2011 October Horror Challenge (Part 6: Day 20-24)

There's only one week left of October! Only one more week until Halloween. And, only one week left of the October Horror Challenge. Click the links below to get caught up with what has already transpired.

The 2011 October Horror Challenge:

Part 1: Day 1

Part 2: Day 2-6

Part 3: Day 7-12

Part 4: Day 13

Part 5: Day 14-19

I've seen some cool stuff this month which hasn't quite qualified for the Challenge. This year's standards are just a wee bit tighter than last year's inagural edition of the Challenge. While I have counted "The Walking Dead", I have generally been trying to not count television show episodes this time. For instance, we just recently started receiving the channel MeTV. Over this past weekend they had a bunch great programming that I simply couldn't count. On Friday they had the "To Serve Man" episode of "The Twilight Zone" (1959-64). Last year I probably would have counted that classic episode, but not this time around. Saturday night I caught some of Svengoolie's presentation of "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" on MeTV. Of course that one has already been counted. It's okay to have repeats from last year's list (not too many though), but it just wouldn't be right to count repeats from earlier in the month. I've also watched various Halloween-themed videos and DVDs with The Little Monster that won't count. The one that might have counted last year is the all-time classic "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (1966). We're also checking out a few of The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween episodes too. Finally, I've been able to make it to National Amusements' Silver Screen shows the past two weeks. While they're featuring early Alfred Hitchcock films throughout October--and they're all thrillers of one sort or another--I just can't justify adding the ones I've seen: "The Man Who Knew too Much" (1934) and "The 39 Steps" (1935). They were both good films that I've never seen before, but they're simply not "horror" enough to count.

OCTOBER 20

Item No. 27: LET ME IN

"Let Me In" (2010) is the American remake of the 2008 Swedish vampire film "Let the Right One In"--which I watched earlier in the Challenge. I figured I should check both of these out, and it seemed like a good idea to start with the original. The American version is a perfectly fine film. I think that if I had only seen this version I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more. The original was a very well made film and didn't really need to be remade so quickly (other than to cash in on a good movie and let Americans watch it without having to read subtitles). The new one is fine, but pretty much just tells the same story in the same way. They made a few minor changes which were okay, but it was still basically the same movie with different people and in a different language. I did like the fact that it's set in the early 1980s (like the original). It didn't really seem necessary to set it in the semi-recent past (and probably made production just a bit tougher with having to make sure all the clothes, vehicles and scenery were time-appropriate). The main benefit of this setting was the 80s soundtrack! I might have to pick that one up at some point.

Item No. 28: THEM!

After watching a very recent horror movie like "Let Me In" I wanted to check out a classic one. I chose one of the best of the 1950s desert-based giant bug movies, "Them!" (1954). It had been a few years since I've seen "Them!" and it's a great movie, so it was nice to spend some time with an old favorite. I still have never been able to find a young Leonard Nimoy in his bit part as an Air Force Sergeant in the film, but that's just something to try to figure out the next time I see it.

OCTOBER 21

Item No. 29: CURSE OF THE FLY

I was happy to have managed to see the entire "The Fly" trilogy during this year's challenge. The last installment, "Curse of the Fly" (1965) was watched on the 21st. It's interesting that (unlike today's sequels) this three-movie series didn't feel the need to put numbers or Roman numerals after the title. It's also interesting that each sequel features characters from a generation after the previous film--yet all were filmed within seven years and they all seem to be set in what was the "present" at the time. The son of the original scientist who turned into a fly was a boy in the first film, an adult in the second and an old man in the third. The third one is also the first to not feature either Vincent Price or a fly. It was still a pretty good movie, but probably a good time to call it quits on the series.

Item No. 30: THE OTHERS

On the night of the 21st The Wife and I watched "The Others" (2002). This was the first film that we were able to watch together all the way through for the Challenge (after The Wife conked out halfway through "They Live" last week). I didn't think I'd seen "The Others" before this, but for some reason it seemed awfully familiar in places. Perhaps I had seen it? Strange that I could so completely forget a movie--especially one that wasn't bad. All in all it was a pretty good, spooky Nicole Kidman film with a genuinely surprising ending.

OCTOBER 22

Item No. 31: CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE

Not to be confused with the recently watched "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954), "Creature from Black Lake" (1976) is a much less well known monster movie. This one is about Bigfoot (keeping with what has become a bit of a trend in this year's Challenge). In fact, "Creature from Black Lake" is one of my all-time favorite Bigfoot movies. October 20th was the anniversary of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film. I wanted to watch something to commemorate that, but it took a couple days to get around to it. October 20th was also Bela Lugosi's birthday. I still haven't watched anything to commemorate that--but plan to before the end of the month.

Item No. 32: I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF

"I Was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957) is a pretty rare film to find. Because of various legal and financial reasons it has never been legitimately released on DVD. But it was one of the classic films shown on Creature Double Feature when I was a kid. I was able to find it at the Rock and Shock show in Worcester a couple years back and had managed to put off watching it until now. The plan was to try to get together with some old friends to watch it, but that plan never came together. I figured that since I have the movie in my collection (and who knows when or if it will ever get a true DVD release) that I should just go ahead and watch it. It's a fun American International Pictures cheapie featuring a young Michael Landon as the titular teenager/werewolf. I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid, and there was only one scene that I remembered from then--but I remembered it pretty vividly. It was the scene where Michael Landon is watching a gymnast practicing in the gym when a bell goes off near his ear--causing him to turn into a werewolf and attack the gymnast.

