In the meantime, here's a link to You Think You Know Fear, You Know Nothing, an essay by Doug Brunell over at Film Threat. He talks about his childhood obsession with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it all brought me back to those wonderful days before the internet, when horror movies were still illicit and your imagination fueled your desire to see something on the big screen.
I became even more obsessed with seeing the film. I did all the research on the movie I could at my school's miserable library and tried to visualize what happened on the screen. I tried to analyze what made it so scary ... all without seeing the damn thing. That obstacle was removed, though, when my mom bought me the video.Good stuff. See you next Monday! (Did you say that to yourself in a Vincent Price voice?)
While my first time with TCM was not the most scared I've been watching a movie, his article illustrates a good point: that first time that you're really, truly scared by a movie - not just tense, but terrified - is like no other time you'll ever have at the movies again. Ever. And those of us who become horror fans because of that experience, we spend the rest of our lives trying to get back to that place.
ReplyDeleteI think I've let my standards for horror waver because of this. These days, if a horror movie can simply hold my attention, I'll think it's good. But when I was 8 and I saw Poltergeist in the theater, I was in a cold sweat the entire time. I believed that movie. By contrast, the maniacs in TCM, as the movie goes along, become cartoonish to me.
But a tree eating a kid? Realest. Thing. Ever.