Horror, as a genre, is about the existence of evil. I believe that idea as much as I believe anything. And, for my money, there is not a representation of evil that is as simple and effective as Michael Myers. People bring up that revelation from the sequel that retroactively changed the plot of this film, and people bring up Freddy Kreuger and Jason Voorhees as killers with more of a "personality", and PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE DAMN POINT. This is not a movie about a man killing for a reason, it is a movie about a force of evil being unleashed upon a normal world in a completely random way. It's not just scary - and it is scary - it's a completely fascinating concept that reinvented the genre (for better or worse) and it's a movie that still draws out my imagination every time I watch it.
The Moment That Changes Everything:
Another thing about Halloween, for me, is that it builds its tension while showing an extraordinary bit of restraint. I often feel like about 80 of the movie's 95 minutes go by before it really hits the gas and takes off. But there are so many little things in those 80 minutes that just make you ready for the explosion. Most effective might be an early scene where Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode walks down the sidewalk...and the camera sits behind the shoulder of Michael and picks up his breathing. Every time I see this scene, I'm reminded that the film wasn't trying to shock us repeatedly - it wanted to get under our skin and stay there. And it achieves that goal.
It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
There is a relatively endless debate about whether or not Halloween is a "ripoff" of Black Christmas. I always get a little defensive when it comes up, which is probably why I've historically shunned Bob Clark's slasher. I still think the film lacks tension and can't match the perfect pacing of Carpenter's film, but they are probably the two most effective slasher films in existence. If you ever needed a slasher film for another holiday, here you go.
What It Means To Me:
There was never any question that John Carpenter's seminal slasher was
going to end this list - but I have to admit the timing of this finish
is a happy accident. After coming up with this list at the beginning of March(!), I flip-flopped the list a bunch of times as I wrote these posts.
There were changes as recently as #4 on the list, but I haven't wavered
in my belief that Halloween is the best horror movie ever made since I first saw it. Now that I'm at this point in the list, I kind of can't figure out what to say without getting all dramatic and cheesy. I just - I just really like Halloween a lot. Go back and read some of the other posts in this list. The ones where I use outlandish terms like "best" and "of all time" and "perfect". And then realize that I like Halloween more than all the rest of those movies. Hell, I like it more than anything not made by Hitchcock. It's my own personal perfect horror movie.
And that's the list! Come back later, whence I will post a wrap-up, one-stop-shop, kind of post about the list that took me seven freaking months to finish, in which I will break the list down a bit and share some random thoughts. Oh, and, in case I don't see you.....
There is not a movie that I am more fascinated by than The Exorcist. Justifying why I love it is always a challenge, because it's one of those movies that is so revered that there's barely anything left to say about it. But then I watch it, and the littlest things jump off the screen at me. Like the tortured look in Jason Miller's eyes, or the visible breath rolling off the characters during the final assault, or how wonderfully perfect Linda Blair's delivery of "You're gonna die up there" to a random freaking astronaut is. It is the rare kind of movie where I could just pick any scene and ramble about it with love.
The Moment That Changes Everything:
Speaking of, it's impossible to pick one moment in The Exorcist that shakes me - because there are at least a dozen. It could be that staredown between Father Merrin and the statue or it could be when Regan freaks out on a dinner party or it could be when Father Karras goes into the room after he realizes what he must do. It's probably the spinal tap - I cry like a baby when that scene happens - but I'm not willing to commit to that. There are countless mind-melting moments in this movie.
It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
Like most great horror movies, The Exorcist inspired a lot of imitators. However, it's the rare film that didn't really inspire many good imitators in its day. Thankfully, the exorcism genre has had a nice resurgence in the last several years, led by the dynamite indie hit The Last Exorcism a couple of years ago. Mixing a little bit of Exorcist with the found footage formula and a dose of Hammer films, it's one of the creepiest films I've seen in a while. I don't know if it really belongs in the same conversation as The Exorcist - but only because I don't know if anything really belongs in the same conversation as The Exorcist.
