It has been a little bit of a hiatus since my last post here on the 2013 Halloween Countdown and I am so sorry for that. Work is one of those inescapable plagues of adulthood that sucks creativity away and replaces it with money. The great conundrum of life. But do not be troubled, I am back and full of Halloween vigor.
I’ll be right back with a very scary recap of a killer show from the late 1980’s and 90’s which had Halloween episodes few can rival. It is close to my heart and I dreamed of someone like Matt doing a recap but requests like that can be annoying so I figured it should at least be attempted by me. Hint: He has a felony record for drugs.
Hope all is going well and I will have this up soon. Until then, I need a question answered. What was the one scene in a movie or TV show that turned you into someone who loves the spooky side of life? Me, it is a tie between the original trailer to The Creepshow and the librarian in the movie Ghostbusters.
I remember the trailer more than the movie we saw in 1982. It was Empire Strikes Back but the only true memory I have is the horrific grim reaper peering through a bedroom window at the beginning and it has haunted my nights so much so that I still sleep with the blinds closed. Today it’s just out of habit.
The Ghostbuster’s librarian just made me piss the theater seat. I can’t rationalize it but for some reason in 1984, I was under the odd assumption that Ghostbusters was a movie about a motorcycle gang. I guess that’s how a six-year-old’s brain works, or at least how mine did. I never claimed to be bright as a child.
So, I have a clear memory sitting in my seat, completely terrified when books started floating and those damn New York library lions accompanied by the icon opening theme, but when the free-floating vaporous apparition transformed into a demon-monkey, trauma set in and I have never been the same since. I love demon-monkey for that.
So, what was your turning moment? We all have them so lay it on me! Comment below, on Twitter or on the Facebook page which I KNOW YOU ARE ALL FOLLOWING.
Casserole of Disaster 
That’s a tough one. A demented babysitter made me watch Poltergeist when I was much too young, probably 7 or 8 (I was a shielded child and believe me, it was way too scary for me). But I hated it at the time, I didn’t love the feeling of being scared like that the way you did.
I think it was Carrie. The book, not the movie. That was the first King I read, and since then I’ve read almost all his books and reread some of them over and over. I was definitely under 10 when I read Carrie the first time, and the idea of a telepathic person seemed not only awesome but totally natural. The horror part of it was interesting, but the supernatural part stuck with me as the way fiction should be.
Loving horror movies was a slower process. Silence of the Lambs was the first one that made me completely spellbound – and I watched it ON TV with commercial breaks and everything when I was 14 or so – and since then, serial killers and well-made scary movies are my jam. I saw Scream in my teens, too, and then in college I rented half the Freddy and Jason movies (Friday the 13th Part 3 is SO TERRIBLE) and figured out that I find gore hilarious. Plus The Exorcist as hosted by Joe-Bob Briggs on TNT when I was 16ish helped me with not taking even the scariest horror too seriously.
Was that longer than you were looking for? Because that was like as long as your post. Sorry. You got me thinking, always a dangerous thing to do.
I love how you watched The Exorcist via Joe-Bob Briggs. That made you “Super Number One” to me.
I guess I’m coming at horror from Scooby-Doo. As a wee lad, it was just scary enough to be exciting, but as I grew up, I needed a stronger fix. There was an episode, called The Diabolical Disc Demon, that was too scary for me. I would try and force myself to make it through it, but as soon as the Demon started talking, I lost my mind and hid in the kitchen. I wasn’t even brave enough to get close enough to the tv to change the channel or turn it off (no remotes in those days).
My dad was into “spookers”, as he called horror movies, so just like all kids, I wanted to be just like him.
The first movie that I can remember being genuinely scared crazy at was the original Nightmare On Elm Street. I saw it as soon as it came out on home video, which means I was probably about 8 or so. I didn’t sleep for a week.
Diabolical Disc Demon? I think that calls for a great article from Fit for Dragoncon.
Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. Although “great” is strecthing the limits of what ffdc is capable of.
