Exercising demons

[muckefuck]

Until I read rollick's entry, I plumb forgot that my contemporary observance of Halloween has occasionally consisted of something besides reading horror movie summaries on Wikipedia and trying to find something frightening to watch on cable. Last night, between the two of them, I excavated a bugaboo from my past: Phantasm. The scene where the Tall Man stands at the head of Mike's bed and his twisted dwarf minion leap out from either side to seize him is etched on my memory more firmly than my grandfather's face or the pool where I learned to swim. Of course, I haven't even seen the movie; just watching the advertisement on t.v. once or twice was enough to fuel countless nightmares from the time I was in short pants. That's the kind of suggestible youth I was. My clinically-inclined mother has often professed amazement at the overactive imaginations of her children. (Such as my sister, who used to lie awake at night fearing death because of an innocent children's prayer.) I was not the scary movie equivalent of a one-drink drunk; I was like someone who could get drunk from reading the label on the bottle. As a result, there's hardly a single classic horror film that I know from actual consumption rather than oral or written references and summaries.

How things have changed! After watching clip after clip on Bravo last night, I was still able to walk alone through the park at near midnight beneath a yellowish half moon to a darkened apartment and fall asleep in a bed alone--without leaving any lights on! And this despite getting some real-life frights on the way. Remember that grove I pass where I noticed the biker peeing and heard the unmistakable moans of cottaging? I think I'm going to start referring to it as "Everyone's Outhouse". Last night, I watched a man walk into it moments before I had to pass by. No sooner was I finished watching out of the corner of my eye as he strolled off behind me when I heard some unintelligible words and fierce-looking guy swept past me on a bike. Then I noticed the silhouettes of men camping out on the slope of the highway shoulder standing and watching me pass. Yes, I know from experience that the local bum population these men all belong to is pretty much harmless. That's what I kept telling myself as I tried to repress vivid recent memories of clips showing ordinary men severing spinal cords, slicing off fingers, taking bites out of living flesh, sawing off limbs, and otherwise providing graphic reminders of man's boundless inhumanity to man.

Comments

A light in the dark...

[monshu.livejournal.com]

I should have carved a turnip lantern for you to light your way home! Mea culpa.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The streetlights along the walk lit my way, but I'm touched by the thought all the same--particularly since turnip-carving seems less like holiday fun than some baroquely sadistic form of punishment. Leave it to your dour Celtic ancestors to come up with something like that!

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Jo Walton (a Welsh SF/gaming author, now living in Canada) posted to her LJ about the differences between the Halloween she grew up with and the one her teenaged son now observes, mentioning that "[t]he light you lit against the night when I was a child was a swede, (a turnip, a rutabaga) not a pumpkin." To which another Brit replied: "The one American import I can really get behind is the pumpkin lantern - those turnips were bastards to carve."

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

If turnips are bastards to carve, I imagine carving a Swede is even worse. Spookier, though!

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Also, assault.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

And battery!

[itchwoot.livejournal.com]

I love Phantasm! I think that was the first movie I saw that didn't have a happy ending.

The German title is so iconic, too: Das Böse

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Not sure what that would've been for me. I remember watching The Hireling with my siblings when I was fairly young, which may have been my first experience with an unhappy love story.

[febrile.livejournal.com]

Why do I get the impression that you are the best person to ask about what has the reputation as the best horror film of the modern era: the Japanese film The Audition...?

Chinese translation

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

Wanna give it a try? http://jameth.livejournal.com/3545477.html