Young Fears 31: Day of the Dead

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Happy Halloween!

To close this look at what would scare me while growing up, I offer you Day of the Dead, the third of George A. Romero's zombie movies. This is the sort of film which I would read about in the Leonard Maltin film guide or occasionally see some details in a Horror Encyclopedia book (I checked out every non-fiction book on monsters in the libraries as I grew up). But, like The Company of Wolves, it belonged to that region of the video store I would not frequent. I knew - I just knew I couldn't handle the hard 'R' horror films.

And yet, over time, I became pretty comfortable with R-rated films. I began to spend a lot of time on the cable network Scream, watching pretty much whatever they put on air. One afternoon they showed Day of the Dead and I watched it to the end, right to the terrible climax where most of the film's surviving humans were torn apart and eaten alive, the camera demonstrating absolutely no discretion to the gore on display.

My reaction: "Huh. That's disgusting. But... it's not scary."

You see, I had finally made the same realization Val Lewton had with the Cat People - that the suggestion of terrible things had a psychological impact much greater than the visceral reaction to gore. Suddenly, I could watch any kind of horror movie regardless of its rating! I had avoided John Carpenter's The Thing because Roger Ebert had dismissed it as a barf bag movie; now that I knew gore didn't bother me I could watch and enjoy the film and realize Ebert (great reviewer that he was) had been talking out of his prodigious rear.

There are still occasionally moments when reading a book or watching a film that I feel the creeps - but thanks to Day of the Dead, I know film violence itself is not necessarily scary.

Man, Day of the Dead. I owe the film a debt, but... what a piece of crap.

Young Fears 30: The Night of the Living Dead

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Throughout this month I've looked at formative moments in my childhood where something scared me. For these last two days, I'm bringing it a little closer to my present-day self. At Halloween time in my youth, I would scour the TV guides to find appropriate scary kids shows to watch (an airing of Disney's Halloween Treat being top of my wish list). In my teenage years, I might be lucky enough to watch the TNT Monstervision marathon. One Halloween my mother & I handed out candy while watching my copy of Boris Karloff's The Mummy.

On my first Halloween as an adult, living alone, I turned to that bastion of educational public television Access, where they presented: The Night of the Living Dead (the 1990 remake). Being a snob (both then & now) I recalled Roger Ebert's withering review of said film; however, not having seen the original version of the picture and recalling most of the faults Ebert found were in the comparisons, I decided it wouldn't hurt to watch the remake on its own.

Now, I've seen the original since then and I have to say, I still don't think the 1990 version is that bad. Yes, it musses up some great bits from the original; at the same time, it also offers a better treatment for some of the original material. They're both okay, I think. But the real reason why I stick up for the 1990 version is because I felt that picture. I watched it, I enjoyed it, and then I realized... I was alone. Alone in the house on a dark Halloween night. No more television worth watching. Were my windows properly latched? Better check. Hey, is the bolt drawn in the door? Check that too. Yes sir, that was my first Halloween alone; it was glorious.

Young Fears 29: Don't Look Behind You

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

It seems as though most of my early encounters with horror involved visual media - I've spoken mostly about film, television and comic books. Well, with the month almost over, allow me to inform you about a little thing called "Don't Look Behind You". It's a short story written by Frederic Brown in which a murderer narrates his life story to the reader.

I found the story in the back of an Alfred Hitchcock collection called Stories Not for the Nervous. If you know anything about the story, then you understand why it has to be in the back of the book. You see, the narrating murderer eventually begins talking directly to you and explaining how he chose you as his next victim after inserting his confession into a collection of mystery stories. It's extremely effective! This is a story which is best enjoyed while your back is against a wall and all the entrances to the room are visible to you. Heh-heh. I learned my mother had read this same story when she was young and it gave her a similar fright. You see, horror doesn't have to be something you experience alone - it can bring you closer to the people you love!

Young Fears 28: Papa Benjamin

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

I've spoken before about the Escape episode entitled "Papa Benjamin." It's from a story by Cornell Woolrich and it's been adapted in a few places, such as in the film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and an episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller. Still, this is one I keep returning to because my initial encounter was so memorably frightening. Part of my initial fascination with old-time radio shows were the scary programs - Suspense, the Whistler, the Shadow - and then, as now, I would listen to QR77's old-time radio rebroadcasts every night.