What It Means To Me:
I am a Christian, and I've at times wondered if I feel a closer connection to The Exorcist because of that. But the more I watch this movie, the more I realize that anyone who would let their feelings about religion get between them and such a perfect horror movie is acting ridiculously. This is good against evil, and if you don't believe in that - I don't know how you can believe in horror. The Exorcist moves me, but there's no reason it shouldn't move anyone who realizes that a young girl turning into a dead thing that spouts obscenities and harms herself is something they don't want in the world. It's a horror epic that demands - and deserves - all the respect it can get.
We've talked about some of the basics thus far in this series, but now's the time to dig a little deeper into the things that led The Mike to where he's at today. After all, not EVERYTHING I've ever known or done was directly inspired by a book or a movie or the TV. I know it's shocking, but it's true.
Sometimes, it's just the little things in life that have a random yet profound impact on someone. And for me, there's no way to deny that these are some of of the things that inspired me to love the seemingly dangerous side of life that is horror.
This could have gone under books or movies, but I couldn't remember which came to me first - so I listed it here. The point is, I'll be darned if the idea of the Headless Horseman wasn't one of the very scariest things in the world to me when I was a wee-Mike. I remember reading and/or being told the story as a kid and being totally afraid to be out at night, but most of my fear comes from the harrowing vision of said creature shown in Disney's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow segment of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which I still think might be one of the most horrifying visions ever shown on screen. Proving, once again, that Disney movies know everything there is to know about making little kids pee their pants in fear.
My Great-Grandparents' Basement Stairway
I don't remember being too afraid of going in the creepy Silence-of-the-Lambs-style basement in my childhood home. I don't remember being scared of most basements, either. But I remember the stairway that led to the basement at my great-grandparents' home. I still believe that the open stairway at the end of their entryway, with no door to protect us from whatever lied below, always seemed to hold nothing but the darkest darkness I've ever seen. At one point I think us kids said we were brave enough to go down there, which I think was about the point when we were told there was a bear monster down there, right before someone jumped out and scared us. In the end, I never went down that stairway. Ever.
The Black-and-White TV
This one applies as much to my love of classic cinema as it does to my love of horror. I love the fact that I was one of the last kids ever to grow up with a black-and-white television set. Now, don't worry too much, we had color in the living room...but I was somehow blessed enough to get the old black-and-white TV in my room and it. was. awesome.
Remember when I told you about how scary Unsolved Mysteries was? It was so much scarier in black-and-white! And when I got lucky and got the VCR hooked up to this TV, I had a heck of a lot of fun. My first viewing of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds happened on this 13 inch screen - and a confused me forgot about that and spent a few years wondering why I couldn't find the "original" black and white version of that movie when he grew up. You think an army of angry birds (not the video game kind) is creepy? You shoulda seen it in black-and-white!
Audio Horror Chillers
If you're like me, you hated the stupid art classes you had to take in elementary and middle school. Man, I was the worst art-er of all-time. I was so bad, I made up the word "art-er" to avoid calling myself an artist. It was kind of embarrassing to realize how unartistic I was.
Luckily for me, one of my favorite things about school lived inside that art room. Behind his desk, our teacher kept a tape player and a selection of short audio tales that today remind me of The Twilight Zone. Alongside these audio chillers - which I have almost entirely forgotten at this point, though I think he may have had some Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark tapes - he had one of the stories that most made me in awe of what horror can do.
As alluded to in the picture, that audio tale was Orson Welles' infamous adaptation of The War of the Worlds. First of all, the story was engrossing. Second of all, the presentation of a "real" radio broadcast was thought provoking. And then, when I learned about the nationwide panic that surrounded Welles' performance of this story - I was in awe. This might have been the first time I really understood the showmanship that a horror storyteller could possess. I was enamored with the fact that a dramatic presentation of a horror tale could incite such widespread fear - and I wanted to find more stories/presentations like it.
