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I used to go to movie nights to meet people and break out of my shell. I wish I never had.
Moving to a new city is hard. But finding ways to be social and make new friends is even harder in my opinion. I’m usually not great at introducing myself and I definitely struggle to keep conversations going.
​
So when a coworker of mine invited me to a weekend movie night group I was ecstatic. I could finally get to know some local people and maybe even create some positive relationships. Which I admittedly am terrible at doing.
​
Movie nights were super fun. Most of the time we would watch something light-hearted or a comedy that was easy to enjoy. Occasionally we would watch something scary, and we would indulge the women in the group with a viewing of the romance genre ever so often. I definitely made friends within the group and it was something I looked forward to. Then the pandemic came along and threw a wrench in all of the gears. Or at least I thought so.
​
I remember getting the text from Ben who had created a group chat for us so that we could all keep in touch.
​
*Hey guys. Movie night is back! We will be using Hulu’s watch party feature to get the band back together! Can’t wait to see you this weekend!*
​
I can’t lie. I was so happy to have something to do. My job was entirely remote at that point, and being a single bachelor during the COVID madness wasn’t exactly a fun time. So getting to see my friends and spend time watching movies together again would return some of the normalcy that I was missing so badly. Like so many of us wanted at that time.
​
But we never did have the watch party on Hulu. Not really anyway. We still had a watch party but it was just a little bit different than we had originally planned. Ben ended up texting us again a couple of days after the initial plans were made.
​
*Hey guys. Sorry if this wasn’t what you were expecting but I was wondering if you’d be open to watching some independent film. My cousin is in film school and he and some of his classmates are in need of an audience to watch several films for an assignment this semester. I thought that maybe our group could be of service to them. The films will be screened via Zoom meetings. Thoughts?*
​
We all came to the consensus that we would help the students out. Even though we knew some of the content was probably going to be pretty shitty, it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe we would all feel good about something other than just staying at home and lowering our risk to spread or catch a disease. So the decision was made that we would go through with helping out the film school students. I myself felt like it was a good decision at the time.
​
We watched the first film a couple of weeks later. We all figured it would be a long and arduous ordeal. But it was anything but that.
​
The film we watched was the first part of several we would end up watching. It didn’t have a title, there were no credits, we didn’t even know who directed it. It was just video on our computer screens, and let me tell you, what we watched was fucking mesmerizing.
​
The film was clearly a horror film. Filmed on some sort of camcorder or older video equipment and had a very obvious and deliberate “found footage” style.
​
There was a woman tied up and blindfolded, all four of her limbs were tightly lashed with rope to the sides of an old and dilapidated metal bed frame.
​
The screams of her terror were agonizing to hear.
​
“Pleeeeeeasssseeeee!!!! I beg you! Don’t do this! I have a baby! She needs me! I’m not ready to die yet! Somebody help me! Get me the fuck out of hereeeee!!!!!!!
​
The door swung open and crashed violently into the wall. The shape of a darkly dressed and hooded figure appeared in the corner of the screen.
​
The woman stopped screaming and all you could hear was breathing. Hard and labored breathing coming from whatever entity that had just entered the room.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
The woman appeared visibly frozen and speechless at this point.
​
Slowly you could see the shape of what seemed like a long metal object slide out from the sleeve that belonged to the menacing figure on screen and then, almost as if possessed by some animalistic and carnal force, it leapt on to the bed frame and began slashing and hacking the weapon about wildly without any regard for convention.
​
The quality of the film was so grainy and pixelated that you couldn’t quite see what was actually happening to the woman in the frame but the screams and noises she made were absolutely terrifying. Like nothing I had ever heard in any horror movie. As the minutes went by, the noises became less frequent, the struggle from the woman was less noticeable, until finally the barely discernible image of her body was limp and lifeless.
​
The only thing you could still hear was that breathing.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
Then the hooded figure turned towards the camera, walked towards it, and a black hand suddenly reached upwards…turning the screen completely black.
​
That was the end of the film.
​
I have to tell you that it was incredibly hard to wrap my head around what I watched. Not because I didn’t understand it but because it felt so real to me and something inside of me just felt off. I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was. But whoever made this short film had certainly struck a nerve with me. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had watched something that intense.
​
Nobody in our group really talked about it either. There were a couple of “holy shit that was nuts” texts and some wide-eyed emojis in the group chat, but that was the extent of any commentary that existed after we watched that first part of the film.
​
And there was more than just one part.
​
The next three weeks we watched the hooded figure kill and torture new victims in almost the exact same way that it had in the first video sequence. The strange thing about it was that it never got any easier to watch, and I was left with this empty and dull pit in my stomach each time. It was sickening to me. I wasn’t enjoying it.
​
Clearly, I wasn’t the only person that felt that way. Our audience began to decrease slowly over the course of the viewings. Apparently it wasn’t easy to stomach for some of my other friends in our group. I even sent a text to Ben about it because it bothered me so much.