One evening I awoke to hear the radio on; I had fallen asleep early into the evening's shows. Half-awake, I heard a drama unfold about policemen venturing into a filthy New Orleans back alley where they found a dead man. Investigating the murder, they learn this is all tied up in voodoo. In my drowsy state the eeriness of the situation seemed all the more intense; I could have easily gone back to sleep but no, I remained awake - I had to know how it all turned out!

Don't take my word for it - listen to "Papa Benjamin" here (archive.org link).

Young Fears 27: Godzilla vs. Gigan

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Somehow, the line of Godzilla movies didn't play in my family's house. I do recall watching bits of Godzilla vs. Megalon during a TNT Monstervision marathon, but that film wasn't exactly geared to make anyone want to watch those films. Earlier than that, however, I rented my first Godzilla movie from the local Red Basket: Godzilla vs. Gigan! Yeah, a giant metal monster with a buzz saw in his chest and hooks for hands! What kid wouldn't like it?

And yet, I was still repulsed by the film. Not because of Godzilla himself (he did his best with the material, I have great respect for him as an actor) but because of the aliens who were pulling the strings behind Gigan: a couple of giant cockroaches! Ewww! Yuck! Bugs! It may have been years since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but I still had no love for big bugs. Those stinkin' cockroaches ruined the movie for me.

Young Fears 26: The War of the Worlds

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Ah, cable television, an outlet to worlds beyond the mere confines of what came over broadcast television and what my parents were willing to rent from the video store. But then, who would complain about The War of the Worlds 1953 film by George Pal? This was one my parents happily watched with me and it caused a minor sensation in my imagination as I sought out my own copy of the H.G. Wells novel. Better still, it led to my father sharing his two-record copy of the 1938 Mercury Theater on the Air adaptation by Orson Welles, proving an important moment in the development of my interest in old-time radio.

Depictions of the Martians may have varied from one adaptation to another, but to this day the only one which freaks me out is the 1953 film version and I'm not convinced my youth is the reason why. Pal showed his creatures only briefly and the Martian's sudden appearance gives an electrifying jolt because it's both unexpected and, obviously, quite inhuman what with the Simon Says board it has for a face. Even as I went to add the image of the Martian you see above I had to repress a shudder. For 1953, that is a mighty monstrous Martian.

Young Fears 25: The Monster Squad

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Sometimes you enjoy a film so much that it becomes a companion to you across the years. Regardless of whether you revisit it once a year or once a decade, you're always pleased to return to it. I can recall how the summer The Monster Squad film came out it was a major topic of conversation among my peers, especially at church camp. This was a fun and cool movie to see with many bursts of dialogue which are easily remembered (probably because they were naughty words). But the summer passed on and by Christmas it had become a film you had fond memories of but wouldn't really watch again (and I haven't).

But one moment lives on in my memory - the werewolf transformation scene. I've already written about my nascent experience watching the Wolf Man and this film's werewolf was an obvious homage to Chaney Jr.'s - he was a tortured soul who wanted to be rid of his curse. His transformation scenes were presented as him becoming gradually more animal-like, which is again like the Wolf Man. But something had happened to werewolves in the 80s - their transformations had become even scarier I wasn't aware of this as my parents were not about to let me see the likes of the Howling (come to think of it, I only saw the Howling for the first time earlier this year). What really caught me about this transformation and what was different about it compared to the Wolf Man was, quite simply, froth. The man's literal frothing at the mouth as he transformed spooked me out more than the furry costume. It's still strange to think that Monster Squad was the sort of thing considered kid-appropriate in my youth, but froth aside, it me no harm.

Young Fears 24: Totem Poles?

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

I am not afraid of totem poles. Let that be understood.

You see, there was a time when my mother thought I was. But no, not really. Totem poles were not and are not scary. I've had a pair of miniature totem poles in my possession since early childhood and I truly treasure them. However, one summer vacation my family went out to Vancouver where quite a few totem poles can be seen. As we drove past a few one morning and my parents pointed them out, I remarked, "They look like something from Scooby-Doo."

My mother did not appreciate that remark. As I mentioned in earlier installments, she held some concern about what kind of media I was being exposed to, especially of a supernatural bend. This, then, proved to be the final straw. No more Scooby-Doo - ever! I think it was about the same time she made the same decision about the Smurfs. And while that might sound ridiculous to you, living in the everything-goes all-is-permissable 21st century, I respected my mother's authority and obeyed her wishes. In this, as in all things she forbade my siblings from watching, I did not watch those programs again.

