From a nightmare. How d'you like that?
Ah, well. You don't have to.
Woke in a cold sweat at midnight, from a dream of reflected light and echoing choir song and murderous intent (high fevers seem to bring me bad dreams), and realized that it was based on a movie that still counts as one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen.
It's called Frailty, and it came out in 2001. Starred Matthew McConaughey and was directed by Bill Paxton.
Understated, spare, elegant. Utterly terrifying.
It was brilliant, the best first movie from a director that I've ever seen, one of the best horror films I've ever seen.
I don't ever want to see it again.
Though apparently my fever-dreams occasionally give me no choice in the matter.
WickedEye's Quotient
3/05/2008 at 00:31
Movie recommendation...
Calladus said...
I've always liked fever dreams / nightmares. Usually they consist of me being chased around a major city by Godzilla - or more recently the Cloverfield monster. I usually wake up laughing at the absurdity.
My most frightening nightmares went away after my deconversion from Christianity. Once I stopped actually believing in the non-rational and the supernatural my dreams became a lot less threatening.
And having some skill at lucid dreaming always helps - but with a fever all bets are off.
~
Scientia said...
Well, laughter at your nightmares isn't entirely surprising from an accomplished rationalist like you, Cal. I, on the other hand, don't enjoy my nightmares, and I've somewhat incorrectly labeled this dream as one- it was a frightening dream, but my nightmares leave me dizzy and shaking and utterly reluctant to sleep again for a long, long while. Scary fever dreams, on the other hand, are more manageable.
Godzilla? Really? That's hilarious! (Though if I were to dream it I would probably take another view of the matter.) Why Godzilla? -And Confucius probably had something apposite to say about a man who laughs at his nightmares, though what precisely it was is beyond my muddled grasp at the moment.
I'm a fan of fantasy and science fiction, and that stuff shows up in my dreams- but the true nightmares never have anything to do with the supernatural. They're terrifying, and based entirely in plausible reality. Which is, of course, exactly why they're terrifying.
Lucid dreaming has never been a skill of mine, though I've built retention over the years. And this fever- still over 100 even on ibuprofen- may bring with it worse things than monsters, though I hope not.
~
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