My Pet Monster
If I was going to approach monsters as a child, I'd be better off if I had a little bit of monster on my side, right? Enter My Pet Monster, which has to be the coolest toy ever created (except for the Cabbage Patch Doll that my mom turned in to Mr. T. and put an Iowa State outfit on). While us children of the '80s were being bombarded by the unforgettable advertising of My Buddy and Kid Sister, I took the logic that applied to those toys - namely, "Wherever I go, he's gonna go" - and applied it to My Pet Monster. Even after his big toe was ripped open and he started to smell, I was attached to him. Probably to the point that I got in trouble for trying to take him everywhere, or maybe just to the point when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles happened. Either way, My Pet Monster was awesome and I wish he was still here with me now.
(And yeah...if you didn't know already, watch that My Buddy ad and see who you think looks like him. I guess you could say he's one of the Good Guys when it comes to dolls.)
The Iowa Countryside at Night
Y'all know we have ghosts in our cornfields, thanks to Kevin Costner and that darn baseball movie. But I'm here to say that there's something about a full moon over acres and acres of fields and dirt roads and no other houses within running distance that is totally creepy. (Even if I never did live out of running distance for normal people. But I was fat, so there's my excuse.)
Even as I grew up, I still remember being outside the house at night and looking around at miles of open ground and just feeling so much unease about the world around me. Nowadays it's creepier because I think of films like Inside or The Strangers where homes are invaded by real people with real sicknesses, but back then I was mostly worried about more pressing dangers - like aliens or werewolves. Ah, it would be great to be a kid again - but I ain't goin' into no field after dark anyway.
(On an aside, one of the side effects of this fear is that I never got around to seeing and/or reading Children of the Corn. To quote a wise man - "I don't have to see it, Dottie. I lived it."
Monstervision
I've already written at length about how much Joe Bob Briggs inspired me to become the host of my own online horror hotel, and I could have talked about his stint as TNT's host of Saturday night entertainment earlier in this series. Since I didn't, I feel compelled to mention it one more time, because Monstervision was the first thing that really pushed me to learn more about horror cinema and not just grab things off the rental shelf because they looked cool. Without this program and Mr. Briggs' leadership, I'd have never started this blog. I know that for sure.
The Haunted Hayride
When my parents decided that I was ready to experience the Haunted Hayride in my home town at a young age, it quickly became the scariest night of my life. To this day, I will swear under oath that a real chainsaw was right above my head sticking through one of the slots in the back of the hay rack. I was made to sit in the middle and the back - with warnings that I might be grabbed on the edges - but I was not safe enough, apparently. Oh, and remember that time when I told you I was afraid to watch Pumpkinhead because I was afraid of creatures with pumpkin shaped heads? Yeah, that came from the haunted hayride too. I can picture that image, with the strobe lights and the fake fog and the piped in sound effects still - and it is scaring me as I think about it.
I'm pretty sure the night ended with my parents bringing over the guy who ran the chainsaw or grabbed my foot or did something else that made me scream like a banshee so I knew that it was just someone in a disguise and not a normal demon or whatnot. I think they were playing me. I was too scared that night to not have faced at least a little bit of real evil.
And - after I checked my pants for wetness - I wanted more of it.
By now, you probably realize that I was a scaredy cat once. Heck, I still am at times. But all of these creepy experiences and the thoughts that they put into my head only made me more fascinated in what horror stories had to offer. And I never looked back in fear.
There's something to be said for the cathartic effect of horror. The fact that you can experience something horrific - whether it's a story about a killer scarecrow or a man in a costume swinging a chainsaw or images of people killing in the name of killing - and come out the other side knowing you survived is a heck of a feeling. I've always loved that in horror, and even when I tread lightly around some things horror has to offer I'm always a little interested to see if my resolve can hold up. And I can test that strength more successfully because I had these random fears in my life since I was a young pup.