I mean, until I was old enough that I wasn't living under her roof. But see, by then, you don't actually want to watch Scooby-Doo, y'know?

Young Fears 23: Struthiomimus

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Everyone knows that children like dinosaurs. Whether they're giant lizards who fight each other in Disney's Fantasia or friendly giants such as Danny's dinosaur (re: Danny and the Dinosaur) you're exposed to a lot of dinosaurs while growing up regardless of any expressed interest - rubber toys, colouring books, stuffed animals, etc. And yet, although I had my share of dinosaur stuff while growing up, they weren't a source of great fascination to me. Yes, I loved my toy triceratops an awful lot, but I didn't explore dinosaurs on my own time. On some level, that's because they were, after all, giant monsters, which are scary; on another level, they were animals you couldn't see, only read about - and that seemed rather boring.

When the Royal Tyrrell Museum opened in 1985 it was a pretty big deal in Alberta. Although there seem to have been a lot of tourism initiatives around that time for Albertans to get out and enjoy the many natural wonders of our beloved province, a museum - a building, a real destination - was something else.

Now I should say that I have no recollection of being frightened by museum displays as a child. Heck, I went to see the wax museum in Victoria at a tender age and it didn't leave a mark on me. This is not the story of a frightening display; this is the story of a frightening magazine cover. You see, the museum's opening led to so much publicity that their dinosaur statues seemed to be everywhere. One day I went into my parents' room and reached into my Mom's stack of magazines to find something. And there, on the front cover of some Alberta tourism magazine was the dreaded Struthiomimus, nature's cruelest jester. The glassy stare in his eyes, the curious crane in his neck and the beak-like shape of his jaw electrified me. Oh boy, that dinosaur looked convincing! And therefore, terrible.

My family went to the Tyrrell not too long after its opening and, although the statue freaked me a little in-person, I did my best to get through it. I've visited the museum about once per decade since then - and each time glared at that statue. But I never turn my back on it.

Young Fears 22: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Many people of the same approximate age as me have a similar story about Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. You're watching an odd but very funny comedy when all of a sudden you reach a very weird scene where a truck driver relates a scary story then makes a horrifying face at the camera. You stop the film, then rewind and watch it again. "Huh. Weird, but pretty funny," you think. Even your juvenile mind recognizes that the shift from comedy to horror is a stylistic choice which is meant to be funny in its own right. You like that scene. You tell your friends about it.

But in future viewings when you're leading up to that scene, you find something else to look at at the pivotal moment.

Young Fears 21: Return to Oz

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

The line at which too intense meets just intense enough in a children's film will vary from viewer to viewer. One picture which I've frequently seen held up in online discussions is Return to Oz, the delightfully dismal yet horribly happy Oz film which surprised 1980s audiences by sticking closer to the trappings of L. Frank Baum's novels than the MGM musical version. The film includes a headless sorceress who holds a collection of living heads within cabinets; the rock-monster Gnome King; the maniacal laughing Wheelies and the Deadly Desert which crumbles people into dust. For me, I found it intense, but to the side of just intense enough. I certainly found the 1939 film much more cheery, but the serious tone of Return to Oz appealed to me, no matter how creepy the Deadly Desert appeared.

My oldest niece is rather fond of Oz and earlier this year I wondered if she should watch Return to Oz, but felt it might be too intense for her. Then I recalled when I first saw the film I was younger than she is now. Yeah, it's probably time to let her see this film.

Young Fears 20: The Company of Wolves

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

In many ways it is a pity that future generations will not have the experience of browsing for movies in a video rental store. There is something about the childhood experience of wandering through the racks and suddenly finding yourself staring at the covers of films in the horror section and being utterly transfixed in horror. Sure, today's kids will probably turn up some trauma from a Google image search but to encounter something in the real world, to turn the corner from child-safe material to the nightmarish world of horror-seekers is quite something when you're an impressionable youth.

There are many video box covers which gave me pause, but none moreso than The Company of Wolves, seen above. I already had a fear of werewolves from my encounter with Lon Chaney, Jr.'s the Wolf Man, but here was a different type of werewolf transformation, one where the wolf seems to shed its human nature as a separate skin. Two mouths in one body - now that's creepy. I have, to this day, not seen the film. I did have to read some of Angela Carter's fiction in college (she being the author of the material adapted in this film) and am thus pretty sure I wouldn't care for the movie, but that's okay - the video box cover did its job of scaring me; no matter how good the creature effects in the movie might be, I kinda don't want to see them - I'd rather let my childhood imagination run wild.