OCTOBER 23

Item No. 33: YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

I introduced The Little Monster to Mel Brooks' classic "Young Frankenstein" (1974) last year. We watched it together again on the 23rd. This was another repeat from last year's October Challenge, but it's a great one. I was surprised by some of the things The Little Monster forgot, as well as some of the details she remembered. After watching it last October it became one of her favorite movies for a while and she watched it a number of times over the next couple of weeks. "Young Frankenstein" and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" will probably be Halloween month traditions for us until she grows up too much to be my Little Monster anymore.

OCTOBER 24

Item No. 34: THE DREADFUL HALLOWGREEN SPECIAL

Monday October 24th marked one week until Halloween. I bought "The Dreadful Hallowgreen Special" (2010) quite a few months ago, but have managed to not watch it until now. How appropriate to finally see it one week before the big day.

Penny Dreadful is the host of the New Bedford, MA-based Horror Host show Shilling Shockers. I've gotten to know her pretty well over the past few years--we were both among the thousands of kids permanently affected by Creature Double Feature back in the 1970s and 80s. The Little Monster has also met Penny (and her husband/co-star Garou the Wolfman) on a few occasions. See my blog Penny Dreadful's Shilling Shockers for more on that topic. Anyway, last year, Penny Dreadful hooked up with Nashville, TN Horror Host Dr. Gangrene (who I am not familiar with at all) to make this Halloween special. It was shown on public access TV last year and then released on DVD by Alpha Video. I bought it through the website oldies.com. Here's a link to the DVD at the site.

The special itself is pretty good and funny. Penny (and Garou) and Dr. Gangrene have to join forces to try to save Halloween from a mysterious shift that has caused the holiday to become all cuddly and lovable instead of dark and scary. In an interesting twist, the two hosts come to the realization that they both unwittingly had a hand in causing the problem before they ultimately figure out how to fix it. As an added bonus the special is itself hosted by yet another Horror Host, Count Gore De Vol. There are also a number of entertaining special features on the disc.

Item No. 35: CURSE OF THE DEMON

The Wife agreed to try to watch another movie for the Challenge with me. I wanted to show her a longtime favorite, "Curse of the Demon" (1957). It's the American release of the British movie "Night of the Demon" (1957) (which is not to be confused with the grisly Bigfoot movie "Night of the Demon" (1980)--which shares the name, but not much else). Some friends and I first discovered "Curse of the Demon" at Blockbuster back in the 1990s. None of us had ever heard of it and it looked like a fun B-movie to watch on a Saturday night. Well, it turned out to be a very good quality movie all around, and also genuinely creepy in parts. It has been a favorite of mine ever since. "Curse of the Demon" was released a few years back on a double feature DVD that also includes the original British version. While The Wife was a real trooper to agree to watch it, she did fall asleep some twenty minutes before it ended (just at the most exciting part of the film).

With one week to go I have already gone past the 31 movie goal for the month. Now it's time to see how this all ends and find out if I can surpass the 46 movies and shows watched in last year's Challenge. It will be tough to reach that total, but at least this year the Challenge has featured far fewer television show episodes than were counted last year. Stick around to see how it all ends...

CURRENT SCORE

Monster Dad: 35

October: 24

From the end of "Curse of the Fly"

To Be Continued...

2011 October Horror Challenge (Part 3: Day 7-12)

This is the third installment of this year's October Horror Challenge. For the first two parts, read here:

2011 October Horror Challenge (Part 1: Day 1)

2011 October Horror Challenge (Part 2: Day 2-6)

It's been a bit of slow going for the Horror Challenge since the last update. I was glad to get so far ahead at the end of that one (eleven movies watched in the first six days of the month). I knew that we were going to be spending most of last weekend in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, and wouldn't be watching anything for a few days. In fact, I wasn't be able to add anything to the Challenge until Sunday, October 9.

We had a great time getting a couple days away from everything (including The Little Monsters and the Challenge). The Wife and I did some hiking around the Quabbin Reservoir, enjoyed some warmth from the wood stove and the fire pit outside the cabin, and were lucky to get some beautiful late-season weather. I did make one attempt to watch something for the horror challenge. I brought along my copy of season one of The History Channel's show "Monster Quest" with the intention of watching one of the Bigfoot-related episodes featured that season on the DVD player in the cabin. I always like to bring along a Bigfoot book to creep me out a bit when we go camping. Since the cabin had a TV and DVD player I figured this was a perfect opportunity to get creeped out in a whole new way--and also be able to add something to the Horror Challenge total at the same time! The cabin we stayed at was deep in the wooded area surrounding the Quabbin Reservoir, and pretty remote. It was about the closest you can get to being "in the middle of nowhere" in central Massachusetts. The Wife hesitantly agreed to watch the episode "Bigfoot" with me, but changed her mind after the opening scene, which consisted of audio from a purported 911 call from a man witnessing a Bigfoot in his yard. I have to say that, being out in a cabin in the middle of the woods late at night, that 911 call sent a genuine chill down my spine! For the sake of keeping the peace (and because I was getting pretty creeped out myself) I turned the show off.

