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The 10 scary movie moments that really screwed me up...
19 years ago
General
If you're a horror buff like me, odds are that at some point you've had somebody ask you (with a mildly concerned look on their face) just why it is that you enjoy being scared.
It's a good question. Honestly I haven't the foggiest, save a few half-baked notions about confronting one's own mortality and fears in a safe, escapist environment. No, what I can offer up with much more confidence are the moments that solidified my love of the genre. The ones that made me appreciate being scared. The ones that kept me awake at night. The ones that royally screwed me up.
Now, this isn't one of those lists of the top 10 horror movie moments in general. If you're a fellow fan, do you really need me to tell you for the umpteen bazillionth time that the exploding head in 'Scanners' is an amazing effect, or that 'Alien' is a dark and scary flick? No. No, you do not.
What I'm offering up is something more personal... a list of the stuff that scared me, personally, regardless of whether or not it's something classic. Most of these are from my formative years, when I was but a wee and easily traumatized lad. Here goes:
10) 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People - The Banshee'. Yeah, cute Disney flick. Yeah, Sean Connery. Yeah, G-rated. I haven't seen it in years, but I can tell you that I practically wet myself in fear when it came time for the midnight appearance of the hideous banshee. I was 8, and I clapped my hands over my eyes. To this day I don't even know what the dang thing looked like. It's probably like something out of 'Dr. Who'.
9) 'Dr. Who - The Stones of Blood'. Okay, so in this cheesy episode of 'Dr. Who', a pair of hikers find themselves confronted by a rock from Stonehenge... literally. Somehow it's followed them to their campsite. So this lady reaches out and presses her hand to it, and suddenly it begins to pulse with a low, thumping heartbeat sound. Then all the flesh dissolves from her hand, leaving behind a skeleton arm as she screams in horror. Fade to black. I can't tell you how many nights I stayed awake, listening for the creepy heartbeat noise that would be my signal that there was a giant flesh-eating rock coming my way.
8) 'Jaws - The Dead Underwater Guy'. I'm 10, maybe 11 years old. I'm watching 'Jaws' for the first time, really late at night. I'm horrified by the sudden appearance of the underwater boat corpse... you know, the chewed-up guy who's missing an eye. Immediately after the movie, my friend and I go for a swim in his backyard swimming pool. With the lights out.
7) 'Star Wars - Luke's BBQ'. 'Star Wars' was one of the first movies I can ever remember seeing, and one of the things that really stuck out for me was seeing Luke's Aunt and Uncle's roasted, skeletal corpses smoking away on the ruin of their desert hut. Skeletons freak me out to this day.
6) 'Poltergeist - The Entire Musical Score'. Maybe I'm cheating a bit with this one, but it strikes me that, for as deliciously creepy as this movie is, it's all the more effective because of Jerry Goldsmith's pitch-perfect musical score. Without it, it's a slick early 80s special effects movie. With it, it's the stuff of young nightmares.
5) 'The Cutty Black Sow - The Kid Gets It'. This was an episode of a late 80s horror show called 'Tales From the Darkside', and it was all about a kid left alone in his house who finds himself traumatized by the ancient Scottish legend of the Cutty Black Sow, a monster that comes for you on All Hallow's Eve. The story keeps you guessing all the way through as to whether or not there's anything supernatural going on... until the last few moments. That's when the kid's Dad comes home and gives him a reassuring hug, only to transform moments later into the title beast, which proceeds to loom close and presumably devour him. Fade to black as every kid's most primal fears are realized.
4) 'Indiana Jones - Melty Guy'. For years I clapped my hands over my eyes every time I watched this flick and listened to the ghastly death gurgle of the evil Nazi guy as he melted. As it turned out, what I imagined was a lot worse than the actual effect, but that didn't stop me from being too scared to watch this movie all the way through until I was, like, 12.
3) 'Maximum Overdrive - The Steamroller Kid'. So, this Little Leaguer gets squashed by a steamroller at one point in this otherwise laughably bad movie. Up until this point in my development, I'd been under the impression that little kids, Moms and pets were exempt from getting violently killed off in scary movies. Thinking back on it, it's kind of a silly gag, but back then it really dropped my jaw in a 'wait, did that just happen?' kind of way.
2) 'Akira - Plushie Attack'. This one got to me even though by this point I was a jaded teenager. It's the moment when Tetsuo finds himself under attack by a trio of little animated plush toys that suddenly turn nightmarishly malevolent, and it still gives me the creeps to this day.
1) 'The Long Weekend - Zombie Seal'. This one makes the list even though I only saw this flick for the first time earlier this year. There's something almost unbelievably creepy about a seal, shot by the movie's 'hero', that keeps creeping closer and closer to his beach campsite even though it's clearly dead. We never see it move... but it keeps getting nearer all the time, and the payoff, when it finally comes, gave me a case of shuddery chills like I haven't felt since I was a little kid, laying awake at night waiting for the monsters to come.
It's a good question. Honestly I haven't the foggiest, save a few half-baked notions about confronting one's own mortality and fears in a safe, escapist environment. No, what I can offer up with much more confidence are the moments that solidified my love of the genre. The ones that made me appreciate being scared. The ones that kept me awake at night. The ones that royally screwed me up.