​
*Hey man. Can we ask these students to move on from the torture porn bullshit? Like its super realistic and whoever they got to act this shit out with them definitely sold it 1000% but Jesus Christ dude. I’m sick of it*.
​
About two hours later he texted me back.
​
*Hey brother. Yeah, I’m sorry about all that. I texted my cousin and let him know that its a bit over the top for our group. Haven’t heard back from him yet, but I do believe we will be moving on to something different now. I will keep you posted when I get the details. But appreciate you hanging in there. You’re a real one lol*.
​
A real one. I guess that was nice to hear at the time.I was just glad that we were moving away from the horror genre. I would have much rather had limited the intensity to something like “Cabin in the Woods” and stuck with the Hulu watch party like we had originally planned.
​
That would have been so much easier.
​
​
——————————-
​
Usually when I wake up at night the first thing I notice is a red light. The red light that comes from the alarm clock that sits next to me on my nightstand. But about one week after we stopped watching those awful movies I woke up and noticed a small green light in the corner of my room.
​
I noticed that first and when I tried to get up, I couldn’t…
​
My arms and legs were tied to the posts of my bed.
​
*Oh fuck.*
​
For whatever reason I had not been blindfolded. But I was most certainly helpless and stricken with fear.
​
*This can’t be real. It’s some kind of fucked up dream. It was just a goddamn movie. Some stupid fucking movie.*
​
Then I heard it.
​
The last thing I wanted to hear in the world in that very moment.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
My bedroom door flew open and I was confronted with the very horror that I had been watching on my computer screen those last few weeks. It was in that moment that I realized the truth.
​
*I never watched some kid’s film project, did I?*
​
I could see the metal object slide out of the figure’s sleeve. Except it wasn’t grainy and pixelated this time. Clearly, it was an old and partially rusted machete. Its edges were stained red and brown.
​
I looked directly at my would-be attacker.
​
“Guess this is the end of the line for me...Isn’t it, motherfucker? I don't suppose you'll be screening this shit for the viewing pleasure of your film class?”
​
Then a very odd thing happened. One that I still can’t understand.
​
The figure turned towards the corner of my room, grabbed the camera that had been mounted in the corner, and then proceeded to use the machete to cut each of my limbs free from the posts of my bed.
​
For some unknown reason, I had been spared.
​
I’m not really sure how long I lay there. I was paralyzed with fear. Hours I’m sure.
​
The next weekend I moved out and started a new life for myself. Somewhere far away from that horror.
​
That was 3 years ago.
#entertainment
source
Moving to a new city is hard. But finding ways to be social and make new friends is even harder in my opinion. I’m usually not great at introducing myself and I definitely struggle to keep conversations going.
​
So when a coworker of mine invited me to a weekend movie night group I was ecstatic. I could finally get to know some local people and maybe even create some positive relationships. Which I admittedly am terrible at doing.
​
Movie nights were super fun. Most of the time we would watch something light-hearted or a comedy that was easy to enjoy. Occasionally we would watch something scary, and we would indulge the women in the group with a viewing of the romance genre ever so often. I definitely made friends within the group and it was something I looked forward to. Then the pandemic came along and threw a wrench in all of the gears. Or at least I thought so.
​
I remember getting the text from Ben who had created a group chat for us so that we could all keep in touch.
​
*Hey guys. Movie night is back! We will be using Hulu’s watch party feature to get the band back together! Can’t wait to see you this weekend!*
​
I can’t lie. I was so happy to have something to do. My job was entirely remote at that point, and being a single bachelor during the COVID madness wasn’t exactly a fun time. So getting to see my friends and spend time watching movies together again would return some of the normalcy that I was missing so badly. Like so many of us wanted at that time.
​
But we never did have the watch party on Hulu. Not really anyway. We still had a watch party but it was just a little bit different than we had originally planned. Ben ended up texting us again a couple of days after the initial plans were made.
​
*Hey guys. Sorry if this wasn’t what you were expecting but I was wondering if you’d be open to watching some independent film. My cousin is in film school and he and some of his classmates are in need of an audience to watch several films for an assignment this semester. I thought that maybe our group could be of service to them. The films will be screened via Zoom meetings. Thoughts?*
​
We all came to the consensus that we would help the students out. Even though we knew some of the content was probably going to be pretty shitty, it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe we would all feel good about something other than just staying at home and lowering our risk to spread or catch a disease. So the decision was made that we would go through with helping out the film school students. I myself felt like it was a good decision at the time.
​
We watched the first film a couple of weeks later. We all figured it would be a long and arduous ordeal. But it was anything but that.
​
The film we watched was the first part of several we would end up watching. It didn’t have a title, there were no credits, we didn’t even know who directed it. It was just video on our computer screens, and let me tell you, what we watched was fucking mesmerizing.
​
The film was clearly a horror film. Filmed on some sort of camcorder or older video equipment and had a very obvious and deliberate “found footage” style.
​
There was a woman tied up and blindfolded, all four of her limbs were tightly lashed with rope to the sides of an old and dilapidated metal bed frame.
