The Vault of Horror Gets the Willies!

Now it's my turn.

Some two weeks ago, Andre Dumas of The Horror Digest set the horror blogosphere afire with her "Top 10 Willy Inducing Moments," a catalog of the specific moments in horror which freak her out the most. Since then, every blogger and their parent or legal guardian has been chipping in their two cents, offering their own list of moments that give them the willies.

I happened to be on a much-deserved vacation when the whole thing kicked off, and it's taken me a little while to catch up. But now I'm back and finally ready to take my crack at this whole willy thing. It may not be Tuesday, but what the hell--here are my Top 10 Willy Inducing Moments...

10. Inside (2007) - The Milk of Inhuman Kindness
This frakked-up little filmic French pastry is chock full of psyche-scarring moments, but for me the one that takes the cake is that final shot, which I suppose I shouldn't "spoil" for all you crybabies. Those who've seen it know the shot I mean--it involves a rocking chair and is about as twisted as it gets.

9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - What the Fork...
This movie really gets under your skin in general, and the first time I saw it as a kid it really messed me up. The whole idea of people transforming all around you and not knowing who to trust, really freaked me out. But I'll never forget the scene in which Kevin McCarthy discovers that opening pod, and stabs it with the pitchfork. The sight of the human face breaking apart amidst that sudsy pod gunk is the stuff of nightmares.

8. Nosferatu (1922) - Rising to the Occasion
Here's one Andre picked herself, and I couldn't agree more. In one of horror's most emulated moments, the terrifying Count Orlock rises stiff as a board from his coffin in the hold of the Demeter, as witnessed by the soon-to-be-fish-food first mate. Max Schreck is at his most preternatural here, levitating 90 degrees and stretching out his arm, the very embodiment of death amongst the living.

7. Dracula (1931) - Laugh It Up, Nutball
Yet another Stoker adaptation, and yet another scene in the hold of the Demeter. Except this time, the source is no vampire, but rather his insane thrall Renfield, driven mad by the Count's influence. As the authorities peer down into the trap door to see Dwight Frye staring back up at them, that Joker-like grin beaming as he lets out his infamous leering laugh, I feel the hairs literally stand up on the back of my neck.

6. Zombi 2 (1979) - Shallowest Graveyard Ever...
Zombies will always gnaw at the very center of what really gets to me when it comes to horror movies, and nothing embodies that dread factor more for me than the scene in the Spanish conquistador cemetery. Our heroes are finally enjoying a moment of peace, when all of a sudden, the corpses underneath them claw their way through the apparent four inches of dirt under which they were buried. It's grim, it's relentless, and it's pure Fulci. Chills...

5. Salem's Lot (1979) - Let the Wrong One In
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Creepy kids will always be scary as hell. Something about that perversion of innocence. And when the vampire boy appears at his brother's window, floating outside in the mist as he asks to be let in, it really gets at something primal. This one also feels like something out of a nightmare, especially from the point of view of a child.

4. The Shining (1980) - Lovely Party, My Ass
For a guy who wasn't really known as a horror director, Stanley Kubrick sure knew how to creep people out. Virtually all of his films have those really messed up moments that play with your head and stay with you for a long time. This is especially true in his all-out horror extravaganza The Shining, in which we inexplicably witness some guy in a bear suit perpetrating an act on another guy which I would imagine can't be easy to perform while wearing a bear suit. The ultimate bizarre, "did I just see that?" movie moment.

3. [REC] (2007) - Hide and Freak
I'd have to call [REC] the downright scariest movie of the last decade, and it builds up to this nerve-frying finale, in which Angela and her cameraman finally discover the apartment building's hidden secret. With the lights out, as Angela desperately feels her way around, we get a glimpse through the camera's night vision of what's in the room with her, and it ain't good. Truly a white-knuckle moment.

2. The Haunting (1963) - I Hear You Knocking...
Robert Wise's atmospheric adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel is probably the film that gets the most out of showing the least. While Eleanor and Theodora are sharing a bedroom, they come under siege from some supernatural force that begins insistently banging on the walls and door, even appearing to distend the wall itself at one point. It's a harrowing scene, made even more so by Julie Harris' terrified performance.

1. The Changeling (1980) - Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water
The one that takes the cake for me. I can honestly say that this moment caused me so much trauma that it literally had an effect on my life for years. It's the scene in which George C. Scott enters his bathroom to see the tub filling with water, then looks inside and sees a little boy submerged underneath, gasping for air--a ghost recreating the manner in which it was killed. After seeing this as a little kid (detecting a pattern here?) I actually developed a fear of baths, always afraid I'd see the little boy under the water. In fact, the fear even extended to toilet bowls for a while--now that made for some troubling experiences, I can tell you that. Thankfully, I'm over it now. More or less.

