See ya at the movies.

I first started this blog as a way to talk about pop culture and my varied interest in books, movies, music and things that go bump in the night. I rarely have written about  those things. I tend to talk about life and faith and things that are of immediate concern. But, every once in a while I like to post  on things that are “out there.” I always loved horror. Books, comics, movies. I also have always enjoyed off the wall subjects such as ufo’s . I’m highly skeptical of U.F.O’s but I still enjoy the pop culture that goes along with them. Also, I’ve had a few incidents in my own life that I really can’t explain. So, who knows? The cosmos is infinite and some people think that everything that can happen will happen in another universe.

 

I’m Dracula and I welcome you to my house…Christopher Lee

 

My love of horror comes from an unlikely source or at least it was encouraged by an unlikely source. My mother who is very conservative and very much a product of her generation and  religion is, actually one of the first people I can remember sharing  the off beat movies with. If a vampire or horror  “Dusk till Dawn” movie marathon came on at our neighborhood drive in we were there. Christopher Lee and Vincent Price and Boris Karloff.  I remember the old Dialing for Dollars afternoon movie on local T.V. and the old Colossal Man or Monster movies would come on and even though we didn’t share a whole lot of interest that was something we would watch. I got in so much trouble once for trying as a child to make a James Bond movie the focus of an evening. Really wasn’t my fault. I was coming into my own and I saw a commercial with a Bond Beauty. Anyway, that’s a whole nother story.

I always loved the Rebel Drive In. That was in our neighborhood in Walnut Park/Gadsden, Alabama. My sister and I would put on our p.j’s and my mother and step dad would warm up the car and off we would go the few miles if that many to the drive in. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and a host of horror stars and starlets. Get a Chilly Dilly giant dill pickle or a hot dog from the concession stand and here we go. If it was summer take a lawn chair. If winter then at least it would be an Alabama winter which although it can be cold it isn’t always frigid.

 

I like quiet and seclusion.  This house, I think,

offers that…Jonathan Harker

 

I remember a scene where Dracula was finally caught out in the sun. Living Technocolor! I saw his body actually start to age and crumble and gloriously turn to dust right on the big screen. My young eyes wide and shoving popcorn in my mouth and guzzling soda (coke, in the south back then it didn’t matter which brand. It was all called coke.”  I saw a bevy of hissing beautiful  bossomy girls that were “Brides of Dracula” I saw bright red technocolor blood as Dracula bit into the neck of his fem fatale victim.  I loved it. I enjoyed the small screen dialing for dollars movies with the black and white desert as the corny high pitched sounds of  the 50’s and 60’s U.F.O.’s came into view. The square jawed scientist named Rick or Rock or Steve or Paul. The swooning fem fatale named Ann or Carol or Joan would be joined by the assistant scientist who would either be giving his life in the end or comedy relief or both.

I would find old horror comics in stores and immerse myself in ghost and graveyards and lurid tales of vengeful victims returning to drag  the killers off to their just rewards. I would read horror stories ordered from my Weekly Reader at Walnut Park Elementary. But, noting quite compared to those giant screen memories of movies that were already old. Played out on the drive in screen.

 

Dr. Paul Lindstrom….Now, the reason for this is rather technical, Carol, but to give you a simplified layman's explanation, it might be explained that, since the heart is made up of a *single* cell for all practical purposes, instead of millions of cells like the rest of the organs of the body, it's reacting in an entirely different manner to this unknown stimulus or forces behind this whole thing….The Amazing Colossal Man.

Manning…Perhaps it isn't I who's growing, but it's everyone who's shrinking!..The Amazing Colossal Man.

 

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."….Shirley Jackson “The Haunting of Hill House.

My absolute favorite all time horror story made into film. Not the so called remake of the late 90’s. No, I’m talking the stark black and white early 1960’s version. It scared the yell out me as a child. Still holds up today. But, that one deserves it’s own blog. Maybe this coming Halloween.

Finally, one of the best lines of a “horror movie” and I think it’s in the book too. But, you have to see it to truly understand the sheer scariness of it…..

God God," Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, "God God—whose hand was I holding?

 

See ya at the movies.

Peace.