OCTOBER 9

Item No. 12: MONSTER QUEST: BIGFOOT

Sunday night we were still away from home, but stayed at The In-Laws' house. This meant that we were back in civilization, and I had a chance to watch the entire Bigfoot episode of "Monster Quest" (Season 1, Episode 5: 2007). The 911 call seemed quite a bit less fear-inducing while watching it in more familiar surroundings. It's amazing what effect time and place (late at night, under a full moon, in a cabin in the woods) can have in how scary something can be! This is the first item I'm counting this year which isn't an actual movie. There were quite a few TV shows in last year's Challenge (including a number of episodes of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker"). I wanted to avoid putting too many in this year's edition, but this one seems to be pretty appropriate for it. While it wasn't intended or planned, this Challenge is shaping up to be quite heavy on the Bigfoot material. That's perfectly fine with me. And, that leads us to the next item...

Item No. 13: THE SNOW CREATURE

Monster Quest wasn't the only Bigfoot-related thing I watched on October 9. "The Snow Creature" (1954) is a personal favorite, and I was also able to watch that on Sunday night. It's not a good movie by any means, but I have a special fondness for it nonetheless. I first saw the movie back in the 1980s when I found a Goodtimes VHS double feature of "Godzilla vs. Megalon" and "The Snow Creature" at K-Mart. While not a high-quality film, it is notable for being part of a wave of Abominable Snowman/Yeti movies that came out in the early- to mid- 1950s in the wake of Eric Shipton's photographs of Yeti footprints in 1951 and reports of the creature from Sir Edmund Hillary's trek to the top of Mount Everest that introduced the legend of The Abominable Snowman to the western world.

I first watched the movie late at night at a friend's house as a teen. We laughed through the movie and mercilessly made fun of it, but... After watching it I had to walk home through the woods after midnight, and once again that element time and place made something that seemed so silly and utterly not scary suddenly seem less silly.

Sean Hartter's artwork for Saturday Fright Special's presentation of "The Snow Creature"

On this night I was able to catch (online) the new episode of the New Hampshire-based public access Horror Host show Saturday Fright Special that featured "The Snow Creature". The two-hour show didn't start until midnight, making for a long night. In fact, I wasn't able to keep myself up for the whole thing--giving up about fifteen minutes before the end (luckily I also have the movie on DVD and was able to finish it a couple days later).

OCTOBER 11

Item No. 14: TROLLHUNTER

I wasn't able to watch anything on Monday the 10th, but on Tuesday I saw the recent Norwegian movie "TrollHunter" (2010). I'd heard about this one a while back and added it to my Netflix queue, then promptly forgot about it. It seemed like a perfect time to watch it and add it to the list. And it was very much worth it! What a fun monster movie. I'd have to say that it's the best giant monster movie I've seen in some time (at least since "Cloverfield"). Like "Cloverfield", "TrollHunter" employs the "found video footage" documentary-like gimmick popularized by "The Blair Witch Project". It is becoming an overused and tired cliche, but apparently can still be used to good effect--as "TrollHunter" proves. I'm no fan of the reliance that movies have on CGI special effects these days, or the shaky-cam, quick cuts they use to mask the unrealistic-looking nature of many of these effects (I'm just a bit old-fashioned in that way). However, this movie makes good use of both the effects and the techniques. While it doesn't seem to have had a huge budget, "TrollHunter" masks any defects in its effects by showing them mostly at night, in snowy weather and through the camera of someone who was supposedly right there rather than in a cinematic way. You still get good views of the titular trolls, but I didn't have many complaints about how they looked or moved like I might have expected. It was a movie that I wouldn't show The Little Monster, but does keep the nice mix of old, new, campy, funny, scary and serious movies that this October Challenge seems to be developing into.

OCTOBER 12

Item No. 15: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

I've been meaning to see the 2008 Swedish vampire movie "Let the Right One In", and it's American remake "Let Me In" (2010) for a while now. The Challenge gave me the perfect excuse to finally do just that. I decided to start with the original and watched "Let the Right One In" on Wednesday October 12. It's another of those movies I'd heard a lot about but had never seen. I found it to be very good, and once again, a perfect addition to the Challenge. It should be interesting to see how the remake stacks up to the original (much like I'm wondering how the new "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011) will compare to the Swedish original from 2009.

That's gotten us caught up to now. I'm expecting an exciting few days as the middle of October arrives. The Rock and Shock show is going to be in Worcester for the weekend of October 14-16. I probably won't get a chance to watch too many movies over the weekend, but should have a fun, horror-filled time--and might even be able to pick up a few DVDs to watch over the rest of the month...

CURRENT SCORE:

Monster Dad - 15

October - 12

2011 October Horror Challenge (Part 2: Day 2-6)

First off, it seems worth mentioning that "The October Horror Challenge" might not be the best title for this little project. After all, like I mentioned earlier, I admit that I'm using a rather loose definition of "horror" for it. Because I'll be watching at least some stuff with my Little Monster some of it dies have to be family friendly. Basically anything that seems to be in the spirit of Halloween in some way is eligible for inclusion. "31 Movies in 31 Days" might have been a better title, but some of the things that I might watch and count might not actually be movies. Not only that, but "31 Movies in 31 Days" is already being used by others, so I wanted it to be a little different. Maybe next year I'll manage to think up a better title...