Now, this isn't one of those lists of the top 10 horror movie moments in general. If you're a fellow fan, do you really need me to tell you for the umpteen bazillionth time that the exploding head in 'Scanners' is an amazing effect, or that 'Alien' is a dark and scary flick? No. No, you do not.
What I'm offering up is something more personal... a list of the stuff that scared me, personally, regardless of whether or not it's something classic. Most of these are from my formative years, when I was but a wee and easily traumatized lad. Here goes:
10) 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People - The Banshee'. Yeah, cute Disney flick. Yeah, Sean Connery. Yeah, G-rated. I haven't seen it in years, but I can tell you that I practically wet myself in fear when it came time for the midnight appearance of the hideous banshee. I was 8, and I clapped my hands over my eyes. To this day I don't even know what the dang thing looked like. It's probably like something out of 'Dr. Who'.
9) 'Dr. Who - The Stones of Blood'. Okay, so in this cheesy episode of 'Dr. Who', a pair of hikers find themselves confronted by a rock from Stonehenge... literally. Somehow it's followed them to their campsite. So this lady reaches out and presses her hand to it, and suddenly it begins to pulse with a low, thumping heartbeat sound. Then all the flesh dissolves from her hand, leaving behind a skeleton arm as she screams in horror. Fade to black. I can't tell you how many nights I stayed awake, listening for the creepy heartbeat noise that would be my signal that there was a giant flesh-eating rock coming my way.
8) 'Jaws - The Dead Underwater Guy'. I'm 10, maybe 11 years old. I'm watching 'Jaws' for the first time, really late at night. I'm horrified by the sudden appearance of the underwater boat corpse... you know, the chewed-up guy who's missing an eye. Immediately after the movie, my friend and I go for a swim in his backyard swimming pool. With the lights out.
7) 'Star Wars - Luke's BBQ'. 'Star Wars' was one of the first movies I can ever remember seeing, and one of the things that really stuck out for me was seeing Luke's Aunt and Uncle's roasted, skeletal corpses smoking away on the ruin of their desert hut. Skeletons freak me out to this day.
6) 'Poltergeist - The Entire Musical Score'. Maybe I'm cheating a bit with this one, but it strikes me that, for as deliciously creepy as this movie is, it's all the more effective because of Jerry Goldsmith's pitch-perfect musical score. Without it, it's a slick early 80s special effects movie. With it, it's the stuff of young nightmares.
5) 'The Cutty Black Sow - The Kid Gets It'. This was an episode of a late 80s horror show called 'Tales From the Darkside', and it was all about a kid left alone in his house who finds himself traumatized by the ancient Scottish legend of the Cutty Black Sow, a monster that comes for you on All Hallow's Eve. The story keeps you guessing all the way through as to whether or not there's anything supernatural going on... until the last few moments. That's when the kid's Dad comes home and gives him a reassuring hug, only to transform moments later into the title beast, which proceeds to loom close and presumably devour him. Fade to black as every kid's most primal fears are realized.
4) 'Indiana Jones - Melty Guy'. For years I clapped my hands over my eyes every time I watched this flick and listened to the ghastly death gurgle of the evil Nazi guy as he melted. As it turned out, what I imagined was a lot worse than the actual effect, but that didn't stop me from being too scared to watch this movie all the way through until I was, like, 12.
3) 'Maximum Overdrive - The Steamroller Kid'. So, this Little Leaguer gets squashed by a steamroller at one point in this otherwise laughably bad movie. Up until this point in my development, I'd been under the impression that little kids, Moms and pets were exempt from getting violently killed off in scary movies. Thinking back on it, it's kind of a silly gag, but back then it really dropped my jaw in a 'wait, did that just happen?' kind of way.
2) 'Akira - Plushie Attack'. This one got to me even though by this point I was a jaded teenager. It's the moment when Tetsuo finds himself under attack by a trio of little animated plush toys that suddenly turn nightmarishly malevolent, and it still gives me the creeps to this day.
1) 'The Long Weekend - Zombie Seal'. This one makes the list even though I only saw this flick for the first time earlier this year. There's something almost unbelievably creepy about a seal, shot by the movie's 'hero', that keeps creeping closer and closer to his beach campsite even though it's clearly dead. We never see it move... but it keeps getting nearer all the time, and the payoff, when it finally comes, gave me a case of shuddery chills like I haven't felt since I was a little kid, laying awake at night waiting for the monsters to come.
Tell you what, if you want a good chuckle you should check out the '30-Second Bunny' version at http://www.angryalien.com/0504/shiningbunnies.html
Oddly, an almost-identical scene in UHF didn't scare me a bit. *shrug*
It's funny how many people from my generation list Large Marge as the single scariest thing they'd ever seen in a movie... I really feel like I missed out. :P
(Man, I'd forgotten about that guy at the end of 'UHF').
If I were picking the scariest movies off the top of my head (meaning, the ones that really gave me the shivers), I'd have to list Robert Wise's "The Haunting" (NOT the craptacular remake), Tobe Hooper's "Chainsaw Massacre", Mark Robson & Val Lewton's "Isle of the Dead" (with Boris Karloff, natch), and Ishirô Honda's "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People".