​
The screams of her terror were agonizing to hear.
​
“Pleeeeeeasssseeeee!!!! I beg you! Don’t do this! I have a baby! She needs me! I’m not ready to die yet! Somebody help me! Get me the fuck out of hereeeee!!!!!!!
​
The door swung open and crashed violently into the wall. The shape of a darkly dressed and hooded figure appeared in the corner of the screen.
​
The woman stopped screaming and all you could hear was breathing. Hard and labored breathing coming from whatever entity that had just entered the room.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
The woman appeared visibly frozen and speechless at this point.
​
Slowly you could see the shape of what seemed like a long metal object slide out from the sleeve that belonged to the menacing figure on screen and then, almost as if possessed by some animalistic and carnal force, it leapt on to the bed frame and began slashing and hacking the weapon about wildly without any regard for convention.
​
The quality of the film was so grainy and pixelated that you couldn’t quite see what was actually happening to the woman in the frame but the screams and noises she made were absolutely terrifying. Like nothing I had ever heard in any horror movie. As the minutes went by, the noises became less frequent, the struggle from the woman was less noticeable, until finally the barely discernible image of her body was limp and lifeless.
​
The only thing you could still hear was that breathing.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
Then the hooded figure turned towards the camera, walked towards it, and a black hand suddenly reached upwards…turning the screen completely black.
​
That was the end of the film.
​
I have to tell you that it was incredibly hard to wrap my head around what I watched. Not because I didn’t understand it but because it felt so real to me and something inside of me just felt off. I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was. But whoever made this short film had certainly struck a nerve with me. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had watched something that intense.
​
Nobody in our group really talked about it either. There were a couple of “holy shit that was nuts” texts and some wide-eyed emojis in the group chat, but that was the extent of any commentary that existed after we watched that first part of the film.
​
And there was more than just one part.
​
The next three weeks we watched the hooded figure kill and torture new victims in almost the exact same way that it had in the first video sequence. The strange thing about it was that it never got any easier to watch, and I was left with this empty and dull pit in my stomach each time. It was sickening to me. I wasn’t enjoying it.
​
Clearly, I wasn’t the only person that felt that way. Our audience began to decrease slowly over the course of the viewings. Apparently it wasn’t easy to stomach for some of my other friends in our group. I even sent a text to Ben about it because it bothered me so much.
​
*Hey man. Can we ask these students to move on from the torture porn bullshit? Like its super realistic and whoever they got to act this shit out with them definitely sold it 1000% but Jesus Christ dude. I’m sick of it*.
​
About two hours later he texted me back.
​
*Hey brother. Yeah, I’m sorry about all that. I texted my cousin and let him know that its a bit over the top for our group. Haven’t heard back from him yet, but I do believe we will be moving on to something different now. I will keep you posted when I get the details. But appreciate you hanging in there. You’re a real one lol*.
​
A real one. I guess that was nice to hear at the time.I was just glad that we were moving away from the horror genre. I would have much rather had limited the intensity to something like “Cabin in the Woods” and stuck with the Hulu watch party like we had originally planned.
​
That would have been so much easier.
​
​
——————————-
​
Usually when I wake up at night the first thing I notice is a red light. The red light that comes from the alarm clock that sits next to me on my nightstand. But about one week after we stopped watching those awful movies I woke up and noticed a small green light in the corner of my room.
​
I noticed that first and when I tried to get up, I couldn’t…
​
My arms and legs were tied to the posts of my bed.
​
*Oh fuck.*
​
For whatever reason I had not been blindfolded. But I was most certainly helpless and stricken with fear.
​
*This can’t be real. It’s some kind of fucked up dream. It was just a goddamn movie. Some stupid fucking movie.*
​
Then I heard it.
​
The last thing I wanted to hear in the world in that very moment.
​
*Hehhhhhhhh, hurrrrmmmmphhhhh, hehhhhhhhh, hyeeeeeeeeeeeeggggghhhh*
​
My bedroom door flew open and I was confronted with the very horror that I had been watching on my computer screen those last few weeks. It was in that moment that I realized the truth.
​
*I never watched some kid’s film project, did I?*
​
I could see the metal object slide out of the figure’s sleeve. Except it wasn’t grainy and pixelated this time. Clearly, it was an old and partially rusted machete. Its edges were stained red and brown.
​
I looked directly at my would-be attacker.
​
“Guess this is the end of the line for me...Isn’t it, motherfucker? I don't suppose you'll be screening this shit for the viewing pleasure of your film class?”
​
Then a very odd thing happened. One that I still can’t understand.
​
The figure turned towards the corner of my room, grabbed the camera that had been mounted in the corner, and then proceeded to use the machete to cut each of my limbs free from the posts of my bed.
​
For some unknown reason, I had been spared.
​
I’m not really sure how long I lay there. I was paralyzed with fear. Hours I’m sure.
​
The next weekend I moved out and started a new life for myself. Somewhere far away from that horror.
​
That was 3 years ago.
#entertainment
source
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