Hey Will/Bill!
Great question- I liked your answers, and might have maybe gone ‘Creepshow’ myself… But I think the ‘spirit’ of the question is more about ‘what scared me so bad, I became fascinated with it to the point that I grew enough of a pair to wade into that dark, dark pool…’? (Or maybe that’s just my take on it… 😉 That being the case, I’ve got to go with TV spots for a few flicks that, as a kid, gave me WEEKS of nightmares, without ever actually SEEING anything horrible in the commercial…
Perfect example, the teaser spot for The Exorcist. It was the one that slowly pans into the front door, with the creepy VO. And the the door is opened, revealing a silhouette with a hat (this is the priest- but to a kid, it scared the living hell out of me). THAT’S how sheltered I was… so sad…
Another spot I never forgot was for a film called ‘Beyond The Door’… It was kind of an Italian send-up of Exorcist… sort of (I didn’t learn that until a couple of years ago, when I FINALLY sat down to watch it- and it was STILL creepy- nice)
The ‘Winner’ for me has to be the TV spots for the Grand Master of them all- HALLOWEEN. There was a short clip of the Shape walking down the stairs (toward camera) in the dark. I think the VO there is ‘The night HE came home…’. If I didn’t manage to get my ears covered and shut my eyes before that shot- I was dead meat. Nightmares, for certain.
Eventually (I think I was 12 or so), an uncle took me to a REAL HORROR MOVIE- ‘When a Stranger Calls’… It screwed me up (and then I got my first job two weeks later- babysitting… some good stories there).
From there- it was Game On… my buddies and I got all kinds of hooked on gore & all things creepy & dead! And I’ve never looked back…
HAPPY AUTUMN EVERYONE!! (Sorry so long… 😦
That’s awesome, man! “The Night He Came Home” is one of my favorite tag lines ever. Right there with Jaws 2, “Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Go Back in the Water.”.
Great question! For me, it was “Are You Afraid of the Dark!” When it premiered, I was 4-years-old, but remember watching it every Saturday night for years. My Grandfather lived upstairs from me so, every weekend, my aunts, uncles, and cousins came to visit him. When Snick came on, they all came downstairs to watch with me. We laid a blanket on the floor and my parents bought us a bunch of candy, chips, and popcorn. AYAOTD was always an event and we all loved it because it was horror without being too scary. On Sunday, we’d sit at the top of the stairs and tell our own scary stories. That was my first contact with the world of horror and spookiness, but it obviously progressed from there as I attempted to watch the likes of Freddy, Jason, and Michael. I loved them all, even if I was too afraid to sleep at night.
I have a special place in my heart for SNICK. And AYAOTD absolutely thrilled me. I was of babysitting age when it was popular so I had the enjoyment of watching little kids get spooked. And also forcing them to go to bed.
I’m coming to the party a little late here, but for me, it was Eddie Quist’s werewolf transformation in The Holwing. I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of things and I’m sure you can relate. For me, being into the spooky stuff is like breathing. I don’t know how not to do it. But, if I had to narrow it down, I’d have to go with that one. I think I first saw it when I was around 7 or so and I remember it being one of the first scenes I ever saw that both scared the crap out of me and thrilled me to death. I haven’t looked back since.
That transformation transformed me too. I couldn’t sleep for a week after seeing that. It’s his mouth I think.
It would have to be Ghostbusters for me. While I would say the Library Ghost is definitely scary shit, it’s probably more “The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon that had the larger influence. It’s probably why I find horror more fascinating than scary too. The Ghostbusters weren’t scared by ghosts, they investigated and confronted them.
That and “Unsolved Mysteries.”
We share a common trauma.
Did someone say Diabolical Disc Demon? I’ve been obsessed with him since I was a little kid! I love that guy. I own the mask as well.
http://thesexyarmpit.blogspot.com/2008/10/rock-and-roll-all-nite-and-scooby-every.html
SWEET! I need to know more about this guy.