Films over football

Last weekend, instead of using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to eat crappy game food, drink beer and hang out with a bunch of overly aggressive guys who are more interested in watching grown men with bulging biceps run around in spandex than cute girls in jerseys, my apartmentmate and I opted to go see "The Woman in Black."

Sure, we might not be the coolest cats in the litter box, but we decided that this was the year to accept that we will never understand football and do something that we are good at instead. So we skipped on the sports attire, slipped into some Depends and prepared ourselves for an evening of screaming like little girls in a dark room full of strangers.

We didn't actually put on Depends, but I'm sure if they made some that fit under our skinny jeans, we would have seriously considered purchasing them.

Now I'm not a big scary movie person myself - the only horror flicks I've ever seen are "The Ring," "Signs," "Saw I" and that one in the creepy town where Paris Hilton gets speared to death.

And every single one of those films left me sleeping with my mom for a week because I was terrified that aliens, creepy long-haired dead chicks, a clown with bronchitis voice or a skinny blond girl would be hiding in the shadows of my bedroom just waiting for me to fall asleep to attack.

I'm definitely not a scary movie addict, but there was something about the previews for "The Woman in Black" that sparked my interest. Perhaps it was because the inner Harry Potter addict in me wanted to prove that Mr. Radcliffe could never really move on from his role as Harry Potter. Regardless, I knew it was going to be an hour and 48 minutes of horror to which I would gladly submit my tender spirit.

Terrible idea. First of all, when we got to the theater there was already a woman asleep in the seat in front of us. She snored for the whole movie. I have no idea how she didn't wake up between my screaming and the banshee spirit shrieking from the movie, but she managed to get almost two hours of solid shut eye.

Meanwhile, my apartmentmate and I were right behind her covering our faces and squeezing each other's hands so hard it felt as if we were having simultaneous child births.

In between our screaming we also had some time to complain about Daniel Radcliffe having the voice of a prepubescent little boy and enjoy a lovely guest appearance by a strange she-man who came into the theater, screamed, walked up the aisle, cursed loudly and then left. It was very odd.

Almost two hours of sheer terror later, we were back home on the couch trying desperately to embrace away the fear. However, after 30 minutes of hugging each other on the couch, we realized the fear was here to stay. I ended up sleeping in my apartmentmate's bed with her, waking up every two hours thinking that there was going to be a creepy veiled woman standing in front of the closet and almost peeing my pants.

The woman in black never showed up of course, but that didn't stop me from making that same apartmentmate get up and go to the bathroom with me in the middle of the night just in case, or sit on the bathroom floor and talk to me while I showered the next day in the event that the woman in black was hiding in the shower curtains, or walk me upstairs to my room the next night so that I could get a book off my shelf.

I hate scary movies, but for some reason, I know that I'll watch more of them. I don't know what it is about them. Even though they leave me paralyzed with fear for days, I still want to submit myself to the torture.

They're kind of like a frat bro you can't get over - you know he will leave you curled up in the fetal position, replaying the same scenes in your head over and over while your roommate strokes your back and tells you it's going to be OK-- but you just keep on coming back for more.