The night: When darkness falls, fear rises


The Shining is one of the scariest films of all time (Image: Warner Bros/The Kobal Collection)


Read more: "The night: The nocturnal journey of body and mind"


DECEMBER 26th, 1973. All across the US, hordes of people brave the cold, dark winter to queue up outside movie theatres. Many wish they hadn't.


"I'm not going back in there," said one woman after leaving halfway through. "I just had to come out, I couldn't take any more," said another. Some people vomited, others fainted. Cinemas started stocking smelling salts and barf bags. "I've never seen anything like it in the 24 years I've been working in movie theatres," said Robert Honahan, a senior theatre manager in Berkeley, California.


The cause of their distress was The Exorcist, a movie about a 12-year-old girl possessed by an evil spirit. You might think that the scare stories would have ...


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