Scary movies you’ll probably never see

Going into the final week of October, I fear I may have overdone the horror movie binging. The line between real life and make-believe has blurred as some morning I wake not knowing what to make of my dreams.

“The Exorcist” is considered a classic among scary movie buffs. The story of demonic possession left 1970s moviegoers shaken and speechless. Even today those who see it for the first—or umpteenth—time reportedly feel deeply unnerved.

But a series of dreams in which I was a movie producer hearing pitches had me jolting awake, screaming, frightened and in disbelief.

“The Eggs or Cyst”, a screenwriter proposed, was the story of an average American family forced to make a series of decisions between health and healthcare. Faced with skyrocketing costs at the grocery store and increasing health insurance premiums, a working mother and a laid off father must decide if their young daughter will be able to eat meals regularly or visit the doctor for a routine checkup.

In “Folger’s Heist” astronomical tariffs have made the cost of coffee so high that the American economy collapses because people are unable to function without their morning java. Society turns on itself as a frustrated populace grows increasingly violent and homicidal.

The ghosts of those murdered return and seek revenge on the government officials who thought raising prices on imported goods during a time of stagnating wages and slow job growth was a sound idea. I was told to think of it as “Poltergeist” meets “Day of the Dead.”

“Final Destination” was a 2000 horror movie turned franchise depicting the gruesome demise of teens who initially escape death because of a chance premonition but eventually succumb to the gruesome grip of the Grim Reaper. Seventeen years later Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” dealt with the horror of modern-day racism and the psychological traps that ensnare Black people.

In my dream a writer proposed “ICE: Get Out This is Your Final Destination”, where masked goons randomly pluck Black and Latino families off the street and send them to foreign prisons and torture cells, cheered on by Americans at the highest levels of government.

No way, I told the scriptwriter, that’s way too scary and way too unbelievable. Never happen. She smiled.

I woke up screaming.