It's hard for me to try to follow up WIL's sexual Kindertrauma unless you count that I like playing dress up and running through haunted houses. I guess I could say my first memory of a horror film was when I was a few years old and my dad let me watch SQUIRM. (more…)
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THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982) was not a scary movie. It was a swash-buckley, over the top action-adventure covered in a big orange mound of Velveeta. All the gals wore ridiculous wigs and were often topless, and all the dudes wore loincloths and were often flogged. Something for everybody! Especially if you are partial to hearts being pulled from chests, heads being sliced in two, and people ripping their own skin off! The opening scene was a standout and it actually did creep out many a critter. Porridge mugged RICHARD LYNCH resurrected a lizard-faced RICHARD MOLL from the bowels of hell with the help of a soon to be deceased witch. The vessel that the creature arises from is covered with stone faces that come to squirmy life with the aid of yummy plastic fantastic eighties style special effects. Both these shots are from said scene but the second one has NINE distinct differences. Can you find them all before the world explodes?…GO!
When I was really young, my mom used to watch that show UNSOLVED MYSTERIES and every damn time the theme song started playing, I would completely freak out and cry like a maniac, begging her to change the channel. It wasn't even the show itself that scared me because I never actually watched any of the episodes at that point. It was just that stupid song that gave me nightmares. At this age, I had already been watching plenty of horror movies and loved them so I don't know why this particular song had that kind of affect on me.
Eventually I ended up catching the middle of an episode one night and unwillingly got hooked by the creepiness about a haunted house. When a ghost inevitably appeared and frightened a little boy, my dumb child mind randomly thought the ghost was Jesus (I guess because I was already scared of Him to begin with) and it totally traumatized me. From then on, I developed an intense fear of Jesus and would stay up nights thinking that he might come visit me while I slept. I even had a panic attack while at church a few years later for a relative's baptism. To this day, I still feel uneasy just thinking about him.
Believe it or not, I'm a really sweet person and I don't worship the devil. I'm NOT the antichrist, as this would suggest. Well, at least I don't think I am…
Thin skinned, quivering watercolor enthusiast Marjorie Worden (marble-mouthed SANDY DENNIS) and her work-obsessed, ad executive hubby Paul (KOLCHAK's DARREN McGAVIN, who not only exudes Captain Carl level machismo, but is also notably one of the few people who can truly pull off wearing a hat) trade city rats for country rats when they move into a rural Pennsylvania farm house. Along with their two children, a tow-headed Carol Ann Freeling prototype and seventies ginger staple/sea monster advocate JOHNNY WHITAKER, they discover that the devil is not only in the details, but is also residing in the barn. Marjorie is the first to suspect something hoofed is afoot when she wakes to the sounds of a baby crying and discovers an apparently long expired jar of glowing red jelly is the source. The jar proves to be as difficult to shake as one of Paul's commercial jingles as it reappears in various parts of the house causing Marge a great deal of anguish. Oldster Harry (ROSEMARY'S BABY alum RALPH BELLAMY) the lone person not chalking Marge's erratic behavior up to hysteria, is quickly dispatched via a swooping demon P.O.V. shot. What may have been a standard seventies occult pastiche is elevated to classic status by the talents of a still-hungry, young STEPHEN SPIELBERG, fresh off the crashing success of DUEL. Incorporating inventive camera moves and creeped-out sound effects, whilst always taking full advantage of the charismatic cast, this made-for-T.V. movie rises far above the chaff and delivers an eleventh hour switcharoo truly worthy of preservation.
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Back in grade school, one of our recess ladies, Ms. Fontaine, had feathered blond hair and a scratchy voice. She always reminded me of Callahan, Oscar Goldman's secretary on the BIONIC WOMAN. After catching the episode where Callahan revealed herself to be one of the FEMBOTS, I made countless excuses so I could spend recess indoors. I was convinced Ms. Fontaine was a robot, and I was too terrified to go outside and play tether ball when she was there.
Editor's note: Hey Bryan, whatever you do don't look at THIS!
This may sound crazy but when I was a little girl I was terrified of E.T. I remember seeing it with my brother and cousins when it first came out. My crying was so bad that we all had to leave the movie. A couple years later at my first sleepover my friend Rachel had a picture of E.T and Michael Jackson on her wall. I did not sleep a wink that night. I just stared at that picture, scared out of my wits. I still have not seen the whole movie and I'm always worried that one of my kids will want to watch it some day.
P.S. The part where E.T. dressed up as a woman scared me the most!
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to get trapped inside a pop-up fairy tale book, this may be the closest equivalent. STUART GORDON the director responsible for breathing life into the dead with legendary results in RE-ANIMATOR grants the same favor to the creepy little playthings that line many a child's bureau. In an early fantasy sequence, Judy's beloved teddy bear shows his true colors when he splits apart at the seams and begins mauling the deserving adults. It not only sets the stage for black humor and pre-adolescent revenge wish fulfillment, but also perfectly captures the movie's being as a whole, a cuddly charming toy with hidden claws.
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