Here endeth the lesson regarding How The Mike Met Horror, but the comments are as open as ever for you to share your own inspirations. Thanks for reading this October, and keep coming back for more horror - you'll be stronger if you do, I promise.
Many of Hitchcock's films were slightly notorious in their day (actually, one of them WAS Notorious, but that's splitting hairs), but Psycho seems to be a thing of legend. (If you don't believe me, watch the movie about it this Thanksgiving.) Groundbreaking in many ways - I love the claim that it was the first film to ever show a toilet flushing - Psycho is one of the most spoiled films in the world these days, yet it's still endlessly fascinating to film lovers everywhere. And, for the rare viewer who can see it with a blind eye to the twist, it can still be quite shocking.
The Moment That Changes Everything:
C'mon - you know the moment. And I'm not gonna talk about it, just in case those blind eyes are reading. But man, is it good.
It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
If Psycho's just not sleazy enough for you, you could fast forward about 21 years and watch Brian De Palma's sinister homage, Dressed to Kill. An all-star cast led by Michael Caine (back when he did random horror stuff) and Angie Dickinson (back when she never aged) is framed perfectly by De Palma's trademark style, and a ton of melodrama just makes the whole thing juicy and enjoyable.
What It Means To Me:
I love Hitchcock's films more than about anything in cinema, and I can't help loving his most "horror" film. I was one of those kids that saw the movie without knowing what was coming, and I don't remember ever being so intensely involved with what was going on on the screen. Anthony Perkins' performances as Norman Bates has long been my favorite in any film, and I can still watch Psycho any day and just be amazed by how well made it is.
Most people don't list The Wolf Man at the top of the list when it comes to Universal's "classic" monster movies. I disagree with most people. I think I get too caught up in the tragic drama aspect of this film, because I really buy in to the whole father/son/tortured family thing that we get from Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, Jr. here. And Rick Pierce's magical makeup effects, transforming the lovable Chaney into a wonderfully creepy monster, are a thing of nightmares.
The Moment That Changes Everything:
I don't know much about Maria Ouspenskaya, but I want to give her great grandchildren a hug some day. The actress who plays the gypsy fortune teller that explains the curse of the werewolf has pretty much the best delivery of an ominous warning in the history of cinema. It feels so darn real, and sends chills down my spine.
It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
Speaking of Claude Rains and things that aren't at the forefront of the Universal Monsters discussion, let's talk about The Invisible Man. It has the annoying comic relief of Una O'Conner, which is a problem, but it also has Rains eating up the scenery while occupying none of it. These two movies are often lost in the shuffle when it comes to Universal Monsters, but both have a lot of drama and some fantastic special effects.
What It Means To Me:
There's not a scare to be found in The Wolf Man today, but it's the story behind this man-turned-wolf tale that represents everything I love about horror movies. Some belittle the film and think I have it rated about a billion spots higher than it should be, but it's like comfort food to me. I love the actors and the script and the effects, and that ending is just one of the all-time best "hammer your point home" moments ever. I'll never tire of The Wolf Man.
In The Mike's Lair, it's just not October without a little Christopher Lee. I have plenty of heroes in horror - in fact, I detailed my 10 favorites last October in some of my favorite posts I've ever written - but Lee just seems to be my go-to horror star as I age. There's something about his presence that can be truly chilling in almost any setting, And when the mood is right (and I don't mean that in a Barry White kind of way) he can help make a horror film truly memorable. And that brings us to Horror Hotel, aka The City of the Dead in its native England, a film that brings in Lee as just one small part of its creepy goodness.
A black-and-white chiller from 1960, Horror Hotel might be the most atmospheric horror film to be released between the works of Val Lewton and John Carpenter's The Fog. Half the film seems to take place in parts of a small New England town where patches of dense fog just seem to happen, and there's a terrific unease to the setting of a small town with a history of witchcraft that dates back to 1692.
