“When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.” - Stephen King
I watched a lot of horror movies this October and it got me thinking about how I got into horror. I was always a science fiction kid. I grew up watching Star Trek and reading books from the Science Fiction Book Club. I did read some Lovecraft and stories from Weird Tales but they didn't grab me when I was younger. I eventually got into horror but it wasn’t until I was much older older.
When I was in grade school I often watched movies after school. One of the Atlanta channels showed afternoon movies during the week at 4:00 or 4:30. I seem to remember a host introducing the movies but it was just some guy in a suit. Each week would have a theme. I saw my first Godzilla and Gamera movies and I loved them. I also remember seeing the color Tarzan movies for the first time. I grew up watching the black and white Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller so seeing the newer color ones was like finding treasure.
The station also showed a lot of other monster movies. Movies like The Incredible Two Headed Transplant were more goofy than scary. On the other hand they also showed the Hammer Horror versions of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman. I remember parts of The Curse of the Werewolf and The Brides of Dracula being pretty scary.
There were two movies in particular that I found the most scary. First was Attack of the Mushroom People (Japanese title Matango, the movie poster is above) directed by Ishiro Honda of Godzilla fame. It's about a group of people shipwrecked on an island with weird plant creatures. I remember the entire movie being creepy but especially the ending. I re-watched it recently and it holds up. The other movie is The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, another plant creatures on an island movie. Spoiler coming up. It’s a really low budget mess of a film but I didn’t notice at the time. I thought that the plant creatures that finally appeared were scary but there was one scene that really had me jump. When the movie started I was excited because I recognized the actor playing one of the Navy characters. “Cool, it’s Bud from Father Knows Best!” Later in the movie one of the plant creatures rips his arm off. “Noooooooo!” Scared the heck out of me.
The channel stopped showing afternoon movies around the time I started going to movie theaters. As a science fiction fan I was excited to see Alien in the theater in 1979. I didn’t like it that much. I thought it was well done but it was too dark for me. I skipped Aliens at the theater but finally saw it on DVD years later. That one I loved and I still prefer it over the first one. By this time I was into action movies and I liked that aspect of it. Alien 3 lost me in the first few minutes and the rest of the movie didn’t do anything for me.
Around 1979 I also saw Phantasm in the theater. It’s a surreal horror movie with some minor science fiction elements. Watching it was like riding a roller coaster and I absolutely loved it. The Tall Man is one of my favorite villains and the movie is one of my favorite horror movies. As much as I liked it I still hadn’t become a fan of horror movies though. Around 1982 I saw John Carpenter's The Thing. Didn’t like it. These days? It’s another one of my favorites.
For whatever reason, except for Phantasm, I didn’t enjoy scary movies when I was younger. What changed? I’m not exactly sure but I remember when the change happened. It was right after watching a particular director’s movie that grabbed me from the opening and didn’t let go until the end. It’s my all time favorite horror movie but I’ll save talking about it for another time.