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Retro Review: The Changeling

Much has been made on here of movies like The Return of the Living Dead and The Exorcist, which played big parts in making me a horror fan. But I don't think I've done enough justice to this picture, and I'm about to remedy that. The Changeling was, without a doubt, one of the most soul-numbingly terrifying movies of my entire childhood, and it has stayed with me ever since.

For my money, this flick ranks right up there with the likes of The Uninvited and The Haunting as one of the truly classic ghost movies. With amazing restraint--as all the best ghost movies demonstrate--The Changeling proves that when it comes to haunted terrors, less is always more.

The great George C. Scott, one of my favorite actors of all time, plays composer John Russell, who takes refuge in an old Victorian mansion after his family is tragically killed in a car accident. While there, he comes into unwitting contact with the spirit of a murdered child, who reaches out to him to try and solve the mystery of his death.

It goes without saying that Scott is magnificent. This man was truly an acting Goliath, and the world is a lesser place without him. As Russell, he puts forth just the right combination of pathos, fear and outrage to really make his character work. We're with him the whole way, experiencing every terror that he does, in every detail.

Director Peter Medak is known more for his work in television, but still, what a formidable TV resume it is: Space 1999, the '80s Twilight Zone, Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre (the best!), Beauty and the Beast, Tales from the Crypt, Kindred: The Embraced, The Wire, Carnivale, Masters of Horror. He also did the underrated early Gary Oldman flick, Romeo Is Bleeding. Plus, the script for The Changeling is by William Gray, screenwriter of the original Prom Night!

There is some imagery in the movie that has remained with me for the nearly three decades since I first saw it. That may be simply because I was so young, but I tend to think this movie would've affected profoundly no matter my age. The empty wheelchair; the ball bouncing down the stairs; and most mind-scarringly of all, that repeated shot of the little boy's face underwater in the bathtub. Talk about Kindertrauma! I can't tell you how deeply that messed me up as a kid--phobia of baths ever since!

The greatest thing about The Changeling is that it manages to get under your skin without a single drop of blood, no real special effects to speak of, no over-the-top gimmickry. I'm not saying I have anything against these things--actually, I love them all. But it's also nice to experience a horror movie that doesn't necessarily have to rely on all that for scares. It's a welcome change of pace. What can I tell you, I'll always be a sucker for a good ol' fashioned gothic tale...

It should be mentioned also that the great old-time actor Melvyn Douglas appears in this, in one of his last roles. Douglas starred in The Old Dark House (yeah, he's that old), The Vampire Bat, Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka with Greta Garbo, Hud and so many others. The man was a bona fide Hollywood legend, and incidentally, his last role would come one year later in another terrific ghost movie, the aptly titled Ghost Story. If you haven't seen his Oscar-winning performance in Being There with Peter Sellers, treat yourself immediately. The man is gold.

But make no mistake, this is George C. Scott's movie. This guy is such a gem, and I've always worshiped him for performances in movies like Anatomy of a Murder, The Exorcist III, The Hindenburg, and of course his transcendent turn in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove as the war-mongering Gen. Buck Turgidson. But, it goes without saying, that for me, he'll always be best identified with the real-life general he played in his greatest role ever, George S. Patton. Scott doesn't quite get to flex his chops as much in The Changeling as in some of these other flicks, but it's interesting to see him in a more subdued part anyway.

The Changeling is one of those excellent horror movies that doesn't usually get the level of attention it deserves. So I'm saying it right here and now--do yourself a favor and rent it if you have never seen it. And if you have, rent it again. Either way, you're guaranteed two hours of sublime spookiness.

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Want to Know What Scares Me? (Part the 2nd)

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by total exhaustion and gainful employment, I got exposed to a lot of frightening stuff on TV as a kid that helped pave the way for my lifetime horror obsession. Why TV, you ask? Mainly because I was too young to be taken to see horror movies in the theater. But since daytime TV in those days was fairly polluted with old horror flicks, that didn't mean I never saw theatrical films, too.

Case in point: The Changeling. No, not the admittedly excellent, if overlong Angelina Jolie Oscar bait. I'm talking about the George C. Scott classic that I still consider among the finest ghost stories ever filmed, perhaps second only to The Haunting. I caught this one as a wee lad, all alone in my grandparents' living room, while the rest of the family argued downstairs in that uniquely Italian-American way.

Can you say nightmares? And lingering trauma? The image of the little boy being drowned in the bathtub was burned into my consciousness, and I could not approach a full tub, or even a toilet bowl, without first checking for a submerged face after that.

