We’ve all seen Scream and hopefully everyone has read “15 Signs of a Horror Movie Fan” written by the fairer half of RevPub.  We all know the rules for surviving a horror movie and have all had those, “I’d never do THAT if I was in that situation” moments watching a slasher film.

I’ve been in a few moments that made me think maybe I was that idiot character dropping the weapon and turning my back instead of pummeling my momentarily weakened pursuer into sausage filler.  I’ve tempted fate by saying, “What’s the worst that could happen?” and I’ve been with a friend exploring the supposedly haunted second floor of my office when she yelled out “HELLO?!” and I responded, “Are you crazy?! Have you seen ANY horror movie ever?!”  But there was one incident where I really failed the “How to Survive a Horror Movie” test.

I was dog-sitting for a co-worker in his home in a rural area.  I went early in the morning and early in the evening to ensure he got his food at regular intervals and got to go on regularly timed run-arounds and walks.  I let him out the back door when I noticed a deep gouge in the grass.  Almost like something huge, heavy, and long had sat there for a long time.  I leaned down, with the dog still on the leash, and saw the depression in the grass was about 10 inches wide and stretched from the back door all the way to the side of the house, around the corner and out of sight; probably some 20-30 feet in full length.  I took two slow steps and reached down to find long strands of shed snake skin strewn about within the trench.

Not thinking, I tugged the leash and said, “C’mon, boy let’s see where this leads” and started around the corner following what could only be described as the path of a MASSIVE snake.  As I pulled the leash the dog whined slightly and reluctantly followed.  I said, “C’mon…!” and dragged him along the giant snake path.  As we rounded the corner and I brushed leaf-heavy branches out of my view I said to myself, “What are you doing…  You’ve just become the idiot in a pre-title sequence to an AWFUL horror movie…”  Realizing my stupidity I turned around, took the dog on his walk around his regular path and took him back inside.

In retrospect it was likely the place where one of those large, black, plastic drainage tubes laid and the snake skin was just there by chance.

The Horror Movie expert in me, however, feels I narrowly survived being eaten by a massive super-python that night.  And only the dog was smart enough to try to avoid it.

Have you ever been in a horror movie-type situation?  Did you act as you always thought you would, or did you become a bad Friday 13th stereotype like I did on this one occasion?

If you answered the latter, don’t worry; even if it did briefly seem like you were about to become a slasher film statistic remember that someone has to survive long enough to frustrate and beat the bad guy right?  Just because you made a mistake 20 minutes after the title card, doesn’t mean you won’t survive to see the franchise psycho off for this particular installment!  Let’s just hope we all survive the first 15 minutes of the sequel!

Someone does have to be that “final girl” (I’m looking at you Raven) I just hope I’m there for the credit crawl…