Enter Nan Barlow (you don't hear the name "Nan" any more...but it's kind of awesome, I say), a blonde college student who takes up the challenge of her professor (Lee) and heads off - alone, naturally - to investigate the historic (and fictional) New England village of Whitewood, where a young woman was burned as a witch more than 250 years earlier. She goes through the investigation-of-an-odd-small-town procedures that have become commonplace in horror cinema, with the most interesting person she meets happening to be an innkeeper (Patricia Jessel, who gives a juicy performance) who looks a lot like the which we all saw burned in the opening scene. Gee....you gotta wonder if that's gonna come in to play later on.
Venetia Stevenson stars as Nan, and her perky performance draws some incredibly eerie (but likely coincidental) parallels to the one given by Janet Leigh in another horror film released in 1960. The film is most interesting when she moves around this ghastly town and interacts with Jessel and the other inhabitants, most of whom seem to be keeping a dark secret and few of whom - basically just one incredibly helpful young woman in a book store - seem to be living in the current century. The culture shock of this young college girl entering a town from the past is a big part of the film's early tension, but it's not the meat and potatoes of the film.
No, the film hits it's stride near the middle when that dark secret catches up to poor Nan. There's a sequence that also parallels that other 1960 horror film where everything seems kind of normal and a whole lot more than was the norm is revealed to the audience - and then things take off in a surprising manner. The shock might not have been as groundbreaking this time around - there's no chocolate swirling around a drain ala Psycho - but the sequence that reveals what's going on in this hotel seems to move incredibly quickly and has a haunting quality to it, thanks in large part to Miss Stevenson's screams.
The second half of the film isn't as interesting as the first, but Horror Hotel still works as a moody tale of witchcraft and the occult that features excellent performances, spooky settings, and a crap-ton of fog machines. Fans of Lee and old-fashioned horror should have fun with this 75 minute chiller, which can be found on plenty of public domain DVDs/websites. It's worth seeking out, and not just because of its similarities to Psycho. During the Halloween season, a chiller like Horror Hotel is just what the doctor ordered.
When it's an old-fashioned spooky story that I want, it's The Innocents that I turn to. A deep and macabre adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, it's a movie I've seen many times and a movie that I feel I can barely understand. Led by a frantic performance by the great Deborah Kerr and supported by perfect and unique turns by children Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens and established actors Michael Redgrave and Peter Wyngarde, The Innocents becomes a psychological nightmare that offers some of the most haunting visuals in horror cinema. In fact, the moment that gives me more chills than any other I've seen is the centerpiece of The Innocents' ghastly tale. And that alone makes it an undeniable favorite of mine.
The Moment That Changes Everything:
I alluded to this moment, but there's literally no way I can explain in words just what this moment means to me. It's so incredibly simple - a woman in black appears in a lake - and it's been done 1000 times before and after. But man, there is just something incredible about how Deborah Kerr reacts to this vision. It is the most chilling thing I've ever encountered in a movie. It's perfect.
It Makes a Great Double Feature With:
This seems like a great time to pitch a Peter Wyngarde double feature, and I don't even have to mention Flash Gordon. (But I will anyway, because that's how I roll.) Check out Burn, Witch, Burn, a solid occult thriller written by Richard Matheson & Charles Beaumont, both of whom had their hands all over some of the best Twilight Zone tales ever. It has some of the same melodrama that The Innocents offers, and nearly as impressive black-and-white cinematography. Should make a heck of a double bill.
What It Means To Me:
Cutting out the strange sexual tension in the film - because that's a whole 'nother discussion for a much less scatterbrained writer - The Innocents is a classic ghost story that bucks plenty of trends. And then you add back in that strange sexual tension that I won't touch here and the movie becomes that much more mysterious. The Innocents has the power to keep me completely mystified, and it always leaves me a bit shaken and deep in thought. I might love it more than I should just because it effects me so much, but that sounds to me like the mark of a great horror film.
