I'm afraid I'll have to see Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

It's been well documented how my imagination got the better of me when watching Paranormal Activity. I've always had a slight fear I could get sucked into the plot of the home video horror, especially when something weird happens in real life. Today -- at about 3 a.m. -- I awoke to a loud crash in the kitchen, one of those that makes you sit straight up in bed and then dash toward the source of the noise. I also heard my cat Fletch meow right after the loud noise, and he was on the couch within the 5 seconds it took for me to be in the kitchen, perhaps to avoid any responsibility.

I am trying to be realistic here and not have another sleepless night (or three) like I did after Paranormal Activity, so I'll say Fletch is to blame. If he did hurl his 18 pound body up onto the stove, it would likely create enough force to knock something off the wall and wake me up. One of the four framed pictures I have hanging above the stove did fall on to the metal top after his jump, compounding the noise.

I was satisfied with that conclusion instead of the devil having something to do with the incident, until I discovered one of the other pictures has since gone missing.

It fell off the wall last week when I shut a cupboard a leeeetttlllle too hard and I had been meaning to replace the nail and hang it back up. I SWEAR I left it on the counter (in order to remember to replace it) before going out of town last weekend, and now this morning: Gone! I searched in all the kitchen drawers and cupboards, even through a bag of papers ready to recycle and the garbage. It is nowhere to be found.

That mystery remains unsolved and on my mind in light of the incident with the other picture early this morning, Fletch's fault or not. So what did I do when I woke up for good today and turned on my computer? I decided to watch a trailer for a scary movie, Guillermo del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark.

There were chills down my spine after watching a glimpse of the August release, so I would be smart to avoid it in the theater, but I probably won't.

The film stars Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce as a couple who moves into a mansion that by the looks of it just spells terror. Pearce's character, Alex Hirst, has a daughter who finds they are not alone in the house and that the visiting creatures want her and only her.

Despite the problems I've had in the aftermath of seeing scary movies, I keep going back and am actually disappointed when a promising spook fest does not deliver. If I want to lose sleep, let me lose some sleep, OK?

I envision that Don't be Afraid of the Dark will accomplish that and create all sorts of imaginary situations for me to be frightened of. I just hope I am still not looking for that missing picture in my kitchen come August. If you weren't quite sure that the trailer reflects a true horror movie, take a look at one of the aforementioned little-girl-haunting creatures just one more time. Boo!