Halloween Edition

In honor of Halloween I would like to offer up a two part post, part one inspired by my Saturday Rocky Horror Picture show experience, and part two inspired by another Filmspotting top five list: Top Five most Terrifying Movie villains.

Part 1:

My relationship with the movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was always a strange one. As early as middle school my two best friends became obsessed with the movie. I watched it countless times with them, after school… at sleep overs… in the middle of weekend afternoons. Yes I have memories of jumping about my friends’ over the garage apartment Time Warping it up. But while they loved the movie and couldn’t get enough of it, I remained unimpressed by it. When looked at from a narrative or character development point of view, there’s really not much to it. The real appeal is in being able to let loose, be yourself, and give into  base desires. Not knowing who I was really at the time, and being totally terrified of any kind of “base desires”, these themes were not something I found at all appealing in middle school, and by high school I figured I was too cool for it all. I can remember desperately trying to cobble together some sort of coherent narrative from the film. “Maybe he killed him because he was jealous about….and created this guy because…and maybe the aliens and wanting to go home means…and maybe he lured them into the house because… wait they’re all statues now…Oh fuck it at least the songs are catchy”

Seeing it later on I was less confused and more willing to let the movie be what it was, but I’m never going to say I was a huge fan like my friends. It wasn’t until Saturday night, when I went to an actual show, that I finally finally understood the appeal. Everyone there was just so excited and having so much fun. What had sounded terrifying to me in high school (Rice, squirt guns, screaming for virgins to come on stage and be marked, and soooo many corsets) now didn’t seem at all scary after four years of Oberlin and Safer Sex Nights. It seemed like a lot of people, of all ages and sizes dressed up in anything they felt like and having a total blast. I thought it was great.

I still have questions though! In the end is the movie preaching moderation? After all (Spoiler Alert) Tim Curry gets zapped with a death ray from outerspace in a dramatic end dying scene, all for taking things a bit “too far” and being too “out of control”. It seems even aliens have their limits. And do Brad and Janet loosen up at the end? Or are they going to get married and live unsatisfied frigid lives? It’s the english major in me I guess, that won’t leave well enough alone. On Saturday I was just happy to be surrounded by friends, shouting out songs I knew, getting rolls of toilet paper pitched at my head. And not under any circumstance getting judged for my weight, for my outfit or for my uncoordinated time warping. I understood more, I think, why my best friends loved it so much. It’s someplace that will accept you even if you are crazy. So I never thought I’d be saying this, but hey, I’d go again next year…

Part 2:

Top Five Terrifying Villains.

I’m going with the ones that really scared me, really kept me up at night. And I’ll say right now the list is skewed since I’m a total wuss, and haven’t even really seen that many horror movies. I’ll do it in order from earliest seen to most recent…

5. Trantor the Troll from “Ernest Scared Stupid”. Yes this is a stupid Ernest movie, but I don’t remember being so terrified as when I saw what the trolls in this movie did to those poor kids. This movie is supposed to be a COMEDY but it’s about evil trolls who capture children and turn them into terrifying little wooden dolls. TERRIFYING. I would lie awake at night with my covers pulled over my head, thinking that maybe the trolls wouldn’t see me if I kept very still, and I could avoid being turned into an insanely creepy wooden doll for all eternity, which at that point was the scariest thing I could imagine happening to me, ever. I know there were probably jokes and goofy Ernest antics, but all I remember was those kids being trapped in little freaky wooden doll forms. I’d think of that, and there’d be no sleep that night. Did I mention they got turned into CREEPY WOODEN DOLLS?

 

4. Ear Bug thing in “Wrath of Khan”. Now I don’t know if this technically counts as a villain, but to me it definitely counted as most terrifying. I watched this movie when I was very young, and literally all I remember, in vivid detail, is when Khan sticks that evil bug in Chekov’s ear and mind controls him. The very idea a bug could get into someone’s ear and make you do whatever someone else told you was enough to pull my covers over my ears for literally YEARS to try to protect myself from brain bugs. (Are we seeing a pattern of hiding under covers? I still love having a comforter on hand at my bed) My memory of the whole thing is very hazy, I know Khan gets Chekov to try to shoot Kirk and instead Chekov kills some other poor schmuck or something (doubly traumatizing , since I loved Chekov) but the whole thing seemed so sordid and horrible that even if I don’t sleep with my ears covered, I do have a thing about mind control bugs getting in through my ears. Really. I think this is a movie I may need to see again, to exorcise some of my creepy mind worm fear. Because it can’t possibly be as scary as I remember it being.

Terrifying Mind Control Ear Worm

3. That stupid girl from “The Ring”. This pisses me off the most because I thought the movie was really pretty stupid, and I have no reason to be scared of it at all. The writing was bad, Naomi Watts, who I actually love, spent most of the movie running around with her eyes bugging out of her head, and that stupid little boy was so cliché he made you want to gag. But something, something about that video, about the insane way the girl moved and crawled out of the TV and that bug on the screen and horses plunging off boats.. GAH. I might have a nightmare about it now remembering. I watched it as part of a trade off  deal in college, my roommate and I would watch The Ring if our two boys would watch When Harry Met Sally. I ended up being scarred by The Ring (at a crucial point in the movie my friend’s calendar fell off the wall with a loud bang and I screamed my bloody head off), whereas they never got to experience Rob Reiner’s wonderful masterpiece. Blah. Still bitter. And terrified when I think of that stupid evil girl.

 

2. Cathy Bates in “Misery”. This is a genuinely good movie, unlike the other three I’ve mentioned. I watched it over Thanksgiving while spending the holiday with my college housemate, and I’m pretty sure his older brother concluded I was totally nuts because I kept running out of the living room into the kitchen, shrieking. Cathy Bates is such an amazing actress, and she plays a woman living in an isolated house, completely obsessed with a character in a series of novels she reads over and over (it’s based on a Stephen King book in case you didn’t know) when the writer of her beloved books conveniently crashes his car right near her far-from-civilization and snowbound house, she decides to nurse him back to health. And well, things go dreadfully downhill for him from there. I’d actually recommend this movie, just to see Bates’ terrifying performance… but I don’t know if I could see it again without running from the room shrieking, I’ll be honest.

AHHHHHHHHHH!

1. And my most recent terrifying villain, which please don’t look further if you haven’t seen “Primal Fear” because it does spoil it. Seriously, just skip ahead to the end. OK you have? I’ll just say that throughout the movie, all the twists and turns in Edward Norton’s performance is wonderful. I had never been that impressed by him, but I saw this movie and was blown away as well as chilled to my core. Part of what makes it so painful is that the whole way through you’re wanting to believe in him because you WANT to, if not NEED to believe that people are good, just like the Richard Gere character needs to believe. But in the end all that’s left is sheer, horrible evil. What’s more terrifying than pure and simple evil lurking in a human heart, especially if it wins…?

Honorable mentions: The witches from “Hocus Pocus” (Yes I was a total wimp but that terrified me too) Al Pacino as the devil in “The Devil’s Advocate” and Chucky from “Child’s Play” even though I haven’t been able to watch the whole movie, because I find it so completely terrifying, so I’ve only seen bits.

I’m trying to be all fancy and end with a poll here, but I’m not sure it’s working. We’ll see. If it does work, answer! It’s fun. In other news, I am buckling down on Cloud Atlas as I want to listen t0 it before I see the movie, which I’ve sadly heard mixed reviews on. I really want it to be good!