HALLOWEEN QUICKIE 

In honor of Halloween (or Samhain if you're old school Gaelic), I thought I'd pay tribute to a few horror films that scared the pants off me over the years. 

FRIDAY THE 13th (any of the early installments, but particularly Part II)

I wasn't seeing these in the theater as a kid, because I was only like seven years old when the first one was released. But then around 1981 something awesome happened, and my parents and every other family in our neighborhood got premium cable (including HBO, natch), so of course we young'uns were forever trying to sneak glimpses of forbidden R-rated flicks like the raunchy teen comedy Porky's and any and all of the gory slasher flicks that movie studios were cranking out at the time. And the undisputed Mack Daddy of all '80s splatter fests was definitely Friday the 13th. 

My favorite memory of this film was in the summer of 1982 (yeah, I don't know why I have a freakish memory for dates, I just do) and I was over at Ridley and Rianne's house, the next door neighbor kids I was tight with. It was also the summer I was finally allowed to play outside after dinner, which was a HUGE deal to me at the time. Anyhoo, Ridley and Rianne had a babysitter one night--Joe P--a teenager who lived in the house behind us. Yes, people hired teenage boys to babysit back then; parents of Gen Xers were chill like that (plus everyone knew everything about everyone in our 'hood, another hallmark of that era). Personally, I thought Joe was super cute and I was a bit jealous several years later when I heard from my Mom that he'd gotten engaged. Maybe I thought somewhere in the back of my mind I'd have a chance with him one day, because that's how teen girls think. But whatever. 

So I was hanging at Ridley and Rianne's that evening, and since their parents were off at a fondue restaurant or a key party or whatever hip '80s parents did on their nights out, the three of us kids tuned in to HBO to try to catch us some Friday the 13th Part II while Joe was preoccupied with a phone call (probably chatting up some girl). It was the part in the movie where a female camp counselor goes skinny dipping alone in the lake at night (as you do), and a male camp counselor happens by and takes the opportunity to steal her clothes. The skinny dipper chick climbs out of the lake butt naked to chase the guy through the woods (as you do), then the dude steps into a rope trap that snatches him up and he's hanging there upside down from a tree when the girl catches up to him and she's all, "You prick, why'd you steal my clothes? Oh, you're caught in a trap. Hold on, I'll go find something sharp to cut you down with." And the girl wanders off into the darkness and the guy is hanging there like a slab of beef and that's when Joe finally notices what we're watching, and he's like "Hey you little shits, turn that off! These two are about to get killed. Believe me, you DO NOT want to see it." And the three of us beg to differ--we kind of do want to see it but we're also more than a little freaked out by the whole scene, so we turn off the movie and Joe sends us outside. So we're sitting on the driveway and it's just beginning to get dark, and we're of course discussing the skinny dipping and the guy hanging upside down in the trap and the almost-killing we just saw, i.e. "How do you think the killer gets them?" et cetera.

Then suddenly from out of the near-darkness, a wadded-up candy wrapper whizzes by our heads and the three of us shriek and jump about eight feet into the air. We turn to see Joe standing behind us, laughing his ass off. Ah, Joe. What a loveable scamp you were.

Epilogue: Years later I watched the film in its entirety and finally learned how Jason Voorhees offed the clothes stealing guy and the skinny dipping girl. It was gross, but strangely anti-climactic. In my mind, I think I'd built it up to be something pants-shittingly horrific, when really it was just a run-of-the-mill, slasher-flick knifing for both of them.

That said, the theatrical trailer still gives me the willies: 

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS

Yes, it's the original "The calls are coming from inside the house!" babysitter movie, and it fucking terrified me back in the day. It's got some odd pacing though, because the really messed up shit happens during the first 20 or so minutes of the film, and then it turns into sort of a police detective thriller, then ramps back up again in the final 10 minutes. But as a kid who did a lot of babysitting between ages 12 and 17, When a Stranger Calls scared me shitless, yet I never missed it when it was on TV. 

One time I was around 16 years old and at the home of the Walkers, some family friends that I babysat for frequently whenever I was home from boarding school. I put their young son to bed and I was channel surfing when I came across WaSC, and made the ill-advised decision to go ahead and watch it, even though I knew damn well how much it freaked me out. (Did I mention it was late at night and the Walkers' living room had several large windows? Yeah.) So I watched the whole movie, got predictably spooked, then when it was over.....the telephone rang. I sat there on the couch for a minute, thinking how fucked up it would be if I answered the phone and no one was there. I answered it anyway though, because--duh--it was 1989, caller ID didn't exist yet, I was the babysitter, and therefore expected to answer the phone. So I picked up the receiver, said "Hello," and....dead air.

Dun, dun, DUN!  

Spoiler alert: I'm still alive to tell the tale, obvs, and so is the Walkers' (now 36 year old) son. Still, the asshole who called and hung up on me that night? Fuck you, whoever you are.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS

Damn, I love this one so much. LOVE. IT. 

It's not exactly horror movie sort of scary; it's more Twilight Zone-esque, which--truth be told--is my favorite kind of scary. If you haven't seen it....for God's sakes, why not? 

None of the trailers do it justice. The film is BRILLIANT. 

One of my favorite bits of trivia: Sidney Berger, the actor who plays John the creepy neighbor, ended up having a long and distinguished career as a theater director and drama professor at the University of Houston. He died in 2013, and by all accounts was a real sweetheart of a guy. 

Read his obit here. 

But go watch Carnival of Souls first. 

Well I wanted to make this list longer, but I procrastinated and now I'm all out of time, kids. Time to go put on my costume and get spooky!