Unsolved Mysteries (1987 - 1997, NBC)

I realize this is not a film. But knowing the subject matter of being scary, I could not leave it off. This TV show was scary to me. If for nothing else than Robert Stack’s voice. It was so low, and menacing. Every story he related felt like it had some sort of truth in it. Like it was not only possible, but plausible. Like I said, menacing. At least for 7-8 year old me.

I will never forget the (as I call it) alien episode. It told stories of people who claimed they had an alien encounter. Stories of little green men who showed up at people’s houses. Either to take them to their ship and perform experiments. Or to stand there looking at the people, studying them.

The latter literally affected how I slept in my own bed. You see, my bed was up against a wall across from my bedroom door. When I slept on my right side, I faced left, and could see the entirety of my room, including the door. When I slept on my left side, I would simply face the wall. Meaning my back was turned to the rest of the room.

Another importantly factor was that our AC unit (which was loud) was right outside my bedroom. So, when it was on (which was a lot, living in Georgia), it would almost serve as a white noise generator. (Nowadays, that sounds soothing. Certainly not then.)

Anyway, I had it my head that when the AC was on, I’d have to sleep on my right side facing the doorway. Because (in my child brain), I thought it protected me from the little green men. All I had to do was just open my eyes and see it/them. Whereas, when the AC unit was off, I was safe to sleep on my left side facing the wall. Thought there being that I would hear it walk. Or something.

Why or how that was protection, I have no idea. Kid brain, man. Honestly.

Poltergeist (1982)

This film (and this series of films) conjure up a certain amount of sadness, actually. The film is scary, sure, but I knew too much going in to appreciate the full fear factor.

I didn’t see the original movie (or the subsequent sequels) in the theater. So, all three of the movies had already been released by the time I saw them. And I already knew that Heather O’Rourke (the actress portraying Carol Anne) had died recently. And that gave it such a maudlin quality. Remember, I was 8 years old. Death had not really entered my world yet, and I didn’t know what to do with that. And seeing such a young girl progress toward something inevitable, it was an odd feeling.

And then I watched the two sequels, and it became even sadder, especially when you can see the effects of the Crohn’s Disease show themselves in the third film. At the same time, you have to give Heather a lot of credit for persevering despite what was happening to her.

Honestly, this one was hard. I don’t get scared by movies very often. The horror and gore and all that don’t get to me outside of the viewing experience. It might be scary in context, but when the movie ends, I can laugh at the adburaity and go on about my life.

Which is where this particular movie comes into play. In 1999, social media was not a thing. If you wanted to know what was going on in the world, you had to seek it out. And given that I was still in college, and working at the same time, I didn’t really have time for that.

Back then, Jayme and I had movie date night every Friday night. And this Friday night, we didn’t have anything terribly pressing we wanted to see, so we thought we’d venture out. We had recently moved to Atlanta from Auburn, and didn’t really know the city. We had never been to this particular theater and didn’t really know the neighborhood, either. So, all new situation.

And then we walked in to see “The Blair Witch Project”.

You have to realize that at the time, we didn’t know it was fake. They took great strides to make you think it was real, and they succeeded. And the ending was just so unknown and weird. We didn’t know what we had just seen, and didn’t know what to make of it.

And then we walked out of this unknown theater in this unknown neighborhood in this realtively new city. And everything around us made us jump.

Today, it seems silly. And it makes me laught (at ourselves). But it wasn’t silly back then. We were legitimately scared.

In the Films to be Buried With series...

Whenever the topic of “first”s comes up in respects to media, I always have to think back to 30+ years ago. And when it comes to movies from 30+ years ago, VHS was king in our household (my parents didn’t really like going to the movies). From my memory, two films stand out as my “first”s: Ghostbusters and The Empire Strikes Back.

I mean, “I am your father” and “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.” are lines that are seared in my memory from watching these movies over and over again. I distinctly remember the terror from Luke’s cave experience while training with Yoda in TESB, and the skeleton taxi driver guy from Ghostbusters.

“There is no Dana, only Zuul” is still spoken in my house to this day.

Good times.