When I was 9 years old in 1984 and the
closest to horror I ever got on film was the terrifying and mildly scarring TV
version of “The Exorcist” which my uncle didn’t realize he was traumatizing me
for years to come. I mean the devil was
in this little girl’s bedroom. I had a
bedroom. Would the devil eventually make
it to my room? I got over it through the
all-consuming Star Wars and Superman films, leading to movies with heroes like
the Bandit, Popeye, Indiana Jones, Zorro and Rocky. Horror films pretty much stayed off the
radar, unless it was an action/adventure with scary elements like “Clash of the
Titans”, “Dragonslayer”, “The Dark Crystal”, and to a certain extent “E.T.”
The only
true horror I saw, or more factual, glimpsed through weaved fingers, were “American
Werewolf in London”, “Cat People”, “The Howling”, “Poltergeist”, and “Creepshow”. But in ’84 my imagination was captured by my
first exposure to the horror movie slasher (Jason Voorhees came later) with the
razor fingers to back it up. I speak of course of the Wes Craven classic “A
Nightmare on Elm Street”. Not the best
horror film of that year, that honor goes to, in my opinion “Children of the
Corn”, the chanting in that soundtrack still creeps me out.
The youngest
of sisters on my mother’s side, my Aunt Frances was a huge movie fan. She dug the Disney stuff and like a lot of
people she also loved to be scared. I
have a favorite memory of her with her hands over her eyes during “Poltergeist”
when the clown *SPOILERS* comes to life.
She refused to watched as did I, but she expressed her fear better than
me by stating “I don’t wanna watch, I have clowns in my house.” Which was true, they were everywhere,
pictures, hanging figurines all around the house. Even I began to watch them with an untrusting
eye after “Poltergiest”, and I didn’t even see the scene either.
So Aunt
Frances used to watch me and my brothers whenever we were out of school. It was winter-break and she had seen the
first installment of the “Nightmare” series and she was so fascinated by what
she had seen that she had to tell someone about it, even if it was a 9 year
old. She started at the beginning with
Tina’s nightmare and began to re-tell the movie to me in explicit detail about
the burned man with the Indiana Jones hat and Christmas sweater and a glove
with razors who hunted teens in their sleep.
I stood by the sink as she washed dishes, then by the stove as she
cooked, and leaning out the patio door as she did laundry, all the while as she
hit the high points and every nightmare as well as the creation of the monster
that became Freddy Krueger.
I couldn’t
get enough, I was captivated, and it sounded like the best movie ever. One thing about my Aunt, she can spin a yarn
like few others, and her descriptions were so detailed and her passion about it
was unlike any other movie described to me up to that point, it was safe to say
I would never forget it. I finally saw
the video case on a “Pop-in-Go” movie rental shelf a couple of years later when
I noticed the unmistakable image of Freddy’s glove over a terrified Nancy’s face. I had to see it. Had to.
My dad watched it with me and had his finger on the fast forward button in
case of a sex scene, of which there was only one. I was scared out of my mind, and I loved it,
even though it took years to get over the last time the devil was in my
bedroom, in my over-active imagination, I welcomed it this time in the form of
Mr. Krueger.
It’s true, he was
eventually turned into a caricature of his former self, but if the Star Wars
prequels have taught us anything, it’s that nothing, no matter how bad, can
take away the lasting memories of the great movies that we see, or in some
cases hear.
--Robert L.
Castillo
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