Mario's horror movie comedy

The Mushroom Kingdom was unusually quiet, a rare occurrence given that SMG4 and the rest of the gang had headed out for a weekend retreat, leaving the castle suspiciously peaceful. Mario, however, was not one for peace. He was a man of action, a man of passion, and primarily, a man of pasta.

Tonight, he had a mission. Luigi, in an uncharacteristic moment of boldness, had suggested that Mario needed to "broaden his horizons" beyond slapstick comedies and documentaries about the history of the ravioli. He had handed Mario a dusty DVD case with a pale girl on the front and a simple title: *The Ring*.

Mario sat on the plush carpet of the castle lobby, a massive, steaming plate of spaghetti balanced precariously on his lap. He had dimmed the lights, though mostly because he didn't want the glare to reflect off his meatballs.

"Ooh, spooky," Mario muttered, twirling a forkful of pasta. "Mario is a brave boy. Mario survived the scary piano in the basement. This is nothing."

The movie flickered to life. For the first hour, Mario was relatively unimpressed. There was a lot of talking, a lot of phone calls, and not nearly enough explosions. He focused more on the texture of his sauce than the mounting tension on screen. However, as the film reached the iconic scene where a well sat shrouded in an eerie, thick mist, the atmosphere in the lobby shifted.

A cold draft swept through the room, despite all the windows being shut. Mario paused, a single noodle hanging from his mouth.

*“Seven days...”* a voice whispered directly into his left ear.

Mario blinked, slowly chewing the noodle. He reached up and absentmindedly scratched his ear, thinking it was just a particularly loud fly or perhaps his own brain finally giving up on him. He turned his attention back to the screen.

*“Seven days...”* the whisper returned, this time sharper, more guttural, right into his right ear.

"Hey! Shut up! Mario is trying to watch the movie!" he yelled at the empty air, waving a fork threateningly. He assumed it was just the castle’s plumbing acting up again. SMG4 really needed to call a repairman for the supernatural leaks.

Then, a sound came from the grand staircase behind him. It wasn't a whisper. It was a wet, clicking gurgle—the sound of someone trying to swallow a bucket of gravel.

Mario turned his head slowly. Standing halfway up the stairs was a figure that shouldn't have been there. She was drenched, her long, matted black hair draped over her face like a curtain of seaweed. Her skin was a sickly, bruised blue-white, and her joints seemed to twitch with an unnatural, jittery motion.

The girl from the well was staring right at him. Or, at least, Mario assumed she was staring; it was hard to tell with all that hair in the way.

Mario stared at her for a long, silent moment. His eyes moved from her dripping dress to her pale, claw-like hands, and then back to his spaghetti. He shrugged his shoulders with a loud "Meh," and turned back to the TV.

Up on the stairs, Samara Morgan froze. This wasn't in the script. Usually, this was the part where the victim screamed, tripped over a coffee table, and died of a heart attack. She tilted her head, a sickening crack echoing through the lobby, her confusion radiating off her in waves of cold spite.

She blinked—or tried to—and in the literal blink of an eye, the red-clad plumber was gone from the floor.

"BOO!"

Samara shrieked, a high-pitched, distorted sound that cracked the glass of a nearby picture frame. She spun around, her wet hair whipping through the air, only to find Mario standing on the step behind her, grinning like an idiot.

"Ha! Gotcha!" Mario laughed, clutching his stomach. "You should have seen your face! You were all like, 'Ooh, I'm a scary well lady,' and then Mario was like, 'Wahoo!'"

The spirit backed away a step, her movements jerky and confused. No one had ever snuck up on *her*. She was the one who did the sneaking. She let out a low, menacing growl, her body contorting as she prepared to lung at his soul.

Mario didn't move. Instead, he leaned in closer, his nose inches away from the curtain of hair. "Hmm..."

He reached out. With the same casual curiosity he used to check if a peach was ripe, he tucked a large, damp lock of hair behind her ear.

"You know," Mario said, inspecting her face with a critical eye, "you got a lot of dirt on you. Does the well not have soap? It's a well! It’s full of water! You should be the cleanest lady in the world!"

Samara stared at him, her single visible eye wide with genuine shock. Her pale lips parted, but all that came out was a faint, watery croak.

"And look at these bags under your eyes," Mario continued, poking her cheek. It felt like touching a cold, wet fish. "You look like SMG4 when he stays up for three days making memes about feet. You need a nap. And maybe a comb. Mario has a comb in his pocket, but I think I used it to scrape some gum off my shoe earlier."

The spirit’s shock was rapidly turning into indignation. She raised her hands, the air around them beginning to darken with malevolent energy. The shadows in the lobby lengthened, twisting into horrific shapes.

Mario just rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You're trying too hard. You think you're scary? Mario has seen scary. You’re not even the scariest lady I’ve seen this week."

