I ain't afraid of no ghosts… *

*Actually that's a lie. I am scared of ghosts. And zombies. And basically anything paranormal. Oh, and dinosaurs too. Seriously. I can’t even watch Jurassic Park without having nightmares and becoming convinced that a velociraptor is hiding in the bathroom.

  

I never used to be such a scaredy cat. When I was a kid I'd be the first to tell horror stores and I even forced some friends into doing an ouija board. I was fearless!

So when did I become not so fearless? I think it started in 2002 and I am wholeheartedly blaming Danny Boyle. I went to the cinema with a friend to see 28 Days Later. I don’t why but somehow we were the only ones in the entire screen, which was a bit eerie anyway.

And the film itself. Well. It’s terrifying – mainly because IT COULD HAPPEN. (Stop laughing – it could! We don’t know what these Scientists get up to behind closed doors….)

Anyway, after hiding behind my large popcorn bucket for pretty much the entire film, I was then scared to leave the cinema screen convinced that during the 113 minutes we’d been inside, the entire population had turned into zombies.

It took me a little while to build up the courage and it was only with a lot of coaxing that I left the building and ran to the car.

So there we have it. From then on horror films that had never really bothered me suddenly did.

In 2010 I was lucky enough to go on a press trip to Universal.  The press trip was centred at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. Now we all know the Americans do Halloween well, but let me tell you, after going to this I can confirm the Americans do Halloween RIDICULOUSLY well.

There is no person in a comical sheet that shouts boo at you now and again. Oh no. It’s a lot more bloody petrifying than that.

I’m talking about men chasing you with ACTUAL chainsaws, which they drag along the floor in front of your feet and crazy clowns being crazy clown like. 

Oh and then of course there is the 13 houses of horror, which we had to walk through, each one scarier than the other.

Now the rest of the group took it all in their stride, enjoying the scare factor. My friend Ed and I however, were the opposite of taking in our stride. We were actually running in the other direction screaming our heads off.

In one house we walked towards a mirror and could see a ghoul behind us so we ran forward but it was a trick mirror and suddenly the ghoul was in front of us. Ed gripped my arm so hard he actually gave me a huge bruise.

Most of the houses I went through with my eyes closed chanting a prayer to God that I’d be good forevermore if he just got me through this…. Fear does weird things to people, OK?

One of the houses was actually based around 28 Days Later with soldiers on dog chains and generally just crazy zombies jumping out. Basically my kind of nightmare. I’m not sure how I walked through it. I think my memory has blanked it out and put it in a box at the back of my mind marked Never to be Opened.

Put it like this, I was glad when it was all over and we could head back to the hotel because the fear and adrenaline had given me the worst headache I’d ever had. But obviously I was then too scared to sleep, convinced a velociraptor was hiding in the bathroom…. 

So I'm happy to skip Halloween this year thanks and forevermore, is it Bonfire night yet?