Anyway, onto the updates. After a very successful Day One of the October Horror Challenge (three movies watched), Sunday (Oct. 2) was an off day. Due to other commitments, no movies or other horror-related material was watched. Luckily, the New England Patriots beat the Raiders rather handily and didn't provide a horror show of their own like they did the previous week when they had a total second half meltdown against the Buffalo Bills, but that's another story...

OCTOBER 3

Item No. 4: THE FLY

Monday brought an opportunity to watch Vincent Price in the original "The Fly" (1958). I was a big fan of David Cronenberg's 1986 remake, but the the original is a classic. I don't remember the last time I even saw the original--in fact I'm actually wondering if it's even possible that I may have never seen the entire movie before at all. I remember seeing the climatic scenes as a kid on some show on TV about monster movies that showed clips from some of the great ones. The scene with the fly in the spider web at the end pleading for someone to "Help Me! HELP MEEEEE!" left quite an impression on me back then. I enjoyed finally being able to see the whole movie--possibly for the first time (?). The Little Monster didn't watch it with me, but I did let her see the scene where the scientist's wife first pulls the towel off his transformed head. I wasn't sure if she was ready for it or not, but she assured me "No don't worry Daddy, this isn't scary." ...Of course later she was in tears about it--not because she was scared, but because she felt sorry for both the scientist and his wife. Oops. Well, at least I didn't make the mistake of letting her watch the final fly-in-the-spider-web scene--despite her protests.

Item No. 5: THE CRAZIES

I also managed to watch the recent remake of "The Crazies" (2010) on Monday. Before it was released I watched George Romero's original version from 1973 for the first time. I guess I thought I might get a chance to see the new one in the theater and figured I should have a frame of reference to the original. Well, I never got around to watching the new version until now. Turns out it was worth the wait! Despite fears of it stinking since it was yet another in a long line of unnecessary remakes (and "reboots") that are the current trend in Hollywood, I thought it was a very serviceable horror movie. It kind of took the idea and went in its own direction without having to soil the memory of the original by pretending to be an original idea that simply rips off the title of the source material to make a few bucks on it. It ended up being better than I expected!

OCTOBER 4

Item No. 6: EEGAH

Tuesday brought more rainy weather to our area. After picking up The Little Monster at the bus stop after school I figured it was a good time to settle down with one of our favorite father-daughter movies: "Eegah" (1962). I first fell in love with this movie back in the 90s when I saw Mystery Science Theater 3000's treatment of it. In fact, I had never even heard of "Eegah" before that. To this day it's still my all-time favorite episode of MST3K (though I haven't seen all of them). While I originally only thought of it was being watchable in the MST3K format, I now enjoy watching the movie by itself too. Today we did watch the MST3K version though. I introduced The Little Monster to "Eegah!" a few years back, and it was one of her first favorite movies for a period of time back then.

Item No. 7: CONTAGION

Our local multiplex theater chain has bargain Tuesdays, where tickets to all movies are only $6.00. I was lucky enough to get a chance to go tonight and ended up seeing the new Steven Soderbergh infectious disease movie "Contagion" (2011). It's not really a straight-up horror movie, but I think it's close enough for my list. I'd imagine that it would most certainly be considered a horror movie by anyone who's a germophobe though. Either way, I got a semi-rare opportunity to go out to the movies (for cheap too!) and this was the closest thing to a horror movie that was out that I had interest in watching. I thought it was pretty danged good too! In general I'm not a huge Soderbergh fan, but this really was a very entertaining film.

OCTOBER 5

Item No. 8: "BIGFOOT LIVES"

I'm a big fan of Bigfoot, and "Bigfoot Lives" (2007) is the first BHM (Big Hairy Monster) movie of the month for me--though probably not the last. I had this one in my Netflix queue for some time and mistakenly thought I had already seen it. This one is a documentary-style film by well-known Bigfoot investigator Tom Biscardi. I have to confess to not being terribly familiar with Mr. Biscardi. There was a big, messy Bigfoot hoax a few years back and I recall Tom Biscardi being involved in some way. In the fallout after that incident I heard quite a few negative things about the man and the way he goes about his business. I also saw another documentary (which I mistakenly thought was this one at first) where he had some small involvement--in a negative way. Anyway, I thought that "Bigfoot Lives" was actually pretty good. It might sound like faint praise in this current age of crappy Bigfoot horror movies with terrible CGI special effects being churned out at a staggering pace, but for what it's worth, "Bigfoot Lives" is probably the best overall Bigfoot movie that I've seen since "Harry and the Hendersons" (1987), and the best Bigfoot documentary since the classic ones from the "golden age" of Bigfoot back in the 1970s.

OCTOBER 6

Item No. 9: "TEENAGERS BATTLE THE THING"

Not to be confused with "The Thing" (1982) or "Teenagers from Outer Space" (1957), I watched a little semi-obscure film called "Teenagers Battle The Thing" (1958) today. It was one of the Public Domain movies offered on one of the free movie channels on our ROKU Box. I had never heard of this one before, but the plot (consisting of a group of students going on an archaeological expedition and finding an ancient monster that comes to life) sounded suspiciously familiar. It only took a few minutes for me to figure out why it seemed so familiar...

