Year: 2008

I saw an article on your site in GEEK MONTHLY and decided to check it out. There's lots of fun to be had, and I'm still reading it even now, but I did want to respond to your article on THE THING. Because as good as the movie is, it will never hold a candle to the original short story ("Who Goes There?" by JOHN W. CAMPBELL JR.), which I read as a child and which terrified me like nothing else. It's an absolutely gripping read, tense and claustrophobic in a way that even CARPENTER's excellent (and faithful) film can't match.

The most terrifying thing about it was that after I finished reading it and went to bed for the night, a friend of mine stopped by our house. He didn't want to wake my parents, but he did want to see if I was awake and up for sneaking out, so he tapped on my window and whispered, "John? John, are you there?" through the curtains. Needless to say, I didn't respond, primarily because I was sure that saying anything or even moving would result in being devoured by a shape-shifting monster.

UNK SEZ: John, thanks for reminding me just how great and effective "Who Goes There?" really is. I read it in my youth as well. In fact, before JOHN CARPENTER's THE THING was released in theaters, FANGORIA magazine held a contest asking readers to draw THE THING based solely on the description provided by CAMPBELL's text. The young Unkle Lancifer worked diligently in his Trapper Keeper and produced a work that, by rights, should have changed the history of art forever. (I had just discovered a revolutionary shading technique that involved smearing pencil lines with my eraser!) I'm not sure what exactly happened, but for some reason I DID NOT win that contest. I have developed many conspiracy theories over the years. Did the editors of FANGORIA decide that my work was so astounding that I was clearly a seasoned professional with far too many awards already under my belt and therefore disqualified me?? Did my postman, having entered the contest as well, destroy my submission in order to secure his own unwarranted victory? Was JOHN CARPENTER himself involved? Perhaps he was concerned that after seeing my illustration audiences would find his film somehow inadequate! Or was it the government? Maybe THEY stepped in and destroyed my masterpiece because it was a far too convincing a depiction of an alien life form and could potentially blow the lid off their decades long U.F.O. cover-up! One things for sure, "Who Goes There?" is one story that really can really produce paranoia!

P.S.: Thanks to the beyond excellent OUTPOST 31, I have found the winning submissions to the obviously rigged FANGORIA "contest." If you look below you will discover evidence that concludes, without a shadow of a doubt, that I have been robbed! FANGORIA, if you're reading this, it's never to late too make amends. Simply print a retraction in your next issue that states that you acknowledge the fact that you made a HORRIBLE, HORRIBBLE, MISTAKE!

NOTE: For even more horrible mistakes related to THE THING go HERE.

ALIEN was the first real horror film my parents allowed me to watch. My mother saw it in the theater when she was eight months pregnant with my sister. That kind of freaked her out. I always heard stories about the "chest-burster" scene and my imagination would run wild with horrifying visuals. A few years later it aired on broadcast T.V. I was about 9 at the time, and my parents only let me watch up to the part where the facehugger dies and JOHN HURT wakes up. Conveniently, there was a commercial break right before the infamous scene, so they sent me to bed.

At that time, in my mind, the alien wasn't the 8-foot, phallic-headed monster we all know and love, it was the spidery facehugger. That's what I thought popped out of Cane's chest and picked of the crew systematically one by one. I had to imagine what the rest of the movie was like with this facehugger killing all the crew.

The next day I drew a comic book called "ALIEN 2!" The plot was simple: The Facehugger escapes the ship and falls to Earth.HAL LINDEN from BARNEY MILLER fame was a beat cop who stumbles upon the facehugger who wakes up and starts destroying the city… and the only one who can stop it is, HAL LINDEN of course.

When I finally saw the entire film a few years later, I wasn't disappointed. As a matter of fact, I was floored. It has become one of my top favorites of all time.

I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes your imagination is not always better than the real thing.

