Something about werewolves must’ve been in the zeitgeist back then. An American Werewolf In London is the one that got me as a small child. I don’t know that I’ve seen a better F/X transformation on screen since, at least not that injected fear and revulsion like that first transformation scene did. I think it was the first time as a child that I thought, “Oh, this movie is too adult for me to watch.”
THIS is why I enjoy reading you so much. With your prose, you put me there, at your side, as you swipe the tape, as you press PLAY on the Betamax, as you experience a rite of passage that all of us have gone thru. Reminds me of the first time I saw a Playboy centerfold...man, I'll never forget that green towel!
I could prattle on about THE EXORCIST, which inflamed all my latent Catholic fears and mightily challenged my nascent atheism when I saw it during its first run; or cheapie horror flix like THEM or THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, which scared the beejeebuzz outta me when I was an impressionable kid.
But the one that did me in? CARNIVAL OF SOULS, a total low-budget fright fest featuring a protagonist who was supposed to be dead, the ghosts that were set on retrieving her, and a spectral, abandoned carousel. I STILL get scared, 58 years later, that I'm gonna see a ghost standing next to me when I look in a mirror.
John, I also watched this in 6th grade, but WITH my parents, on the VHS and I don't need to tell you how many things were wrong with that experience. Love this. Love this movie (now).
It was Creepshow for me, and I was much younger than 12. It was summer, and my parents were out swimming in the pool. Creepshow was on HBO or something like that, and I watched it. It terrified me. I remember opening the pantry and screaming at something that wasn't there at all. I still have a genuine fear of cockroaches. But one of the shorts in it, fascinated me and stuck with me for a long time. It starred Leslie Neilsen, who played a guy who murdered his wife for cheating by burying her up to her neck in the sand before the tide came in. He then murdered the guy she was sleeping with that way too, with the added bonus of taking a tv and vcr out there so that the guy could watch her drown while he drowned. (I was awed at the ability to do that with a tv and vcr at the time.) Then, the drowned lovers rise from the sea and drag Leslie off and do the same thing to him. For some reason that story, that afterlife justice, stuck with me hard and I still think about it from time to time.
i also remember that movie, having also seen it a little too young. i remember one of the vignettes was about a lake monster that put me off lakes for years
Something about werewolves must’ve been in the zeitgeist back then. An American Werewolf In London is the one that got me as a small child. I don’t know that I’ve seen a better F/X transformation on screen since, at least not that injected fear and revulsion like that first transformation scene did. I think it was the first time as a child that I thought, “Oh, this movie is too adult for me to watch.”
THIS is why I enjoy reading you so much. With your prose, you put me there, at your side, as you swipe the tape, as you press PLAY on the Betamax, as you experience a rite of passage that all of us have gone thru. Reminds me of the first time I saw a Playboy centerfold...man, I'll never forget that green towel!
I could prattle on about THE EXORCIST, which inflamed all my latent Catholic fears and mightily challenged my nascent atheism when I saw it during its first run; or cheapie horror flix like THEM or THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, which scared the beejeebuzz outta me when I was an impressionable kid.
But the one that did me in? CARNIVAL OF SOULS, a total low-budget fright fest featuring a protagonist who was supposed to be dead, the ghosts that were set on retrieving her, and a spectral, abandoned carousel. I STILL get scared, 58 years later, that I'm gonna see a ghost standing next to me when I look in a mirror.
Yeah, you never forget your first! Thanks, John.
Creature from the Black Lagoon for me…
John, I also watched this in 6th grade, but WITH my parents, on the VHS and I don't need to tell you how many things were wrong with that experience. Love this. Love this movie (now).
*gasps*
I would have died right there.
It was Creepshow for me, and I was much younger than 12. It was summer, and my parents were out swimming in the pool. Creepshow was on HBO or something like that, and I watched it. It terrified me. I remember opening the pantry and screaming at something that wasn't there at all. I still have a genuine fear of cockroaches. But one of the shorts in it, fascinated me and stuck with me for a long time. It starred Leslie Neilsen, who played a guy who murdered his wife for cheating by burying her up to her neck in the sand before the tide came in. He then murdered the guy she was sleeping with that way too, with the added bonus of taking a tv and vcr out there so that the guy could watch her drown while he drowned. (I was awed at the ability to do that with a tv and vcr at the time.) Then, the drowned lovers rise from the sea and drag Leslie off and do the same thing to him. For some reason that story, that afterlife justice, stuck with me hard and I still think about it from time to time.
i also remember that movie, having also seen it a little too young. i remember one of the vignettes was about a lake monster that put me off lakes for years