He leaned back against the banister, crossing his arms over his overalls. "The lady from *The Grudge*? Now *she* was scary. She makes that 'k-k-k-k' sound and she crawls down the stairs way faster than you. You move like a turtle with a tummy ache. It’s kind of embarrassing, really."

Samara’s jaw dropped. The dark energy fizzled out like a damp firework. She had spent decades cultivating an image of pure, unadulterated terror, and this man—this rotund, mustachioed man who smelled faintly of oregano—was comparing her unfavorably to a rival ghost.

She opened her mouth to let out a curse that would wither the very foundations of the castle, but Mario wasn't done.

"And the hair thing? Overplayed," Mario said, gesturing vaguely at her face. "It’s very 2002. You should try a ponytail. Or maybe a nice hat. Mario loves hats. They give you personality! Right now, your personality is just 'wet.'"

Before the spirit could retaliate, the heavy front doors of the castle swung open with a bang.

"We're back!" SMG4 shouted, leading the bedraggled crew into the lobby. "And I am never letting Bob pick the camping spot ever again. I think I have a leech in my—"

The YouTuber stopped dead in his tracks. Behind him, Luigi, Meggy, Tari, and Bob all froze.

In the center of the staircase stood Mario, looking bored, and the literal manifestation of death and vengeance from the cursed videotape.

"Mario!" Luigi shrieked, his knees knocking together so hard they sounded like a drumroll. "Get away from her! That's the girl! The girl from the movie!"

"Mario, don't move!" Meggy yelled, reaching for a Splat-gun she had left in her luggage. "That thing is dangerous! It's a vengeful spirit!"

"Holy crap, is that a dead chick?" Bob asked, leaning in with interest. "Hey, babe, you got a phone number? Or are you more of a 'haunt through the mail' kind of girl?"

Mario looked down at his friends, then back at Samara, who was currently looking between Mario and the newcomers as if she were contemplating which one to kill first out of sheer annoyance.

"Guys, relax," Mario said, waving them off. "She’s not that bad. She’s just a bit cranky because she lives in a hole. I was just telling her she needs to update her look. She’s way less scary than the Grudge lady. She’s basically just a soggy noodle."

"Mario, shut up!" SMG4 hissed, his face pale. "Do you have any idea who that is? If she touches you, you die! Literally! Your soul gets sucked into a TV and you turn into static!"

"Eh, I've had worse weekends," Mario replied. He turned back to Samara and patted her on the shoulder. The spirit flinched at the contact, looking absolutely disgusted. "Don't listen to them, Sally. Can I call you Sally? You look like a Sally."

"Her name is Samara!" Luigi wailed from behind a sofa.

"Whatever," Mario said. He leaned in and whispered loudly, "Between you and me, these guys are wimps. They’re scared of everything. Especially Luigi. One time he got scared by a toaster."

Samara looked at the trembling Luigi, then at the orange-clad girl aiming a plastic gun at her, then back to the man currently trying to see if his reflection was visible in her damp forehead.

She had come here to claim a soul. she had come to spread misery and eternal suffering. But as Mario began to explain the nutritional benefits of adding more red meat to her diet to "get some color back in those cheeks," Samara realized something far more terrifying than herself.

She realized she couldn't win. You can't haunt someone who doesn't have enough brain cells to process fear.

"Anyway," Mario said, turning back toward the TV. "The movie is almost over. You want some spaghetti? It’s a bit cold, but it’s got a lot of garlic. Good for the heart. Well, maybe not your heart, since it stopped beating a long time ago, but it’s good for the soul!"

Mario walked back to his spot on the floor, picked up his plate, and sat down. He patted the floor next to him. "Come on, Sally! Sit! The well scene is coming back up. Maybe you can give me some behind-the-scenes trivia."

The rest of the crew watched in stunned, horrific silence. Samara Morgan, the girl who had terrified millions, stood on the stairs for a long moment. She looked at the door, then at the pasta, then at the idiot in the red hat.

With a final, frustrated gurgle that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, she began to sink into the floorboards, her form dissolving into a puddle of dark, murky water before vanishing entirely.

"Aw," Mario said, looking disappointed. "She left. See? I told you she was shy."

"Mario," SMG4 said, finally finding his voice as he walked over to his friend. "You just insulted a primordial force of evil until it gave up and went home."

Mario took a massive bite of spaghetti, sauce smearing across his mustache. "I didn't insult her. I gave her constructive criticism. People appreciate that, SMG4. You should try it sometime."

He turned his gaze back to the screen as the credits began to roll.

"But seriously," Mario added, pointing at the TV. "The Grudge lady? Way scarier. She does the crawl thing. This girl just walks like she’s looking for a lost contact lens. Two stars. Would not recommend."

Luigi fainted. Meggy lowered her gun, staring at the spot where the ghost had been. Bob was already trying to see if the puddle she left behind contained any loose change.

Mario just kept eating, blissfully unaware that he had just become the only person in history to survive *The Ring* simply by being too annoying to kill.