UNK SEZ: Turnidoff, do not sell your vision of a HAL LINDEN starring ALIEN sequel short. Although JAMES CAMERON's take is very difficult to top, yours, if made as you envisioned it, would certainly not be the worst ALIEN sequel in existence. I also think it is very generous of you to want to assist Mr. LINDEN's jump from the small screen into multiplexes. I always thought his mustache was made to be seen larger than life, on the big screen. In fact, now that you mention it, HAL's 'stache just may be the absolute perfect foil for a wayward facehugger!

Earlier: Turnidoff's take on MADAME.

There was this episode of THE CAROL BURNETT where they show her being sucked down a bathtub drain. They show her slinking all through the drainpipes. I had to be three or four when I saw this. It took my parents months to even get me in a bathtub to take a bath without screaming my bloody head off. Even to this day, knowing rationally that it can't happen, I get that weird feeling around tub drains.

It was just this morning that I suddenly remembered something that totally freaked me out as a child. When THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS came out, I was ten. I remember seeing commercials for it on T.V., and there was one commercial that featured the one scene after Jack dresses like Santa and visits all the houses leaving creepy gifts. There's one boy holding a present and his parents go, "What did Santa bring you, honey?" and he pulls out a scary shrunken head and they scream.

That always totally scared me and it was years before I actually watched the movie. It's one of my favorites now, go figure. I looked on You Tube and found it. The shrunken head is right at the end, at 1:17. Still gives me a bit of a shiver.

Sometime during the ‘70s, a local T.V. station used to show old action movies and serials on Saturday mornings and at one point they showed TARZAN ESCAPES.  Another possibility is that I saw this first at the Saturday Morning Fun Club which was similar fare put on by a group of students at the University of Texas (where my Mom attended) who got a hold of a theatre on campus on Saturdays and provided popcorn and reams of discarded copy paper to make airplanes to throw at the screen during goofy moments – I also remember some funny smelling smoke that seemed to hang above the last few rows of the theatre…  Anyhoooo.

There is a scene from TARZAN ESCAPES which seems to have floated into iconic status – at least all the references to it I found online don't mention the specific movie it's from and just refer to it as basically occurring in just about every TARZAN movie ever made, but I don't think that's the case.

What happens is this: a party of pith-helmeted white explorers are being led back to civilization by their friendly native guides through the jungle when they encounter a big, not-too-friendly tribe.  A trade deal begins and goes wrong because frankly, head bwana devil is a pigheaded idiot.  Instead of killing the explorers right there, everyone is dragged back to the jungle village where much partying ensues and where the main entertainment happens to be, of course, the execution of the explorer party.  Now the most fun way to do this apparently is to whip up a gizmo consisting of two spring-loaded tree trunks crossing each other and held in place with a single release rope (imagine what the Professor from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND would come up with if he was an escaped Nazi scientist), and then lash a poor captive to both trunks just below the cross point, cut the release rope, and watch what happens.  Mr. Hayes wasn't about to let the Saturday Morning Fun Club show everything (this movie also marks where MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN was cast out of her skin-tastic loincloth bikini from TARZAN AND HIS MATE and into a mid-thigh tunic) but what they did show, the hapless struggling schmuck being tied up upside down in absolute terror ('cause you know if you're being tied below the cross of two spring-loaded tree trunks, things are going to suck pretty quick) and then the tops of the trunks suddenly whipping away from each other accompanied by the most horrendous grown man scream you've ever heard, was enough for my fertile little imagination to fill in all the details.

Cripes!  What's worse is, TARZAN actually shows up right after the first guy is ripped apart, but while they're grabbing the second guy and ripping the bejeebus out of him, he's pussyfooting around secretly cutting the ropes of the other captives.  Finally, just before the first white guy – of course – is about to get his E ticket punched, TARZAN calls in his herd of elephants to break up the party and saves everyone.

My memory of this scene has a "big-screen" quality to it – part of why it made such an impact – so I think it likely the Saturday Morning Fun Club was responsible.  It also had enough force that, until I watched the movie again recently, my recollection was of this tree thingy being utilized many times even though they only actually show it working on the first guy.  Regardless, I still remember the power inherent in that device as it loosed its stored up energy on those poor screaming extras.