About me

I've been writing stories for years. I think I'm a good writer and I'm willing to bet you'll feel the same way. So here they are. Enjoy them, comment on them, tell your friends about'em, reblog them, retweet them, reread them. I have four stories in my archive so far:
"One day on the Mountain", a story of Lycanthropy, a father, and a son.
"The Boy", a story of a very ambitious and sociopathic fifth grade boy.
"The Easy Girl, A story of infidelity and unpaid sexual debts. This story is very dark.
"Brick The Mighty", a story of an aging superhero.
Although this is primarily a blog of horror, I also write about things that are important to me. I have more stories tucked away; they just need editing. There's even a few novels. There will be more to come.
PS. Feel free to leave a comment. I love comments.

Sunday 18 September 2011

My first frightening movie experience

    In 1983 (Yes, I'm a child of the eighties), my friend and I went to the movies. There was this flick in the theatres called The Twilight Zone. We knew nothing about it, nothing about the original series, nothing about the show's habit of ironic and moralistic O. Henry endings, nothing about scary movies beyond knowing that they were scary and they were sometimes sexy. Sex was something you could see in scary movies without your parents knowing.


   The opening scene is set late at night, in a car, on a long, lonely highway. The two men inside are singing along to the radio. They have a conversation after that, a lively conversation, and then the driver says, "Do you want to see something scary?"


   After the passenger agrees, the driver turns out the indoor lights. They're in the dark, out in the middle of nowhere, roaring blind down the highway. The passenger is understandably frightened. He begs for the lights to be on again.


   After the lights come on, the passenger says, "Do you wanna see something really scary?"
   When the driver says yes, the passenger says, "First you have to pull over."


   The driver does so. After they are safely pulled over and the engine is off, the driver turns to the passenger. After the constant drone of the car engine, the theatre is quiet, and the driver's voice is very startling and loud when he says... "Okay! Scare me."


     The passenger smiles and turns away towards the door, hiding his face. After a moment of unbearable silence, the passenger turns around again. And this is what we see.


     I just about died. I turned and hid my face as the audience screamed in delight. A second later I peeked around to see this thing begin to eat the driver's face. 


   I recovered, and the rest of the movie was quite average, until the the final story in which a plane passenger has to watch a gremlin eat the wing of his plane.


   That was the most terrifying moment of my young life. I remember it like it were yesterday.


                             -----------------------


  A year ago, I decided to look up my old nemesis, the movie that scared the crap out of me when I was a child. I finally saw the old scene on YouTube. I was so thankful. Everything is on Youtube. When we're all dead, YouTube will still be around to explain everything.


   You know what I saw in that opening scene? Albert Brooks and Dan Ackroyd in that car.


   That song they were singing along to on the tapedeck? A cover of Midnight Special by Creedence. Then they play a musical guessing game - they hum along to the themes to Hawai'i Five-O, Sea Hunt, and even National Geographic. Eventually they sing The Twilight zone theme. It's hilarious. It's a young Brooks and Ackroyd - of course it's funny! Not only that, I completely blanked out and had forgotten that game. I only remembered the frightening bits.


    So there you have it: One of my most formative scary movie experiences was comedy and I was too green to realize it. Looking back, I can see that it's a delightful scene, full of fun and love of old television, with two wonderful comic actors who act as if they were enjoying every minute.


  Look up the scene. It's wonderful and can be found here.

19 comments:

  1. I think I have seen every Twilight Zone episode ever made. It was something I liked to do in the summertime. I'd stay up while everyone was sleeping to watch it. It was my show. During the day, the family fought over what they wanted to watch so I just read books.
    I even know which Twilight Zone episodes were remade from the black and white version and I could tell you some of the episodes came from short stories I have read and I like to compare how the stories change. I'm not a fanatic or anything. I guess I just watched the show a lot.
    None of the shows ever scared me, except one. It's the one about the kid who has to stay with his ailing grandmother and she's dying. She's pretty freaky and keeps calling his name and telling him that he's her favorite son. There's a book she's hiding under the rafters of her room and he becomes obsessed with it. Then she dies, and he has to get the book which ultimately possesses her etc. I don't remember it much. It must have been twenty years since I've seen it.
    Anyway, I can relate to this post. I have recollections of movies that I watched when I was a kid and when I see them again, I recognize the actors. Stand By Me is a good one. All those kids grew up and are still acting except for River Pheonix who died. I could name off more but my early onset Alzheimer's just kicked in and I can't recall the exact name of all these movies.

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  2. I think that one of the best things about Twilight Zone was that they often mixed horror with comedy. Just when you were confortable they'd zing you with a little horror. Twilight Zone was a classic and there has not been much (on TV at least) to match it recently. My favorite episode, All The Time In The World, is horror on another level. Being an avid reader I can imagine a world with all the time to read that I wanted, but then to have my glasses break would be horrible! I guess time can change things because now all I would have to do is find the nearest drugstore and get readers.

    I think the movie that scared me the most when I was young would have to be "It's Alive" the story a horribly malformed baby that goes on a killing spree (they did a remake recently, but I'm talking about the original from the 70's).

    Small things that kill apparently bother me because all of the Child's Play films and one part of the TV movie Trilogy of Terror which involved a little Zulu doll creeped the heck out of me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Leah - that story sounds like the story 'Gramma' from Steve King's Skeleton crew collection. The story itself is absolutely terrifying and is based on the common fear a child has of his or her fat, odd-smelling, grandmother - you know, the kind with the huge upper arms.
    Roseann - that It's Alive movie you describe sounds eerily familiar. I may have seen it. I think I can see the box cover. And yes, the Zuni fetish doll is a one of the scariest images in horror. Those teeth, those horrible blank eyes!

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  4. This was a great movie (still is. I can still put it on the instant queue and watch it almost any day). Yeah, that first scene was scary (still is, even with the great comedy). I agree with Roseann. They had a knack for mixing in a little comedy.

    Paul D. Dail
    www.pauldail.com- A horror writer's not necessarily horrific blog

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think I love you, or your blog... whatever. Let me just say that to this day whenever someone says, "Do you want to see something really scary?" I start screaming, "NO!" and running like a crazy person. Between Twilight Zone and Carrie, my childhood is tainted with the vision of my dad trying to scare the living bejeebus out of me. Nothing is more frightening then someone grabbing your arm at the exact moment a hand lurches out of a grave. However, that's another story.
    Carry on and thank you for the excellent reminder.
    ~Amanda
    behindtherows.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think i love your dad; he sounds really cool! And your name is awesome - I wish i'd thought of it myself.

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  7. What an interesting post! Too funny!

    My scary movie experiece was Watcher in the Woods- a Disney movie. I was so freaked out from it as a child that I used to worry that I would get taken to another dimension. As an adult I figured I must have been too young to understand the movie- since it is by Disney. I rerented it- and it was even scarier than I remembered! Betty Davis was so good/scary!

    ~Jess

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