Young Fears 19: Island of the Dinosoids

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Perhaps my favourite cartoon while growing up was Super Friends, a program which featured most of DC Comics' major super heroes plus a few invented for the series. In my memories, it would appear and disappear from the scheduling erratically, but if I found it airing on a Saturday morning it would be my first pick. As the line of Super Powers action figures began to fill my toybox I grew especially fond of seeing the DC heroes in action.

However, one morning I bore witness to the episode "Island of the Dinosoids", in which members of the team were transformed into dinosaur-like creatures by a mad scientist. You who gaze upon the image above will find it hard to believe that the unmistakably goofy portrayal of dinosaur Batman could be frightening, yet I maintain it was. I didn't share many children's fascination with dinosaurs - to me, they were simply monsters and repulsed me. Seeing some of my favourite heroes (and Batman) turned into dinosaur men only served to chill me. Fortunately, this was the only time Super Friends delved into body horror.

Oh, except for the time they were all turned into trolls.

Or that time Steve Trevor became a neanderthal.

Or...

Young Fears 18: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

I've spoken already about the impact the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark had on me and how the film was largely too-adult for me as a child. The sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was a lot more kid-friendly, probably because of the broader comedy material and kid sidekick Short Round. At the same time, of course, this was a film which contained so much violence and gruesomeness that it changed the way motion pictures were graded for audiences. But heck, my parents had no problem showing it to me...

I'm not certain which scene bothered me the most: the disgusting dinner scene? The heart removals? Indy being brainwashed? The guy who gets crushed under a wheel? The many encounters with creepy insects and/or reptiles? Hey, it all creeped me out back then. As a child, I didn't appreciate that Steve Spielberg and George Lucas were trying to homage earlier films they'd enjoyed as children - I only knew this was an intense film. I think I loved it from beginning to end - but I took it pretty seriously. After all, it featured people eating monkey brains - that's sober material, right?

Young Fears 17: V: The Final Battle

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

I recall really enjoying the mini-series V as a child. I don't know why, but I think my parents let my sister and I watch it unsupervised. Good idea, bad idea? Who can say. What I know for certain is that V: The Final Battle went a step too far for me. The climax of the first chapter features a human girl giving birth to a seemingly normal child - and then a Visitor infant. The sight of this Visitor baby emerging on the operating table absolutely repulsed me; I don't think programs I watched normally dealt with the subject of pregnancy and birth and this was perhaps not the best way to introduce me to that subject! Although today I see the Visitor baby as a barely-convincing puppet, it hit me as hard as the chest-bursting scene in Alien struck others. Aliens from within! Eugh!

Young Fears 16: The Bride of Dracula

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Strange as it may sound, I didn't really enjoy Marvel super-heroes while growing up - I much preferred the DC heroes. Still, I would entertain just about any super hero with a TV show so I tried to catch Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends whenever possible. More than any other Marvel program of the 80s, it opened up the paths and byways of the Marvel Universe to characters who were otherwise unfamiliar to non-comic book readers.

In one such episode, "The Bride of Dracula!", that proved to include Dracula himself (seen performing his Elvis routine above), who was, naturally, a Marvel Universe resident. Here, he attempted to seduce Firestar (just as he'd targeted Storm in X-Men #159) and brought along the Frankenstein Monster and a Wolfman. This was the first big monster team-up I can recall seeing and the sight of the Wolfman particularly creeped me out because of my earlier fright at the Lon Chaney, Jr. film. Sure, this episode's adventure turns out be "just a dream," but that didn't make the monsters any less scary to my sensitive soul.

At least the DC super heroes would never insert monsters into their cartoons. Or so I thought.

Young Fears 15: Superman III

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

Today we suffer from something of a super hero film craze with multiple adaptations appearing on big screens each year. When I was growing up, there was only one super hero whose movies made an impact and that was the big red 'S' himself, Superman! The films starring Christopher Reeve were absolute favourites of mine for a time. Because of my age, the first one I saw in the theater was Superman III, the notoriously campy affair featuring Richard Pryor as Superman's nemesis. I'm not certain if I even understood at the time that Pryor was supposed to be funny; I definitely didn't see the humour of the "evil" Superman scenes, despite it being blindingly obvious to any adult.

