dead things---not just a song title...

This morning I got woken up by a phone call. My best-friend---who recommended that I blog in the first place---had read my treatise on Ewoks, and suddenly realized she had a total nerd on her hands. She knows of my hatred for the living dead (i.e. zombies, not the undead i.e. vampires-I do love me some vampire movies), and so requested that I write up a blog on why I happen to hate zombies so much. I replied that I didn't think I could write a full page on it (though on further thought I probably can, and will in the future). Instead you are getting what films I watched or got a glimpse of as a child that completely traumatized my poor sweet mind.

To start the whole deal off we have "Robocop," which came out in 1987. I was lucky enough to have my Dad take me to the theatre to see this. I was 6 or 7. In his defence, he said he didn't think it would be so horribly violent (despite the R rating), and I continue to rag him about this occasionally to this day. This may not be the most gruesome action film ever made, it certainly isn't the best one (Can you fly, Bobby? No, Clarence, Noooo!), but I can say that I was so thoroughly freaked out that the only bit I remember seeing in the theatre was that part where Robocop got an I-bar through his chest towards the end. Enough said.

My second trauma-fest came from channel flipping, and catching a chunk of "Night of the Living Dead." I was left gaping in fear as zombies lurched across the screen and disembowelled people. I didn't even have the sense to change the channel: I was like a bunny in the headlights of a speeding Ferrari. That happened about age 7/8, as well. I sense mothers running out and buying V-chips for their televisions, or whatever mechanism they use to monitor "Appropriate Viewing" these days.

Next up at number three is "Predator", another flick in ‘87. I was actually grounded from watching T.V. at this point. Maybe because of the whole school yard fight incident...I can't recall. Remember children, violence begets violence, so behave... As it was, I walked into the living room to ask my Dad a question, or tell him it was dinner time, when I was treated to one of the most memorable scenes (for me, anyways) of the first "Predator." Can you guess which one it was? No? It was the one with the Predator ripping the spine and skull out of one of his "prizes." Now, I'm not sure how realistic this actually was to adult eyes, but as a child I was "Holy Shit!" and I certainly wished I had never seen it.

At number four we have the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I'm pretty sure that it was the version with Donald Sutherland. All I know is that it was indeed scary, and it even prevented me from watching the comedy "Cocoon" because the mere thought of alien pods in the near vicinity of humans was terrifying. I'm not sure when this one sunk in, but a sure guess is probably around the same age. I'm getting the sense that although I was a quiet child, I probably could have used more adult supervision around the house. As a note, this one was definitely acerbated by the television show "War of the Worlds: the Second Invasion." All those aliens, traipsing around like evil human doppelgangers!

Last, but certainly not least, on the list of "Things that have Caused Danielle Lost Sleep (aside from braces)" is Stephen King's "It." Now, I have already mentioned my childhood feelings about bathtubs, but this mini-series conspired to make me hate showers as well. Clowns are up there for most, but my Step-Mother collects clowns so it was good that I never had a true phobia about red-nosed, flower squirting, psychotic, supernatural creatures: Just things coming through the bathroom pipes. And back to the story. In a similar scene to the "Predator" fright, I walked in to ask my lovely Step-Mother a question (she having the decency to hide herself away upstairs while watching horror films), and managed to catch the yellow toothed, sporadically laughing Pennywise squeeze himself up through a bathroom drain and proceed to terrorize a small boy. Yay. It would appear that even just entering a room to ask for parental assistance is a bad idea.

So there you have it. Those are the traumatic movie/T.V. moments that have blazoned themselves onto my memory. I know at a certain point movies will still scare, but they stop causing the "oh-my-god-it's-going-to-get-me" kinds of freak out. I thank the aging process, or whatever causes this. And if I seem to have been a bit of a scaredy cat as a young 'un, I probably was. My favourite movies were (and still are in the nostalgic sense) things like "Labyrinth," "Bed Knobs and Broomsticks," and Disney's animated "Robin Hood." Not a zombie in sight, ahhhh. Though that armour coming to life in B & B was the best thing ever! It's not dead, just temporarily re-animated. Treguna! Mekoites! Tracorum, Satis, Dee!