Item No. 10: "THE CURSE OF BIGFOOT"

The makers of "Teenagers Battle The Thing" cashed in on the Bigfoot craze of the 1970s by taking their old movie, adding about a half-hour of new footage at the beginning, referring to the monster in the film as a Bigfoot instead of a mummy, and then re-released the movie as "The Curse of Bigfoot" (1978) to make some money off of it. I didn't know until today that the original movie was available to watch--or that it was even called "Teenagers Battle The Thing" for that matter. "Teenagers Battle The Thing" was in black & white and "The Curse of Bigfoot" is in (not very vivid) color. Believe it or not, I basically watched the same movie (under two different names) twice today. Once I saw "Teenagers Battle The Thing" and recognized that it was the basis for "The Curse of Bigfoot" I simply had to watch that one too. I actually have a bit of a history with "The Curse of Bigfoot" that goes back to the early 1980s when my sister let me watch it very late one night while sleeping over house as a kid. That incident is chronicled in the blog Movies My Sister Made Me Watch. In the early 1990s I bought the movie on VHS tape without realizing it was the one I had watched at my sister's house. Last year I bought it once again, as part of a double feature with "Cathy's Curse" on a DVD from Alpha Video (which is what the image above is taken from). It's not a very good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it was kind of fun to watch the original version by itself. It also gave me a good excuse to add another Bigfoot-related movie to the list!

Item No. 11: "MAD MONSTER PARTY"

"Mad Monster Party" (1967) is a movie that I had never heard of until a few years ago. A friend suggested it to me after watching it from Netflix. I put it in my queue and let it sit there for a couple of years until I recently saw a blog about the movie which reminded me that I should see it. The October Horror Challenge was the perfect excuse to finally go ahead and do so. I'd heard some different opinions about whether this flick was appropriate for kids or not and decided to check it out before showing it to The Little Monster. "Mad Monster Party" was produced by Rankin and Bass--the same folks that brought us "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and all those other great stop-motion Christmas specials. This pretty much means that it is perfectly fine for little ones. Like some of R&B's lesser-known and less-cherished titles this one could be faulted for going on a bit too long and being rather dull in a few spots. It's amazing to think about how much time and effort are required to make a stop-motion animated film and yet you can watch something like this and wonder about how they could have easily tightened it up and made better. Anyway, probably the only thing really questionable for kids is a short segment where Dr. Frankenstein's secretary and the monster's mate (voiced by Phyllis Diller) get into a cat fight--complete with dresses being ripped off and screeching cat sound effects (!). The Little Monster did end up watching most of the second half of the film with me when I finished watching it on October 7. She was kind of interested in it, but had missed the beginning. So it was understandable that she didn't seem to be able to sit still through it.

So, I'm glad that I was able to get ahead of the one-movie-per-day pace for a bit. We're going to be spending a couple nights in a cabin in the woods this weekend. That is perfect for thoughts of Bigfoot attacks and crazed slashers running around, but probably means that I won't be watching any good scary movies for a couple days. Until the next update...

SCORE:

Monster Dad - 11

October - 6

TO BE CONTINUED...

Movies My Sister Made Me Watch

In thinking about what kinds of things inspired me as a kid and what exactly made me the Monster Dad that I am today, a couple things seem like obvious influences. First was the fact that Boston-area TV stations (pre-cable days) showed TONS of great (and not-so-great) horror/sci-fi/monster movies--especially noteworthy was the WLVI Channel 56 Saturday afternoon show Creature Double Feature. The other impetus was my interest in paranormal/crypto mysteries: Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, ghosts, ancient astronauts, ESP, spontaneous human combustion...

Another thing which has to be considered when looking at what made me what I am today is the fact that my sister Dyan (and yes, I did ask her permission before calling her by name in this blog) took me to a number of movies when I was a kid that ranged from somewhat iffy to downright inappropriate. Before you get the wrong idea, I'm not complaining in any way. In fact, I'm eternally grateful to Dyan for exposing me to some great (and ultimately very influential on me) movies that I never would have seen as a kid, or at least would have only seen the watered down TV versions later on.

And, don't get me wrong, she didn't only take me to see scary movies that I was really too young to be going to (actually there were probably only a couple of those). Many different kinds of movies were seen in those days. The scary ones stand out, but most of the ones covered here were important ones to me in one way or another, and I probably wouldn't have seen them for many years (if ever) if it weren't for my sister.

I remember going to see a lot of movies at the now-defunct Worcester (MA) Galleria cinema. It was a three-screen theater run by General Cinemas. When you went to the theater from the mall you used to pass by a big mural of the surface of the moon on the corridor wall. It was a great way to prepare for an imagination-firing movie experience. My nephew (Dyan's son, a few years younger than me) would also accompany us on most of these trips. To illustrate how young we actually were at the time, General Cinemas had a catchy tune that would play as the company's logo went up onscreen before the movie would start. My nephew and I would get up in the front of the theater and dance around to the little tune like a couple of...well...little kids.

Here's an example of General Cinema's intro:

Pretty catchy tune, huh?

