Entries Tagged 'childhood nightmares' ↓

Babies are evil and being pregnant is weird!


That post title is the sentiment behind my newest AMC column. Mind you now, I'm not the one I speak of who's pregnant- the friend is not a "friend", nosiree. Still, I've seen enough baby & pregnancy-related horror flicks to know that the entire idea of having babies is wrong wrong wrong. Once that parasite starts leeching (which is immediate), the whole 'miracle of life' thing simply no longer applies as far as I'm concerned.

If you're into it, though, that's cool and more power to ya. I'm glad my mom was into it, otherwise I wouldn't have been made...and then where would the world be? Surely everything would be a little less elegant.

I blame it all on this poster, which I saw hanging outside the long-gone movie theater that stood next to the long-gone Barker's department store. I was with my mom, and I was only very, very, very small, but this shit gave me some serious nightmares. Therefore, we can all blame the fact that my bloodline will NOT continue on one Mr. Larry Cohen.

Well, blame or give thanks. Whatevs.

and now for a musical interlude…

...courtesy of the sensational 1976 film Track of the Moonbeast.



By "sensational", of course, I mean "craptacular". But it's borne of a craptacular ilk of which everyone should partake once in his or her lifetime- I really only recommend once, as this movie is really, really bad. But still.

I also recommend traveling back in time so you can watch it when you're about 8 years old; when I was about 8 years old and I saw Track of the Moonbeast, I was oblivious to its atrociousness. As such, the scene where the dude hears a noise outside and he goes to check it out and the dude's wife is all "Noooo!" because duh, the noise is coming from the Moonbeast, but the dude goes anyway and he totally gets killed outside and we know because his blood comes oozing in under the door totally scared the mental pants right off of me. I still think about that scene and how it moonrocked my face off like a lunar Mount Rushmore.

Now I like to pretend that "California Lady" was written just for ME!

childhood nightmares: MEDUSA

Medusa, Clash of the Titans (1981)

Stop-motion or not, this Gorgon broad absolutely scared the bejesus out of me when I was a wee bonny lass. With all those writhing snakes atop her head, Medusa was a nightmare brought to life courtesy of animation guru Ray Harryhausen. Frightening to behold (aduh- so much so that she'd turn you to stone), she was also a crackshot archer- if only she were prettier, she might've been Olympics bound- and she'd kill you before you even knew you were dead.

That doesn't make any sense.

Or does it?

No, it doesn't. The point is, she's all ten kinds of stealthy ninja, as she slithers around her underground temple, only the occasional soft rattle of her tail giving her away.

Director Desmond Davis plays it smart, building tension by introducing her via a shadow on the wall- and man, is it effective. Medusa was the Universal Monster of my childhood...she gave me nightmares, but not so much that I couldn't watch Clash of the Titans over and over and over...

Sure, Perseus defeats Medusa, as heroes are wont to do. She may have even deserved that beheading...and to a nine year old, the animated blood oozing out of her neck stump was beyond grody in the most awesome way.

Still, I've always had sympathy for Ol' Gorgie. I mean, it's not her fault she's so hideous- in fact, she wasn't even born that way. Rather, being transformed from a beautiful maiden into terrifying, scaly, snake-haired beast was her punishment for...for...well, for being raped, essentially. I bet she was wearing a low-cut blouse!

Medusa just wants to be left alone, just wants to hang out all by her lonesome in the dark, when along comes the handsome young hero to take her head to us as a weapon in his bid to save a beautiful young maiden. Ain't that always the way?

It's best not to think about it too much. The important thing here is that she's scary.

Watch her battle with Perseus via YouTube!