Scary Movies

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, I thought a review of my all time favorite scary movies would be in order. My younger, more naive self was attracted to scary flicks like a moth to a flame.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die

1962. A young doctor in love and his girlfriend are involved in a horrible car wreck. She is decapitated. He grabs her head and takes it back to his laboratory where he finagles a series of tubes and wires to where her brain stays alive...now he just has to go look for a new body for her.

Psycho

Janet Leigh (Jamie Lee Curtis' mom) absconds from her job with a briefcase full of money. She stops for the night at The Bates Motel and the rest is history.

Sweet Reagan...An innocent little girl possessed  by Satan. Scared the bejeebers out of me.

 

 Then there was "Damien". Another child who gave new meaning to the term "Little Devil".

The first "Alien" was scary enough but I got through it. I didn't get around to seeing Alien II. It started out with an anxious Sigourney Weaver lying on a hospital bed. The sound of a human heartbeat in the background was unmistakable. Suddenly it looked like a very restless alien wanted out of Sigourney's chest (or was it her abdomen?) Whatever. When the high pitched violin staccato began increasing in volume with each passing second - I was history. I recall picking up my handbag and quietly excusing myself before yet another the alien entered this world.

"Fatal Attraction" was shown to dramatically impact the decision-making of cheating men. Thank you Hollywood.

When I was young, warnings posted at the ticket booths admonishing potential viewers to reconsider seeing the featured film if you happened to be afflicted with heart disease, high blood pressure and/or seizure activity. Believe me, that warning to a teenager was like receiving a hand-engraved invitation.

I was warned with "The Last House on the Left". Circa 1972, it told the tale of two teenage girls that wound up getting kidnapped by four psycopathic, sadistic prison escapees. The violence in this film was over the top and the film was banned in the UK from 1984 - 2002, Singapore, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, West Germany and for over 32 years in Australia.

The older, more mature me would not recommend this movie to anyone. It was that disgusting. But, I was seventeen years old and on a date with another seventeen year old and we were both into getting scared out of our wits. I ended up passing out cold in the movie theater. Literally lost consciousness. Fainted.We didn't stay to see the end.

When I got home, I called my best friend, Maureen. I described to her in detail just how nasty this movie was and my response to it. She just had to go see it and since I had no idea how it ended we decided to go to the next weekend's matinee. There was no way that I would see it at night again. I may not have been the sharpest teenager in the world but I was aware of my limitations.

So, on my second viewing, I braced myself for the grossest parts, closed my eyes and repeated ... "it's just a movie, it's just a movie".

Then, during the same scene where I passed out in the theater the week before, Maureen barfed. It wasn't pretty.

I never did get to see the end but I got over it.