So, what were the movies that I was subjected to? At The Galleria I remember seeing "Das Boot" when it was first released in America--in German, with subtitles and everything. That was an experience. That movie was a bit "grown-up" to me at the time, but not terribly inappropriate. The 1978 remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was another story. Now, that's a movie that freaked me out. It's a great combination of horror and science-fiction that I still think is a great movie to this day--but I'm not sure I was quite ready for it as a nine-year-old. Another fright-fest was "Creepshow". Some of the individual stories were scarier and more intense than others, but the one about the monster under the stairs was the standout one for me. It was one of those moments where I was convinced that something was going to grab me from under my chair. "Creepshow" came out in 1982, which means I would have been 13 at the time--not a tyke by any means, but I still remember it as being a very edge-of-my-seat experience. The fact that the monster reminded me a bit of Bigfoot (which I was very much into at the time...and still am for that matter) probably didn't help. I was lucky enough to meet Tom Savini--the special effects and make-up man responsible for making "Fluffy" (as the monster is affectionately nicknamed)--at a horror convention in Worcester in 2008. It was great to be able to tell him how much his creation scared the crap out of me all those years ago.

Another moment when I was convinced something was going to grab at me from under the movie seat was when we went to see "Young Frankenstein". Though the movie came out in 1974, when I would have been five, I'm pretty sure it was re-released a few years later. I'm not sure exactly how old I was when we went to see it, but can say that I really only remember the beginning. As much as this movie is decidedly a comedy, and has become one of my all-time favorites, when seeing it for the first time I didn't really get the comedy part of it. I thought it was a straight-out horror movie. The black-and-white photography and the accurate re-creation of the look and feel of a 1930s monster movie probably had a lot to do with that. I don't remember much from that screening (or how long it actually took me to realize that it was supposed to be funny), but I do recall that in the first few minutes I was indeed pretty scared and had that uncomfortable sensation that something was under my seat and about to grab me in the darkened theater.

I also saw a couple documentary-type movies with my sister which need to be mentioned in this conversation. She took me to see "In Search of Noah's Ark" (1976), which was right up my paranormal alley. as mentioned above, I had a keen interest in odd, unsolved mysteries like this. One of my favorite shows on TV was the Leonard Nimoy-hosted "In Search of...". "In Search of Noah's Ark" wasn't scary in any way, but I found it incredibly fascinating as a kid. I remember that when we left the cinema I looked up in the sky and saw a cloud formation that looked like a gigantic cross. It was probably just a couple of crossed contrails or something, but I was convinced that it was a sign from above that Noah's Ark was really sitting up on Mount Ararat, waiting to be found. I guess it didn't occur to me that we saw only one of many screenings of the movie in one of many cinemas that were showing it. If it had been a true sign, then I would assume that the same sky-based cross would have been made visible over every theater showing the movie every couple of hours as the movie ended and the audiences watching it went to the parking lots all across the country (and what about screenings that got out after dark?). But I digress...

Another "documentary" (which was actually a docu-drama of sorts, but was a documentary as far as my youthful mind was concerned) that we saw was "Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot" (1977). This would probably have to be considered the ultimate going-to-the-movies-with-my-sister movie. Not only was the movie supposed to be scary, the fact that I believed in Bigfoot and was very scared of the creature made it all the more terrifying to me. A few years ago I was finally able to watch the movie again on DVD (though I did see it once on TV a couple years after seeing it in the theater). It is pretty obvious now that the movie is a movie (and not a documentary), but as a kid I really did think that what I was watching was real. I remember that we saw this movie at the Interstate 495 cinema in Milford, MA. The reason I feel confident about this memory nearly thirty-five years later is that when we left the theater after the movie my sister had my nephew and myself climb up on a giant snow pile in the parking lot (of K-Mart, which shared the lot with the theater) and throw snow on her windshield--similar to how a number of Bigfoot (Bigfeet?) threw boulders from a cliff onto the cabin of some loggers in the movie--because she didn't have any windshield washer fluid and wanted to clean her windshield before we left.

Not every movie my sister took me to was at a traditional movie theater. I remember her bringing my nephew and myself to see Woody Allen's "Sleeper" (1973) at the Worcester Public Library (most likely sometime in the late-1970s). It was always cool to see an interesting movie in a non-traditional setting. True, like "Young Frankenstein" was more of a comedy than a horror movie, "Sleeper" is more of a comedy than a Science-Fiction movie, but as a kid watching it in a library it was very much straight-up sci-fi to me.

The best non-movie theater movie my sister brought me to was "Forbidden Planet" (1956) at the Worcester Art Museum. It was a great introduction to one of the best early science-fiction movies, and the art museum setting was a great place to see it for the first time.

Finally, here's an example of a movie that we didn't go out to see. While this one was watched on TV it still ranks as one of the scariest movie experiences of my youth--and my sister was once again very much involved. The movie "The Curse of Bigfoot" (1978) was being shown on late-night TV sometime in the early 1980s. I was sleeping over at my nephew's house and my sister (knowing of my interest in Bigfoot) wouldn't let us stay up late enough to watch it (it didn't come on until around 2:00AM) but agreed to set the alarm and wake us up in time to see it. Her house was out in the middle of the woods (literally surrounded by the woods and about a quarter-of-a-mile from the road on a gravel driveway). Not only that but the living room, where the TV was located, had a wall of windows that faced the woods. The movie is a terrible example of filmmaking, but the combination of my age, the fact that it was a Bigfoot movie, the very late hour and the fact that the entire wall facing the woods was made up of windows (that Bigfoot would have had no problem looking in at us through if he happened to come loping up to the house) made for one of the creepiest experiences of my whole life.

