What was all the hype? It wasn’t that good, and certainly not scary. It didn’t even follow the book.”
Uh, I was scared. I pee-ed my pants twice.
But, boy were we a long way from face-grabbing shrimp and the terror it breeds. It felt like a new chapter, and one more sign that life keeps changing. That she was growing up.
My daughter then turned to me and said: “So … why don’t we watch something really scary next, like Freddy Krueger.”
The sock with the hole in it finally had the good sense to answer, “NO WAY!!!” and then went and checked under all of the beds.