I never learn my lesson…there I was, still recovering from ‘The Eye 10”, and I go and watch another one. “Shutter” pulak tu! If Huz finds out sure he’ll get so pissed off. He wanted so much to “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” a few months ago, but I refused point blank. But here I am, watching two scary movies in a week without him even cajoling me to do it. (Sorry baby…)

Even though horror movies scare the hell out of me, there’s one thing that I can’t deny. They are one heck of a topic conversation. It’s these kind of movies that cause you to discuss about profound things at the end of it. (Well…depending on who you had watched it with) “Shutter” got me thinking a lot about ghosts and spirits. They exist, there’s no doubt about that. There are skeptics of course, but it just comes down to your upbringing. In Islam, we are taught to believe in spirits, but at the same time, we must also believe that they cannot harm you.

My dad is probably the only one in the family at first who had a first hand experience with spirits. As a little boy, he loved to watch the local cinema (well really, it was just a white sheet strung up in the village field with a projector) and thus came back rather late every weekend. He was 5. He told of this one time when he was forced to cross the graveyard to go back home, and a body, covered in kain kapan rolled across the graveyard, and went after him. And when he woke up everyone in the house, pointing to the “giant” at the front door, everyone just told him to go back to bed and stop being silly. He was the only one who could see them. (“I can see dead people….”) Anyway, he’s convinced they are the real thing to this day.

Well, he was the first until me I guess. I’m still not sure what I experienced. I was in Terengganu at my Tuk Wan’s home, sleeping on the floor, facing the window. I woke up feeling a very heavy pressure on my chest. I remember screaming for my mom, but no voice could leave my throat. I drifted back to sleep, and when I woke up the window was open and the full moon looked bigger than it normally was. It filled the entire window. The pressure was still there. Like someone sitting on me. I recited some verses I knew from the Quran, and the pressure slowly drifted away. But it came back every time I stopped. I continued for a long time until I got tired and drifted back to sleep. I think I woke up the next morning shivering.

I never really thought of it until now…

Sigh…I really shouldn’t be watching horror movies. And “Shutter” was no less depressing.