For a relatively straight-forward film that doesn't disguise its punches very well, In Their Skin is particularly effective at what it does. A home invasion thriller akin to The Strangers and its like, the film works thanks to a strong cast and an astute attention to detail. In fact, it might be the film's consideration of every angle might be a big part of what makes the plot seem straight-forward.
Josh Close and Selma Blair star as Mark and Mary, a married couple whose relationship has seen better days. They abscond to a country home for some quiet time with their son, but things quickly turn bizarre when another couple with another son show up and invite themselves into that home. As we learn more about the newcomers, we realize two things. Firstly, we realize that they have a lot of questions about the lives of Mary and Mark. And secondly, we start to notice that these invaders seem to look a lot like this family.
From those two hints - and the Freudian usage of the word "invaders" by a ham-fisted reviewer - you can probably guess where In Their Skin goes as the film moves past happy interactions and into full fledged carnage. Things quickly evolve from an awkward dinner conversation to plenty of violence and depravity, as Mark and Mary begin to lose control of their lives to their guests. And their lives are exactly what these invaders are after.
Blair and Close are asked to be victims in some pretty awful events, and each actor does well with their role. Blair is recognizable from several Hollywood films earlier in her career, but this is the most interesting I've ever seen her be in a film. She's traumatized before things get out of hand due to the family issues that have driven Mark and Mary apart, and I couldn't help but feel really badly for the character as Blair bared herself for the performance. Close seems to be the more put together of the two, as is normally the case in these films, but his performance evolves as the film goes on and his work in the final act is quite impressive.
The star of the show, however, is British actor James D'Arcy as the aggressor that leads the charge against this family. His performance doesn't go to the insane heights that we are used to from actors who are asked to commit unspeakable acts in a realistic setting, and it's the calmness with which he attacks his role that really won me over. The actor shows off some range throughout the film, but always seems to pull his character back to a cold and distant place that is wonderfully unsettling. A film like this works when the threat works, and most films achieve that through gimmicks. Some make the killer a total David Hess style madman, some take away the killer's face - but In Their Skin is perfectly comfortable letting their intruders reside somewhere in the middle. Some might say this hurts the film's shock value, but I think it makes D'Arcy and his "family" that much more interesting.
In Their Skin loses some steam in the final reels - which sadly leaves D'Arcy trying to do too much to keep us interested once the torture of Mark and Mary has kind of peaked - but the film has enough human drama to keep it afloat. It succeeds mainly because it's so well-acted, and I feel like the same script with lesser actors might have fallen flat. Blair, Close, Rachel Miner, and D'Arcy do more than enough with their performances to keep us watching the film. It doesn't have the scare factor of some home invasion thrillers - though there are some good chills - but it does make the viewer feel incredibly uncomfortable with the things that occur on screen. In that regard, In Their Skin is worth seeing for fans of dramatic human horror.
In Their Skin is currently available through most VOD/Instant Video services (including ITunes, Amazon, and game consoles) and will be hitting select theaters on November 9th. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer below.
While the first two parts of this series may have been familiar to most horror folks of my generation, the movies that sent me to where I am as a horror fan will be more familiar to the kind folks that read this here blog. Most of the movies I'm about to talk about have been covered here numerous times, so coming up with something relevant and useful to say in what follows has been a strong challenge for me. But as I look at this list of horror movies that inspired me in my path toward horror, I am taken aback by how totally random these movies seem to be.
I've covered some of the movies that inspired me in my currently running Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown - and I've chosen not to repeat my position on many of the films on that list. I'd be completely wrong to negate the impact films like The Shining, Fright Night, Happy Birthday to Me, and others had on me, but there's something about each of the movies I'm about to mention that just feels incredibly special to me. I know I'm not the only person that likes them, but it's kind of like these movies just happened to be in the right place at the right time for me. And that time and place was, for lack of a more intellectual word, awesome.