What would I be now if it weren't for these movie experiences I had as a kid? I might be a bit more "normal". I'm pretty sure I'd be a bit more boring. And I definitely don't think I'd be Monster Dad today. All I can say is Thank You Dyan for scaring me (and maybe "scarring" me a bit too in the process) all those years ago. I wouldn't change those priceless, terrifying memories for anything!

The Horror That Is "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer"

As a kid, I always loved watching the animated Holiday specials around Christmas (as well as other holidays throughout the year). These shows were truly special, in that, they were only aired on television once a year and they would pre-empt regular programming. If you weren't able to be in front of your TV at the right time you'd not only miss the show, but you'd have to wait for a whole year for another opportunity. Nowadays they seem to run many of these shows more than one time during the Holiday season. And, once they became available on VHS, and later on DVD, the "special" aspect of the programs was really lost. They're still great shows of course, just not the events they used to be.

While there were many great Christmas shows, it's pretty easy to pick my two favorites: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) and "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964). It's impossible to place them in order of first place and second place. I suppose they're both tied for first in my opinion. One thing that set "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" apart from all the other specials was the fact that it was the only one that not only entertained me and put a bunch of catchy Christmas tunes in my head, but also scared the crap out of me! Yes, I admit that I was afraid of this show as a kid. Well, not the entire show itself, but one specific character...The Abominable Snow Monster of the North.

I was fascinated by all kinds of "unsolved mysteries" as a kid (and still am today for that matter). UFOs, ghosts, The Loch Ness Monster, the statues of Easter Island, spontaneous human combustion and the possibility of "ancient astronauts" guiding the Incas and Aztecs were among the things that interested me. Basically anything that might have been covered in the Alan Landsberg produced, Leonard Nimoy hosted show "In Search of..." was fair game. However, one mystery rose above all others for me. That was the mystery of Big Hairy Monsters (BHMs), such as Bigfoot, Sasquatch and The Abominable Snowman (Yeti). The idea that such creatures had been reported for centuries and could actually exist in our world (where monsters supposedly DON'T exist) was at once fascinating and terrifying to me.

The Abominable Snowman had been a mythical creature for hundreds of years in the Himalayas, but really entered the psyche of the western world in the 1950s when people began trying to scale Mount Everest. In 1951 Eric Shipton photographed giant footprints in the snow made by the Yeti. Then, in 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary also reported seeing similar footprints. The Abominable Snowman became enough of a part of popular culture that a slew of movies about it were released in the mid- to late-1950s. "The Snow Creature" (1954), "Man beast" (1956), "The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas" (1957) and "Half Human" (1958) (an American re-working of the 1955 Japanese movie "Beast Man Snow Man", directed by Ishiro Honda of "Godzilla" fame) are some examples of how pervasive the idea of The Abominable Snowman was at the time. Apparently there was still enough interest in the creature in 1964 to cause the makers of "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" to add The Abominable Snow Monster of the North into the cast of the show.

I love the story of "Rudolph". While some of the messages of how you should be true to yourself and how people shouldn't deem others "misfits" just because they're a little different may have gone over my head when I was young, I still enjoyed the whole story. The only problem was that the Snow Monster would periodically show up to terrify me. My main defense against this horror was to pull the blanket I was wrapped up in over my eyes and watching the scary scenes through the little spaces in the material. Exactly how I thought this would save me I'm not sure. Maybe I just figured that the monster wouldn't be able to see me. While this might seem like a bit of an extreme reaction to an animated holiday special I have read and heard about others who were similarly petrified by the experience. In fact, one of my best friends confided in me that he had also employed the blanket defense against the fearsome creature.

For the most part "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" unfolds as a typical animated Holiday special. It, of course, tells the familiar tale of Rudolph that is well-known from the song. The story is fleshed out by the additions of Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist instead of a toymaker, the Island of Misfit Toys, and the gold and silver seeking prospector Yukon Cornelius. Not too far into the story we get our first, unexpected glimpse of The Abominble Snow Monster of the North as Donner and Rudolph hide from the creature, who walks past them, leaving giant footprints in the snow. Sam the Snowman (the Burl Ives-voiced narrator of the show) says of the monster: "He's mean! He's nasty! And he hates everything to do with Christmas!" We only see the creature's legs and hear its fierce roaring in this scene, but it's obvious that it's something to be feared.

The monster isn't heard from again for a while. We kind of forget about it as we learn just how much Rudolph and his new friend Hermey don't fit into their respective environments. Eventually they decide to run away together to get away from everyone who insists they're misfits (freaks, non-comformists, odd balls...). Not too long after they leave Rudolph's nose attracts Abominable's attention and we see his face for the first time as he peeks over the mountains. As Sam the Snowman says: "Like I said, the outside world is up to its ears in danger."

I think that, as a kid, I was heartened by the fact that Sam the Snowman (the narrator of the story) was so frightened by the monster's appearance, that even he had to hide behind his umbrella--shaking like a leaf. This made me feel a bit better about hiding behind my trusty blanket.

We get another reprieve from the monster for a bit as we meet Yukon Cornelius, and Burl Ives sings "Silver and Gold". But it's not long after the misfits and Yukon set out together that the Abominable Snow Monster (or the "Bumble", as Yukon call it) really starts chasing them in earnest. It's almost a half-hour into the show and we've only seen the creature three times, but the way they space it out is very effective. The first time we only see its legs. The second time it is peeking over the mountain tops. And this time we see its giant, pointy teeth for the first time as it pursues our heroes.