But there was a big difference between the relatively tame movies shown on afternoon syndicated TV and the kinds of movies my parents loved going to the theater to see, and renting to watch on that newfangled contraption we hooked up to our TV in the mid 1980s. See, I grew up during a golden age of gore cinema, when video store shelves were stocked to overflowing with forbidden fruit. No, I'm not talking about that section behind the beaded curtain (although that held a taboo appeal, as well). I'm talking about the horror section, filled with box covers which on their own were enough to shock me.

My parents were big horror nuts, but knew enough not to let me watch with them. They knew I wasn't ready yet. But that didn't stop me from being fascinated to listen to the terrifying sound effects coming from the living room downstairs as I tried to sleep, accompanied occasionally by a startled yelp from my mom. Or from listening in as they would gleefully describe their favorites to friends and family, movies like The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The first time they ever tried to initiate me was far from a success, but it is what officially kicked off my love of horror nonetheless, and sums up in a nutshell my relationship with it. That was the time they cautiously relented and allowed me and my younger sister (!), after prolonged begging, to watch The Exorcist with them. As I look back now, they were clearly teaching me a lesson...

I'm proud to say I held together pretty well. That is, until the moment when Regan turns on her caregivers, her eyes rolled up into her head, a subhuman voice emanating from her lips. In a scene my father likes to describe as reminiscent of a terrified Oliver Hardy, my sister and I simultaneously lept from the couch, wailing with fright as we scrambled upstairs and into our beds.

Yet despite my dismay, I kept thinking back to what I had seen, more intrigued than ever. This was a step beyond anything I had ever seen on Channel 9. This was fear in its purest, distilled form. And despite my dread, I couldn't help wanting more. And it has been the same ever since.

As I got older, I got a little more freedom in my viewing choices, and so began seeking out the kinds of movies I was never allowed to see before. Thanks to home video, I got a crash course in my preteens and early teens in the modern classics of the genre. The first one to enthrall my imagination, as I've discussed at length before, was The Return of the Living Dead.

But that movie was only a prelude to the one I'd discover at the age of 15, and which would fill me with a kind of visceral horror that's been unequaled since. It was a lazy afternoon in November 1990, and like the geeky third wheel I was, I sat bored on the couch in the den of my friend's girlfriend's house, my pal and his gal off in another room. Needless to say, I was bummed, and in my search for something to watch, I came across a VHS tape on the shelf marked "Dawn of the Dead".

I popped it in, and after about ten minutes, I was way too distracted to continue feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. That would kick off a completely irrational fear of zombies that would last for more years than I can admit without being a bit embarrassed.

I don't need a degree in psychology to realize that my bone-chilling phobia of the fictional undead was directly connected to a deep-seated fear of death I had been living with ever since first fully grasping the concept of my own mortality. Romero's zombie concept seemed tailor-made to keep me awake at night: Here was death itself, personified in the actual bodies of the dead refusing to politely disappear. And not only were they right in your face, but they also wanted to eat you. Could it get any worse?

The fact that I understood logically that zombies did not exist was little consolation. They were a reminder of the inevitability of death, which was enough. Not to mention they were also the source of years of nightmares, which unbelievably enough, persisted stubbornly into my adult years. Yet true to form, I remained morbidly fascinated, seeking out the most gut-wrenching zombie fare I could find (hence my Fulci obsession). There was a time when viewing such films was a truly upsetting experience, but one which I nonetheless compelled myself to endure.

But I got over my zombiephobia. I think having kids played a big part. You don't realize how much it changes you until it happens, and one of the biggest symptoms of maturity is the relinquishing of silly childhood hangups. The fictional fears that consume the self-centered years of youth suddenly dissipate when you're faced with the real fears and concerns of grown-up life. I mean, who has time to be worried about zombies and vampires when you're busy worrying about feeding a family, paying a mortgage, and the very real horrors that inspire parents to protect their children at all costs?

And so, my attitude toward horror movies has actually taken a dramatic shift in recent years. The outlandish, supernatural horror that once sent me into cold sweats I now find harmless fun. I see the humor in such movies that my unironic teenage mind never grasped. Rather, it's the more plausible, realistic stuff that freaks me out these days. Maybe because I'm more aware of the real horrors the world contains, I find myself strongly put off by movies most would describe as "torture porn".

Sometimes, while watching movies like Hostel and the like, I find myself wondering if I'm losing my edge and turning into an old fogey. Because I just don't have the stomach for it anymore. Even a well-made film like Inside, for example, will leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Part of it is wondering what goes on in peoples' minds that even leads them to come up with such stories and scenarios. But the more honest part of me also is repulsed by my own desire to watch it in the first place.

And so, the bizarre, inexplicable lifelong fixation on the limits of my own fear continues-- transformed, but ever present...

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