Too Much Horror Business ...

by Johnnie Midnite
(Seattle, Washington, USA)

The year, 1959. I am five years old. Our neighbors are taking their kids (ages three and five) to see a Disney film and I am invited along. The movie is Snow White.

As the lights go down I am treated to the Evil Queen, the huntsman who is to cut Snow White's heart out, the creepy scary forest, the queen's transformation into a hag and the hag getting hit by lightning. Nice family fare. The three year old spent the majority of the film crying in the lobby. Frightened, but also getting an adrenalin rush, that was the beginning of wanting to be scared, and that escape from reality in the darkened theater.

My next adventure was seeing Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, still around the same age, left alone to watch TV. Back then, TV was considered to be 'good' for you. Here was my introduction to the Universal Movie Monsters - Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and a non-appearance of the Invisible Man. Here begins the bad dreams and frightmares...a bonus side effect.

The early 60's had classic TV shows like Boris Karloff's Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Roald Dahl's Way Out. There were also a barrage of Sci-Fi horror TV shows hostd by Zacherly and Doctor Shock who were on in the Philadelphia area, later spoofed on SCTV's Monster Chiller Horror Theater with Count Floyd and a not scary film like Doctor Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses.

I remember seeing the first Outer Limits episode entitled 'The Galaxy Being' that had me watching it from the safety of our kitchen. I also watched a lot of shows from the stairway, peering through the railings. There was no such thing as 'parental guidance' back then so my brothers (four and six years older than me) and I watched anything we wanted to.

Horror films became the staple, with me buying every issue of 'Famous Monsters' I could get my hands on. Model kits, 'Creepy', 'Eerie' and 'Vampirella' magazines followed. I was facinated by 'How did they do that?'

Any horror movie at the theaters were welcomed. Village of the Damned (1960) was a total freak-out. The bad films were fun too. No matter how bad, they were still entertaining.

There were the 'spook shows', the Saturday afternoon showing of several horror flicks and also 'See live on stage - Frankenstein and Dracula battle to the death!' Some shows had a magician with them as well as the obligatory glow-in-the dark skeleton that flew over your head scaring the chicken soup out of the younger set. Glow in the dark ghosts flew around the stage, and then there was part of the show where all the lights were turned out and everybody screamed their heads off. The last show like that I saw showed Tales of Terror (1962), The Bees and the highly laughable The Vulture (1967).

I was fifteen when Boris Karloff died and a local drive-in honored him with showing five of his his films. A station wagon full of kids and we saw Die, Monster, Die (1965), The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and Black Sabbath (1963).

As a teenager, triple bills at the drive-in's rocked. When Night of the Living Dead came out we saw it at the drive-in in the sweltering summer night heat in Pennsylvania. The film was set in Pennsylvania and it wasn't long before we had the windows rolled up and the doors locked, making it even hotter. What fun.

The Exorcist was a blast with lines of people wrapped around the block waiting to get in, the Catholic clergy protesting the film outside with picket signs and a medical team on hand to administer oxygen for those patrons who managed to pass out.

A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Dawn of the Dead were the ultimate horrorshows. I saw Dawn of the Dead twice in a row when it first came out. It was funny seeing people leaving the theater after the zombie getting his head blown off near the beginning. I saw the same reaction to The Fly (1958).

I went to most of the Friday matinees when the new movies came out and I had noticed an elderly man at the shows I'd go to. It took a while, but it sunk in that I would become like him in the future. Now that the future is here, 50 years later, I am him.

When I was in college, for my final English paper, I wrote an essay on the topic, 'Splatter Movies Are Good For You', focusing on the roller coaster adrenalin rush the films give. I got an 'A' on the paper and also a note written on the final page to the tune of 'I suggest you seek psychiatric counseling for the type of entertainment you partake in.'