The monster returns to the background for a while (but is always on everyone's mind thanks to Rudolph's danged shiny nose) as the main characters meet the denizens of the Island of Misfit Toys. But Rudolph strikes out on his own so as to not endanger his new friends. Sam lets us know that the Abominable Snow Monster was always just one step behind Rudolph (wonder what exactly it was that the creature had against that shiny nose?). Rudolph eventually finds that his parents and girlfriend, Clarice, have been captured by the Snow Monster and are being kept in its cave. Rudolph tries to save them just as the monster is about to make a venison snack out of Clarice, but is knocked unconscious by the raging beast.

One of the best lines in the whole show comes when when the Snow Monster is standing menacingly over the four reindeer and Clarice tearfully exclaims: "Oh, why doesn't he get it over with?". Finally, Yukon and Hermey rescue the reindeer and render the monster harmless by pulling out its teeth. At this point it is what Yukon calls "a mighty humble Bumble", and ceases to be the frightful presence that it had been up to that point in the show.

Yukon and the Snow Monster disappear when they fall off a cliff, but they return at the end of the show. They show up at Santa's castle and we learn that Yukon has reformed the Bumble into a docile, friendly critter who only wants a job placing stars on top of Christmas trees--without even needing a step-ladder. Despite having the knowledge of the Abominable Snow Monster's ultimate, cuddly fate at the end of the program, I would still have to cower behind the blanket when it made it's first appearance during the following year's airing of "Rudolph".

The years have passed. I'm now a father myself. My daughter is now very familiar with the story of "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" herself. I made a point of showing it to her when she was two or three years old. It was very exciting to see her finding the Abominable Snow Monster frightening like I did when I was little. I could recapture a bit of the feeling of the past by watching her experience the joys and terrors of the show for the first time. And, wouldn't you know, she even had to hide behind her own blanket when the creature would make an appearance! I finally broke down and bought "Rudolph" on DVD last year. Possibly as a result of repeated viewings beyond the once-annual airing on TV, she has already grown out of most of her fear of Abominable at the age of only five years old. I don't know exactly when I stopped hiding behind my blanket, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't until I was quite a bit older than five.

Here's my Little Monster enjoying "Rudolph" back in 2008 (age 3)

And here she is hiding from the Snow Monster, just like her dear old Monster Dad!

Thank you Rankin and Bass!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As a bit of an epilogue, it's worth noting that Billie Mae Richards, the voice of Rudolph, just recently died on September 10, 2010.

Seeing the Past in the Future (Hello Kitty vs. Bigfoot)

This morning The Little Monster did something that reminded me a LOT of myself as a kid. While she has watched a fair amount of scary and semi-scary stuff over the past few years, it's always amazing just what the imagination of a young child will decide is scary.

The Monster was in the living room watching her "Hello Kitty Becomes a Princess" DVD. Yes, I do allow her to watch non-monster based programming. To say that this particular DVD is not scary would be an understatement. Nonetheless, she came out to the kitchen to bother her little sister--who was trying to eat breakfast. When I asked her why she wasn't watching her show she said that it was a scary part that she didn't want to see. Not only did this thought seem hilarious--that something in the Hello Kitty DVD (which she's watched dozens of times) would scare her enough to walk out of the room--it also reminded me of something from my Monster Kid past.

As a kid I loved (and frequently feared) the show "In Search of...". This was the syndicated half-hour show hosted by Leonard Nimoy which explored many mysterious and supernatural phenomena around the world. Some of the topics that I best remember include the episodes that covered stuff like Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, UFOs, and the like. As a kid these shows could be VERY scary. The fact that they were seriously investigating such strange occurrences and treated the subjects as real made them seem all the more "real"--and subsequently, scary. The re-enactments were probably the scariest parts of all.

As a kid, I was very interested in Bigfoot, The Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, Yeti, and all the other names for the big, hairy monsters that might have lurked in the forests and mountains of the world. The fact that there might be real monsters out there similar to the stuff I'd see in monster movies on TV was just too interesting to ignore. It was always a special treat when "In Search of..." would focus on one of these legendary beasts. I remember one night when a Bigfoot-related episode was on. I wanted to watch it, but at one point they had one of those monster-point-of-view recreations of a Bigfoot incident that seemed way to real to me. Much as The Little Monster's imagination made something scary out of something as innocent and kid-friendly as Hello Kitty, my imagination made this Bigfoot encounter much more than a simple re-enactment. I left the living room and went downstairs to my sister's room. Ostensibly I was going down to tell her that there was something really cool on TV that she should see. In reality, I was escaping from the certain-to-induce-intense-nightmares scene that was unfolding on the screen.

It was a very similar event to what would happen to my Little Monster this morning, except that she was big enough to admit that she didn't want to watch her scary scene because it was scary. I had to try to disguise my fear behind a mask of false concern that my sister (who wouldn't have been interested anyway) would miss something cool--while I was purposely missing it in order to inform her about it. Aah, the inner workings of the mind of a child...

Here's one of the "In Search of..." episodes that featured Bigfoot

I'm not sure if this is the exact one that I referred to above, but it's a good example.

Sleep Tight!