In January of 2009, From Midnight, With Love was born. And when I started putting this little blog together, dreaming that someday someone might read the ramblings I had to offer and maybe even consider an opinion of mine as a reason to check out a genre film, I put together a simple bio for the sidebar of the site that explained what I stood for as a genre fan. That same bio still sits in the right hand column of this site - and you can still see these three films listed there as the movies that awakened the monster that I now am.
I can't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure Phantom of the Opera came to me first. I remember being told about silent movies and realizing that this was kind of like reading a book with pictures, and I don't know if I had the attention span to finish the whole movie, but I do remember getting to the part where the unmasking happens and I remember being really freakin' excited. Whenever people ask me about my first horror movie, I mention this one.
Creature from the Black Lagoon came next, I think. I remember being in awe of the green dude on the cover when I first had the VHS tape brought to me, and I remember taking it to a friend's house when I was in second grade to watch during a sleepover. It didn't go as well as I wanted it to - I'm pretty sure I watched the whole thing alone - but at least I was in love with it. Was this the first time I tried to push someone I know to watch a horror movie against their will? It may very well have been.
Considering that it's the one of these three that I mention the most, it's slightly funny to me that I don't have any vivid memories of my childhood encounter with The Blob outside of the question mark that pops on screen at the ending. I didn't fall as in love with The Blob as I am now until a little later in my life - but I do remember thinking it was a ton of fun and talking about The Blob all the time whenever I had a reason to make a reference to it. (And sometimes when I didn't.)
As I look at these three VHS tapes now - and that's them, in their original glory, as they look tonight - I am completely in awe of how much what these three movies meant to me before I was even 10 years old. Maybe it was a brilliant design by my parents, or maybe it was just dumb luck - but whatever the reason, I can't help feeling that they gave me the three perfect films to push me to the love of horror I have today.
The Monster Squad
Remember that time in part one of this series when I talked about "those orange back monster books from the library? (If not, you should go read it and stuff.) Well, The Monster Squad was the film adaptation of those books - and the library had it too. Again, this was one of those things that kind of got lost in my memory except for parts - "Wolfman's got gnards!" is part of my philosophy on life, obviously - but it was my gateway to the monsters that I hadn't really seen outside of those books. Fred Dekker got me in the door with his monsters-for-kids film, which is probably exactly what he wanted to do - and I applaud him for that.
Pumpkinhead
There's a very simple and not very exciting reason that Pumpkinhead is on this list. When I was 8 or 9, I was ready for all the "scary" movies I could get. I'd seen the trinity, I'd seen the Monster Squad, I'd seen Dracula, and I wanted more. And I thought a monster with a pumpkin for a head sounded like a creepy idea, for reasons that I will elaborate on next week. Well.....
It was NOT a good idea for little me. I have a vivid memory of about 12 seconds of Pumpkinhead carnage when I was a kid. And I remember being instantly shocked and terrified and completely uninterested in seeing any more of that. Did I act cool? Yeah, I was a cool little pimp. But I was terrified. I went away from the screen and I did not come back. I wasn't completely ready to go where I wanted to go, but I learned from the experience.
Clownhouse
There it sits, alongside the plastic protector from Freedom Video Superstore in Marshalltown, Iowa that protected it (poorly, as you can see) for over 10 years in store and over 10 years in my hands. On sentimental value alone, this would be the absolute first thing that I would grab and run to safety if my lair was on fire.
I've long ago written a detailed rant about how much Clownhouse meant to my sister and I as we became old enough to watch horror movies. But I couldn't talk about movies that contributed to my horror love without Clownhouse. I must have watched it 50 times between the ages of 10 and 15, and I always knew it wasn't a good movie. But I loved it. And it led to every bad horror movie I've loved, and every horror movie I've watched and shouted at with friends, and every stupid grin I've ever given during a stupid movie. All of that can be traced back to how much fun I my family had with Clownhouse.
