The first time I encountered something truly scary, it electrified me. Shocked me alive. Curiosity, discomfort, and intrigue surged through me. It sparked questions that had few answers.
I’ve always loved the feeling of goosebumps. When the hair on your arms stands straight up.
But what happens when scary becomes horrifying? When something stops being thrilling and starts haunting you? Sometimes, fear can shatter our sense of reality and change how we perceive the world around us.
When I saw Fire in the Sky, it melted my brain. The film opened by telling us it was based on a true story. The alien abduction sequence was so startling, so traumatic, that I immediately began questioning every strange light in the sky. Any mention of aliens terrified me.
The following year, a haunted house opened along our drive to the grocery store. It was designed to look like Area 51, an alien base. Just thinking about aliens was enough to frighten me. I wouldn’t go anywhere near The X-Files because its opening credits featured a UFO. I was seven or eight years old.
I can hear some of you blaming my parents. But we don’t always know what will leave a lasting impression on someone, young or old.
It wasn’t until 2002, when I saw Signs in the theater with my cousin, that my fear of aliens finally began to fade. The film was ultimately about faith in its many forms. It helped me realize that, aliens or not, we have to face our fears without knowing how things will turn out. No outcome is guaranteed. We have to leave room for hope.
This website project is layered. It’s a celebration of the season, an ode to the things that scare us, excite us, and spark our curiosity.
I built it using all the skills at my disposal: writing, design, UI/UX, and AI. Without AI, this project might have remained a pipe dream. I’ve always tried to let curiosity guide me, then use imagination and pragmatism to turn that curiosity into something meaningful.
But to borrow a line of thought from one of my favorite bands, Pinegrove: Why does every outcome feel like such a comedown?
The use of AI comes with real-world consequences. Its environmental costs. The erosion of our ability to think critically. Mounting job losses. The biases these systems learn and perpetuate. The collective intellectual property taken, repackaged, and sold back to us.
Was any of this inevitable? Does it accelerate the gradual loss of our sense of purpose, community, and belonging? We’ve watched other technologies go unchecked, polarizing us, dividing us, and mining our lives for patterns that can be turned into profit.
Life is full of contradictions. Of absurdities.
If we could remove the process entirely, leaving only the beginning and the end, birth and death, with everything in between erased, what would be the point?
This project is my way of encouraging us not to lose our appreciation for the process itself. To keep leaning into curiosity and wonder, even when the things that inspire us are complicated, unsettling, or imperfect.
Sometimes, something feels like magic. But magic can be an illusion. And in many of the stories we tell, it almost always comes at a price.
So, with all that in mind, happy Halloween.
I hope you enjoy this collection of films that shaped me, frightened me, delighted me, and transformed the way I see the world.
— Christopher LaRose
