My Horror Movie Experiences……and what fried my brain as a child…….

I am an old man.  I have also enjoyed horror flicks, and have been experiencing them since I was a very young little shit.  Now at age 72, scary movies rank 2nd only to war/military films in my amusement in this form of artistic endeavor.  On the silver screen or my plethora of TV sets,  including my largest 85-inch 4k to my smaller Panasonic ones at 65, 55, and 50 inches, I have a thing for TVs.  Yes, I have TVs everywhere in my home.  As you might understand, I take my viewing of movies as seriously, not only at the movie houses in the greater OKC metro, but at home in North Oklahoma. City.  Viewing a movie at home from a Blu-ray (or 4k disk) through a high definition player on a large screen TV set is almost as good as being at my local IMAX.  Personal choice, in my opinion,  the best way to view a flick at home is in a dark room, at night, no lights visible,  on my 65-inch Panasonic Plasma in movie-maker mode.

The first two horror movies that come to mind are both black and white classics for the genre.  “The Tingler,” starring Vincent Price, and “The House on Haunted Hill,” also a Price flick, were seen in the theater, first run, when they came out in 1959.  I was six or seven at the time, and neither were not easy views for me.  Having been told by the movie advance sales for The Tingler, we were treated by a “tingler” that was let loose under our seats at the theater at the exact time “it” was removed from the woman’s backside.  Yes, I do remember that, and it was frightening.  But the other film, The House…., was the really scary one, as I took home with me visuals that gave me nightmares for many years.  It was a much better film of the two, and I know I was psychologically touched by the sights that were shocking at the time.  The old lady that was displayed by the director, a scary, messy old lady, along with the other horrible things in the movie, I will always remember.  Also, at a very young age, the hanging of the pretty lady early on in this one has left an imprint on such sights, and that I do not like, understanding the visual is not for children.

I viewed all the greats of the early 1930s, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy, just to mention a few.  But being actually frightened, viewing “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” actually fried my brain in 1962 at age nine.  My mother, bless her heart, took me to the Midwest Theater in downtown Oklahoma City to a matinee showing of the Bette Davis, Joan Crawford flick that left everlasting terrors, night or day.  The doll in that movie was my “clown” face that many people are scared of.  That movie, with Davis in a powered face, to go along with that white face doll, gave me the shivers that took many years to get over.  Today, at my age, I am good.  But the dreams still happen, and as a child, I never liked large dolls, and for whatever reason, things like that can and do give fears to children that do not age well.  Yes, my brain was fried.  The Midwest Theater was old at the time, creepy and dark, and we sat in the balcony.  Not a good afternoon.

The next horror flick that did the same as the Bette Davis film happened around that time, also, when both parents took me to view the acclaimed “Judgment at Nuremberg,” at the Penn Theater.  Having been asleep for much of the film, I awoke just as the real film of the Holocaust and the stacked bodies of the concentration camps, along with the emanicated humans the Nazi’s did the terrible things upon….again, a brain fryer.  Those sights were not for a nine-year-old.  Not only did those movies affect me, but I had dreams of the face of Adolph Hitler, and I still do not like viewing that evil shit. I hope the fires of hell are still doing their due diligence on his mf’ing soul, if you get my drift.  One dream I still have is of my Grandparents’ house that had a picture hung in their bedroom of the carpet chewer, a really hellish look on his face.  Total nightmare shit.  As I know now, real-life horror does not take a back seat to fake movie horror, as “Judgment at Nuremberg” is not considered a horror flick, but it was for a nine-year-old in its day.

I have viewed a lot of horror film in my day, and continue to seek them out, in time.  I do not have the need to go to the first run in my city when they come here, and I do not always jump on my streaming services or actually purchase the rights to view them in a rush. Yet I do purchase many for my own home hard media library, as when you get to a place in life where everyday CAN be a Saturday, I have to find something to do with my time.  I am not that good of a person, in my estimation, as I do not volunteer my time much to needy issues that I know I could made a difference.  Just writing this piece, I am taking a couple of hours, time which I could be making the world better.  I have always known myself, my lazyiness to various kinds of work, and understand my downfalls of sin and such.  I know I am not a perfect person, more akind to a sinner with some serious shit that I will be judged by, but I guess I just do not care to worry about it.  I do believe in many things, especially political, and as of my bloviating, have suffered internally, pshchologically, yet most of my family and friends do not understand.  I have always gone by a motto of “faking it” as the Alan Price song goes.

“So smile while you’re making it
Laugh while you’re taking it
Even though you’re faking it
Nobody’s gonna know.”

Currently, I have viewed 384 horror films, and the only three movies that have made a real dent in my psyche as an adult have been The Exorcist, The Ring 2, and Mulholland Drive.  These three movies were like the ones I viewed as a child, with all three giving me total goose bumps in their presentation on the big screen.  I did not like Blair as with the Devil in control of her, nor the girl coming out of the TV set in Ring 2. As for Mulholland Drive, I do not understand my objection, to deep I guess, but that is really the only movie I will promise I will not ever see again.  Davud Lynch can do that, bring “stuff” to the screen that is upsetting.   Freidkin, Nakata, and Lynch all brought to the screen visuals that messed with me and can just go away, with Lynch’s film much the internal than the other two.  As for the most scared I have ever been watching a movie, “Wait Til Dark” in a theater back in its release in Oklahoma City’s Plaza Theater, when Alan Arkin jumps out with the knife on Audrey Hepburn; we were not aware of that scene as the movie was a “sneak preview.”  I was scared to my core as the packed house screamed as I had never felt before, and just after that scene, some of the female audience members had to be taken to the lobby as they were in shock, some in uncontrollable hysteria.  That I will never forget. It was like dying on the spot in horror.

Feature Photo:  House on Haunted Hill 1959; credit:  screenrant.com