I have a confession to make

Back in January I wrote a review of The Haunting, wherein I said some mean things about it and some nice things about it.
I lied.
None of the nice things I said, the stuff about it being creepy or any good, were true. I wrote them on the off chance that my friend Amanda would read my blog. She thinks The Haunting is the scariest movie she's ever seen and I didn't want her to feel bad that I think it is a stupid, shrill and wholly disappointing adaptation of one of my favorite books.
I fucking hated every minute of that movie. I wanted to scream at it for being wrong. I wanted to punch every actor in their melodramatic faces and then give them copies of The Haunting Of Hill House, lock them into rooms by themselves, make them read it and think about what they did. It's a terrible movie and I'm pissed off at it for being terrible.
... Okay, there is one thing I said that was true: people who think Paranormal Activity is scary probably would go comatose with fear if they watched The Haunting. It is infinitely scarier than Paranormal Activity. But that's not saying much. The Emperor's New Groove is scarier than Paranormal Activity.
What brought on this sudden bout of honesty and anger? Well, it started bubbling back in October when the Nostalgia Critic reviewed the other movie "based" on The Haunting Of Hill House, also called The Haunting (I don't like to call it a remake when it's based on a book; they're just two movies based on the same source material), which he tore to shreds for being terrible. He compared it a lot to the 1960 The Haunting, a movie he loves and that was why he hated the newer one so much. His review pissed me off because he defends either of the movies. I'm pretty sure he's never read the book.
That isn't what set me off completely, though. No, that was the book I'm reading, Cut! Horror Writers On Horror Film. I just finished an essay where a woman talks about how scary The Haunting is. First of all, the woman's an idiot (she claims Theo's lesbianism is "not present, or barely so, in the book" in spite of the fact that it's way more obvious in the book than it is in the movie. ... Okay, in the book she's bisexual, but still, it's obvious) but, more importantly, the title of her essay is "Why The Haunting Is So Damn Scary." If you have to explain why, it's not scary. Fear is intangible. (Which is why I get so mad when people's reaction to my intense fear of moths is "You know they're harmless, right?" Yes. I know perfectly well a moth cannot hurt me. I also know it's fucking terrifying anyway, you pompous ass.)
But most importantly, The Haunting is not scary. When the actors aren't being stiff and stilited, they're shrieking, melodramatic, shrill, hysterical overactors (or maybe that's just the broad who played Eleanor). It's a stupid movie and a worse than terrible adaptation. And it makes me mad.
So I rescind the second part of the review I wrote back in January, the part that says the movie gave me the heebie jeebies, that I was too afraid to leave my room 'cause it was dark in the hall. I made that up to protect the feelings of a friend who doesn't read this blog anyway.
It is true that my laptop's startup tune set my teeth on edge, but it does that regardless of my mood. I just don't like that sound.

End of line.
-Sally