There’s this movie called The Watcher in the Woods. And it’s not like I haven’t seen it probably 100 times before tonight, but tonight? Tonight, it scared the crap out of me.
(And just an aside, my speaker just inexplicably fell off of my desk. I seriously didn’t touch it or the wire. WHAT??)
Now, I have to say, that I get scared fairly easily. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE scary movies. Especially a good ghost story. I’ll watch something ridiculously cheesy, or I’ll watch something authentically awesome. But, either way, there’s probably gonna be something to scare me. And it really honestly doesn’t take much. I mean, I was just reading the description for a scary movie I’ve never seen and I got just a little bit teary.
Oh, yeah. Did I mention that? When I get scared, my eyes water.
I was made fun of a lot for that by some of my high school friends back when we’d have horror movie nights.
But, anyway, if I watch something scary, or see something scary, forget it. The room where Sal and I watch movies also has the back staircase in it. And two giant sliding French doors which look out onto the backyard. Not that it’s very big or anything, but … it’s dark out there. And the staircase is a black metal circular staircase, so it’s dark over there, too. And, there’s a window that looks out onto the side garden, which is just barely illuminated by the neighbor’s backyard light, and you just can’t help but look out of that window when you’re walking up the stairs.
Oh, yeah. Did I meantion that I’m scared to look out windows? Yeah.
It might have something to do with the fact that our mom has been playing the “What would you do if that creepy guy was looking in your window game?” our whole lives. That, and the, “What would you rather have looking in your window…?” game. So, I’m kind of always thinking something or someone will be looking in my window.
Anyway, so, the staircase is at the back of the house, and my room is at the front of the house. Which means a pretty decent sized walk down a pretty decent sized hallway. A dark hallway. A hallway that extends a little bit beyond my room to an even darker curve of the hallway, where our parents’ room and the front staircase is. And the attic steps.
And the problem with walking down that hallway is that I’m scared if I’m not looking behind me because something could always be following me. But, then I’m scared that when I look back in front of me, something will suddenly be in front of me.
THEN, when I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, there’s a big mirror.
Oh, yeah. Did I mention that I get scared of looking in mirrors?
Two reasons, actually. Alice in Wonderland, the version from 1985 … Alice comes back home and tries to find her parents, but then realizes that she’s not really home, and she can see her parents IN THE MIRROR. But, they’re not really in the room with her. Aaaaah! And then, of course, there’s the Shining. Plus, my bathroom mirror overlooks the bathtub. I try to avoid looking in the mirror completely, lest I see something in it. Besides me.
And then after all of that getting myself worked up, I end up trying very hard to walk calmly back to my room, but I always end up running. Which Sally can hear and laughs at me about. And then there’s the window at the front staircase that I try to avoid looking at as I jump into my room.

Now, I don’t mean to indicate that I have a phobia of things like the dark, or mirrors, or windows. Because I really don’t. On an average day, I can look in a mirror all day, and I don’t mind when it’s dark outside, and I can even look out of a window when it’s dark without getting too freaked out. It’s just that, when I’m already scared from reading something or watching something or hearing something scary, everything else starts to scare me, too. Everything. Sounds, shadows, everything.

So, I very quickly brushed my teeth tonight, and did my hoppy, runny thing back to my bedroom. And all because of Watcher in the Woods. And if you’ve seen this movie, you’re probably thinking, “WHY?” Right? Well, it’s all because of the new DVD with the alternate ending.
Now, just a summary, for those who’ve never seen it. Jan (a screechy, goofy teenager with horrible blonde hair) and her family moved into an old country house in England. The owner, Mrs. Alewood (played by Betty Davis), lost a daughter about 40 years before the start of the movie, due to some strange shenanigans involving an eclipse of the moon. And there’s been something haunting the woods outside the house this whole time. And when Jan and her little sister Ellie move in, they immediately start becoming possessed by this thing in the woods. Anyway, Jan figures out that it’s something holding Karen, Mrs. Alewood’s daughter, hostage. She somehow figures out exactly how to get her back, and … she gets her back.
In the ending that we’ve always seen, Karen comes back, takes off her blindfold (oh, yeah, she has a blindfold on in the entire movie until the end), and everyone is all amazed that she’s back. The end.

Now.
The DVD has these alternate endings, which, I guess, were what the director had originally intended to use. But, Disney thought they were too scary for their movie, so they had them redo the ending.
Now, there was nothing inherently scary in the alternate ending. The “watcher” in the woods turns out to be this thing from another dimension which was accidently transfered with Karen 40 years ago and has been trapped. For whatever reason it needed an eclipse and the help of Jan (who happens to look like Karen) to get back, and to help return Karen. In the theatrical ending (the one we’ve always seen), Ellie shows up and says, in her possessed voice, this whole story. So, we get the gist from her.
In the original ending, there’s this strange creature that looks like it was made entirely out of colored cellophane that comes floating over to Jan, picks her up, brings her to another planet, and then returns both her and Karen back to the woods. Karen takes off her blindfold, Jan brings her back to Mrs. Alewood, the end.
Sorta the same, right?

Okay, except for these things. The Karen in the alternate endings is played by a different actress. She was supposed to have been suspended in time, so she’s supposed to still be a teenager. And I mean, she’s totally creepy looking? But, that wasn’t intentional. And she’s wearing a wig. I don’t know why. The Karen from the theatrical ending has aged (well, she looks like she’s maybe 40, and her contemporaries are around 57, so I don’t know how that worked, but … no matter, she’s supposed to have aged).
Also, the girl who plays Jan looks TOTALLY WEIRD when she comes back from the other planet! I mean, she looks really old and Sally said she looked like she was on drugs. But, I don’t think that was intentional, either. I think she just happened to have looked weird that day, or something.
AND! When Bette Davis leaves her house and sees Karen, she’s suddenly got BLONDE HAIR! What? She had old-lady scraggly gray hair for the whole movie, and suddenly she’s got quaffed blonde hair? It’s so weird!

So, anyway, watching this other ending scared me. But, it wasn’t because it was a scary ending. I mean, as I said, we’ve seen this movie so many times. We’ve been watching it since we were kids. And to have seen this movie, with the ending we’ve always known, and then to suddenly see a different ending? With different actors? I mean. It just freaked me out. Like, I was having a nightmare, or a stroke, or some kind of mental episode. Like I was imagining this ending. Or that I had been imagining the other ending my whole life. I mean, it would have been really scary if Sally had had the foresight to turn to me and say, “What alternate ending? This is how it always ends.” *creepy smile*
I was already teary. I would’ve started crying.
It’s different from seeing a deleted scene from a movie you know really well. Or seeing an alternate ending for a movie you’ve never seen before. This is a movie with an ending that is so ingrained in my memory that seeing it played out differently and with a different actress was just so wrong. It went against what I knew.
It would be like … when you find out that another actor was up for a part that you’ve always known as played by someone else. Like, Duckie in Pretty in Pink was supposedly almost given to Robert Downey, Jr. instead of Jon Cryer. Now, you know Jon Cryer as Duckie, of course. And to think about Robert Downey, Jr. playing him is odd. Even kind of amusing to imagine what it would be like.
But, imagine if one day, you’re watching tv and Pretty in Pink comes on, right? And you see those Converse shoes coming down the hallway, and that bass-line kicks in, and the camera pans up to show you the whole Duckie outfit with the reconstructed blazer and everything. And you know the words, “Good morning! Welcome to another day of higher education!” are coming up. Just like they always do. And then the camera pans up. And you see Robert Downey, Jr.

You’d freak out. You’d cry. Don’t lie.

I’m glad my shade is down. I’m going to bed.