I discovered something disturbing the week before Halloween:
I no longer like horror movies.
Back when I was a kid, I was a horror-movie fanatic. It
didn’t matter to me that they’d often give me nightmares or I’d end up crawling
into bed with my parents because I was certain Dracula was hiding in my bedroom
closet and waiting to sink his fangs into my neck. No, I loved horror movies.
I still can remember my favorites from back in the 1950s and
early ‘60s. There was, “The Crawling
Eye,” about a giant eyeball with tentacles that crawled around near a mountain
resort and killed people. And then there was “From Hell it Came,” which
featured a killer tree called The Tabanga, with a hideous scowling face on its
trunk. After I saw that movie, I was glad I lived in the middle of the city and
not out in the country near a bunch of trees.
My father, however, thought The Tabanga was the most
hilarious thing he’d ever seen.
“That’s a guy wearing a rubber suit!” he’d laughed. “Look at
his limbs bouncing when he walks! And I could swear I saw a zipper going up the
back of the tree!”
Another thing about the movie that my dad thought was
hysterical was the tree walked at a really slow pace, shuffling its feet as it
inched along – probably because the guy’s rubber suit was too tight. Yet the people in the movie were trampling
each other in their effort to avoid being “limbed” to death.
“A 90-year-old guy using a walker could outrun that tree!”
my dad said between guffaws.
He sure knew how to ruin a good horror movie.
And I clearly remember going to the Rex Theater in
Manchester to see, “Mr. Sardonicus,” about a grave robber whose face froze into
the exact replica of the corpse he was robbing. His facial rigor-mortis
prevented him from chewing, so he had to liquefy all of his meals and slurp
them. This made him really irritable, so he ended up doing mean things like
stringing up women and attaching leeches to their bodies.
But I think my favorite horror movie from my childhood years
had to be Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
Never in my life would I have believed a flock of birds could be so
terrifying. Even to this day, whenever I see a bunch of birds flying overhead,
I wonder if they are going to swoop down and peck out my eyeballs.
After I got married, I still enjoyed horror movies, even
though my husband and I spent most of our time laughing at them and their bad
special effects. One of our favorite hangouts was the Bedford Grove Drive-in,
which showed really corny horror movies that were advertised as being so
nauseating, the staff actually handed out barf bags with the admission tickets.
I remember one particularly bad “barf bag” movie we saw (its
name currently escapes me, which probably is a good thing) about a restaurant
that was using human body parts in its meals. Conveniently, all of the people
the chef murdered had last names like Lamb and Partridge, so when the menu
advertised, “leg of Lamb” or “roasted breast of Partridge,” it actually was the
truth.
But there was one horror movie my husband and I didn’t laugh
at. In fact, it actually gave both of us nightmares for the first time in our
adult lives. That movie was “The Exorcist.”
We went to see it at a special late-night showing at the Bedford Mall,
and there wasn’t an empty seat in the place. During a particularly gory scene
in the movie, one of the theater-goers stood up, began to walk up the aisle,
and then passed out, flat on his face. I was pretty sure if I’d have stood up
at that moment, I probably would have joined him face-down on the floor.
And I’ll never forget when we took Richard, the kid next
door, with us to see “Jaws.” I don’t think I’ve ever jumped so many times
during a movie. Richard ended up being so scared, he refused to go swimming in
his backyard pool after that, even though everyone assured him that a great
white shark couldn’t possibly fit into it – or survive in anything but ocean
water.
I think the movie that finally made me realize I didn’t
enjoy horror movies any more was, “Jeepers Creepers 2,” which came out in 2003.
In the beginning of the movie, a boy is in this cornfield where there’s a
really creepy-looking scarecrow. As the boy passes by the scarecrow, its eyes
follow him. In a flash, the scarecrow leaps off its post and attacks the boy.
No kidding, on that day, I fully understood the meaning of
“scare” in the word scarecrow. It affected me so dramatically, I haven’t been
able to eat corn, not even a can of Niblets, ever since.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem with the horror
movies of today is they are just too graphic and realistic. They leave nothing
to the imagination, like back when I was a kid. No, everything is right there
in living color, leaping out of the screen at you – from blood and guts to
projectile vomiting. Gone are the days of dismembered hands made of rubber with
ketchup on them. All of this new technology is just too much for my aging brain
to handle.
So from now on, I think I’ll be better off if I stick with
safe, family-oriented movies like “The Sound of Music.”
Although, that fabric Maria used when she made new outifts
for all of the kids was pretty scary.
BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE
FOR CHRISTMAS
I’ve had a number of inquiries about my books and whether or
not I will be offering autographed copies again this year, particularly for
Christmas gift-giving. The answer is
yes! You can order copies of my humor
book, “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” or my suspense novel, “Heed the
Predictor” and its sequel, “Conceal the Predictor,” directly from me for $10
each, which includes shipping. Also, I will personally autograph each book to
anyone you’d like – just make certain to print the name or names clearly when
ordering. Autographed copies of my books also will be available at Bobby Dee’s
Records and Audio Repair at 132 Main St. in Pembroke Village. A portion of all
proceeds will be donated to the Manchester Animal Shelter. Send orders to:
Sally Breslin, PO Box 585, Suncook, NH 03275-0585, or you can send payment through Paypal to my account: sillysally@att.net.
NOTE: For those of you with electronic reading devices, my
book, “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” currently can be downloaded free of
charge at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com or Smashwords.com.
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