Creepy laughter fills the air. “Muahahah muahahah…” The lights flicker. Off. On. Off. On. The door slams suddenly. A man in a white face mask appears…

It’s a typical Halloween scene, but for the feint of heart, it’s not so great. While being scared and scaring others delights many teens, for others it is literally a nightmare.

“I like Halloween, but I don’t like being scared,” sophomore Steven Galvan said. “It makes me feel helpless. I’m a big dude, and I don’t like to feel like a baby when I get scared.”

Halloween is a time when fiction seems more like reality.

“I’m scared of vampires because they can attack you in the shadows,” senior Steven Diaz said. “It’s an irrational fear.”

Motion picture producers play on those fears, turning Halloween from a season of pumpkins and trick or treat to bone-jarring special effects meant to haunt older viewers long after the movie ends.

“I don’t like scary movies like Saw,” Galvan said. “When someone is creative enough to come up with that stuff, you know something is wrong. It’s creepy.”

Scary movies stay with the viewers.

“I watched Final Destination with my sister right before I fell asleep,” sophomore Martha Dyck said. “I had a dream that I was riding a roller coaster when the bolts fell out. I was falling to my death when I suddenly woke up.”

Even fictional legends can become real.

“I’m afraid of the bogeyman,” senior Caylynn South said. “When I was a little girl, my brothers would tell me the bogeyman would come out of my closet and get me if I didn’t fall asleep early.”

It seems the older one gets, the more mature the scare factor becomes. Characters like Freddy and Jason just keep coming back and childhood fears seem to grow up as well, manifesting themselves in figures of grim reapers, flickering lights and serial killers, making the mad dash back from taking the trash to the dumpster at night seem more terrifying than ever.