When that Freedom Video store went out of business, my mother rushed to town and ran through the store to grab it before anyone else even had a chance. You know how that watch was Bruce Willis' birthright in Pulp Fiction? Clownhouse is like that to my sister and I.
Dr. Giggles
Speaking of stupid and bad, there's Dr. Giggles. I have to list Dr. Giggles here, for similar reasons to Clownhouse. We didn't watch this movie religiously, nor did we necessarily like the movie, but Dr. Giggles became a cult figure in our house very quickly when we first encountered him.
And so it came to pass that my father would torture my sister by cackling like Dr. Giggles. And it's still funny. Heck, I'm pretty sure he somehow mentioned Dr. Giggles while she was in the hospital after giving birth a couple of weeks ago. Dr. Giggles was our home's Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees or Cropsey, and that still makes me smile.
Night of the Living Dead
The VHS Tape shown above demands your attention. First of all, anyone who's worth their weight in horror immediately realizes that the image that has been chosen - completely spoils the final moments of the movie. Then they might notice that they even spelled Duane Jones' name wrong on the cover. I'm laughing about that little yellow spot that denotes the guarantee on the 1986 VHS release of Romero's film, and the back of the box promises a "lifetime commitment" that you can call 1-800-VHS-Tape for details of. Oh, and the blurb on the back of the box reads EXACTLY as follows:
"Possibly the greatest low-budget film of all time filled with non-stop action. From the opening sequence, in which Judith O'Dea is terrorized by the first living corpse in the twilight cemetery, to the last slow dissolves and pans of still pictures, depicting the hero's death, the film is filled with ghoulish undertow that pauses only now and then on the thread-line to reality."
I'm sorry you guys, but I just got really distracted by that blurb. It's....so bad. Does that make sense to anyone else?
OK, back on topic. This VHS tape. This VHS tape may have been in my parents' VHS cabinet as long as the rest of the trinity. Yet I was strictly told that I COULD NOT watch it. So I didn't. I told you guys I was a good kid. Now do you believe me? I'd like to say that I didn't watch it because I was that respectful of my parents - never mind the fact that I snuck several viewings of my dad's copy of Brian De Palma's Body Double as soon as I realized what boobs were - but honestly I was kind of terrified of this movie. If they were that adamant that I couldn't watch it - it must be the scariest thing ever, right?
I'm pretty sure I saw the remake on Monstervision before I finally got the guts to put this VHS tape in the player. The spoiler on the video cover wasn't a big deal, because my dad had already explained the differences in the endings when we watched the remake with Joe Bob Briggs. Heck, when I finally did put in the VHS, I'm pretty sure I was like 16 and my parents came home with groceries with like 6 minutes left in the movie and started yelling for help and I had to pause right when it was about to blow up. Night of the Living Dead and I were just not meant to have a perfect meeting.
Did I love the movie anyway? Of course I did! It's bloody brilliant, and the hype and the distractions and the stupid VHS package only make me love it more. The anticipation was worth everything that followed, and watching Night of the Living Dead for the first time was a key moment in my life as a horror fan no matter how it happened.
Did I got long winded there? Man, I got long winded there. Apologies to those who don't like rambling incoherence, but these are the memories of horror that give me goosebumps. It wasn't the introduction to horror films that most had, and it wasn't always the best way to meet horror. In fact, those last three experiences would almost push most people to avoid horror movies. But these movies got to me at the right moment and it all just came together perfectly for me.
And now it's your turn - what movies got you in to horror? How did you learn to love cheesy goodness or overwhelming zombies or big green gill-men? Hit up the comments below, and then comeback next week for a the How The Mike Met Horror finale, in which i will present a "grab bag" selection of the other stuff that helped me fall in love with horror films.
Until then, keep watching horror movies and having an awesome October!