But while the scenes of the evil Superman unsettled me, there's one moment in the film which outright terrified me; it arrived near the climax when Pryor's supercomputer snared a woman and grafted machinery into her body, transforming her into a drone with which to attack Superman. The scene of her transformation was way, way too intense for me when I first saw it in the local drive-in theater. Kids today have it easy - CGI effects are so obvious fake that such a scene wouldn't be as traumatic today. But man, this scene hit my terror of body horror square between the eyes. Consequently, I didn't avoid the movie in later years because of Richard Pryor - I avoided it because of that damn climax!

Young Fears 14: The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

We Canadians have much to answer for; we were the ones who unleashed the first Care Bears animated program upon the world: The Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings. And directly from the title, I know you're already cringing from the implicit saccharine rush of important lessons about friendship and loving others. The Care Bears were so inoffensive they could have been on public television.

And yet, that first special left a mark on me. I certainly saw it enough times - it seemed to be broadcast once per month in the year after its release (likely because it counted as "Canadian content"). And it did have one moment which freaked me out: the program's villain had a set of dark green creatures serving as his slaves; after capturing some children, he turns one of them into a creature. The transformation was gradual (beginning with his nose) and that's what freaked me out. Had it happened in a dissolve or cut-away it wouldn't have bothered me so much, but the gradual transformation linked it back to my earlier experiences with the Wolf Man. It was simply too freaky for me.

First the Smurfs, now the Care Bears. What is it about those those innocuous animated programs concealing moments of weird transformations and body horror?

Young Fears 13: Star Wars #67

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

As a child with money rifling through a comic book rack, it's hard to know which single comic is the one worth your hard-won dollar. However, considering my interests growing up, how could Star Wars steer me wrong? And so I purchased Star Wars #67.

Featuring "The Darker" by David Michelinie and Ron Frenz, at this time the series was still in the pre-Return of the Jedi years at a time when the Rebels had made their headquarters among the rabbit-like Hoojibs, a race of telepaths. In this story, R2-D2 goes exploring deep within the caverns of the Hoojibs' world (accompanied by very funny captions depicting R2's thought process, including him predicting C-3PO's responses) and has to be rescued by c-3PO, Chewbacca and the Hoojibs. Hoojibs aside, it sounds like a pretty standard Star Wars story, huh? Oh, you're wrong.

They find R2 - torn to pieces! The villain is a malevolent creature known only as "the Darker," possessing supernatural qualities. Although c-3PO is immune to its mental powers, the Hoojibs are so fear-ridden as to be useless and Chewbacca is ordered to destroy C-3PO! It's actually a pretty great set-up for C-3PO (who was surprisingly decent at heroics throughout the Marvel series), who ultimately breaks the Darker's control by invoking the memory of Han (at the time, a prisoner of Boba Fett).

And then came the moment which troubled me; when Chewbacca finally turns on the Darker he's ready to tear him apart - and pretty much does just that. Chewie drives his hand into the Darker's stomach and... yeah, I'm wasn't entirely sure what he was doing to the Darker, but boy... that seemed a lot more violent than my usual comic book fare.

To this day, I'm a great fan of those Marvel Star Wars comics, but it's more than mere nostalgia which draws me back to them. Sometimes the recoil from a work can be so overwhelming that it boomerangs you right back into those same pages.

Young Fears 12: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Each October I like to run a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. All this month, I'll be telling anecdotes about things which frightened me while growing up.

There are some films which I can't quite recall the circumstances of my first viewing because I had previously seen them within my mind's eye. My parents bought several book & tape albums when I was young and this included a read-along storybook of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn't find anywhere near as interesting as the storybooks for Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back (which, as my family members love to relate, I would repeat verbatim from memory as a toddler), but it was a good enough story. I didn't realize then that Raiders of the Lost Ark was... well, meant for older viewers. I know that I missed many of the jokes as a child because they simply went over my head; I was surprised to later discover just how funny Raiders can be.

But something the book & tape did not prepare me for was the climax. The recording does describe some of what happened when the Ark was opened, but for some unaccountable reason, they neglected to mention the melting & exploding heads. They did, however, retain those unearthly chirping noises on the tape's soundtrack. I recall watching the film on my family's VCR and being shocked at the gore; then I paused, rewound and dragged in my brothers so they could see it too.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a film I had to grow into - it simply didn't capture my imagination the way spaceships and robots did. And I do kind of admire that gory climax, if only because at some point Steven Spielberg seemed to revolt against his own filmography. I miss that crazy kid who loved playing with mirrors and dry ice machines.