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This week Glass Eye goes back to tread through some of the terrors of childhood.
Do you know where your children are…..?

‘A dream has power to poison sleep’ – Percy Bysshe Shelly

A slow closing bedroom door. The gradual absence of light. The abstract shadows cast on bed side walls. These are the true moments of
creeping fear, we all experienced as children in the twilight hours.

As a process of childhood ritual, we have all had to face the nightly descent into sleep. The time when everything becomes still, but the mind of a child.
While we know we were supposedly secure in the confines of our homes, under the protection of our guardians, nothing was what it seemed. The foul air of uncertainty filled the room in the darkness of night, and seeped into the cracks of our consciousness, and made us question our own safety. What was it that planted the seeds of fear in our young minds, and smothered us in the vivid images that scared the shit out of us?

There’s no doubt for most cinephiles that the majority of childhood haunts emerged from the steady consumption of horror and sci-fi movies and television. We eagerly watched them, one after another, regardless of the nightmares we knew they would bring. No matter how adamant we were that we would not be affected, deep down inside we knew we most certainly would. In the isolation of our bedrooms at night, the fear was inescapable.

This week, Glass Eye takes a brief glimpse into some of the memorable moments of fear from classic film and television responsible for long sleepless nights for both me and my pissed off parents. While they stood in my childhood as the source of my nocturnal terrors, these moments also made up parts of the foundation that defined me as the film freak I am today.

These are in no particular order, aside from the memories they continue to bring.

1. The Tingler (1959) William Castle

William Castle the guru of gimmicks, the sultan of shtick,pulled out all the stops in this Vincent Price classic. While I was unable to see it in the theater as it was intended, I saw enough to fester in my pre-pubescent brain. The semi invisible, mutant giant centipede, ‘Tingler’, that attached to your spine actually made me try to sleep with my back to the wall. In this film it wasn’t even so much the monster that Castle used to horrify audiences. Long before Roger Corman and, ‘The Trip’, Castle managed to fuse the creepy crawliness of a spinal monster with the first petrifying bad LSD experience shown on screen. While the acid trip was bad, the nightmare flashbacks were even worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FQm30eQn7I

2. Magic (1978) Richard Attenborough

Believe it or not ladies and gents, Sir Richard Attenborough is
partially responsible for a personal dislike of ventriloquist dummies. Sure Willie Tyler and Lester were great, but once the ad for, ‘Magic’, hit the tube in 1978, every kid within 500 yards of a tv set had the piss shivers. The cold dead eyes of ‘Fats’ the dummy, and the reptilian voice of Anthony Hopkins long before his, ‘Quid Pro Quo’ line, brought terror to hordes of kids. At the time radio also played an important part in promo, so even if you tried to evade the tv, the radio spot was bound to get you…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxgVoUL22s8

3. Trilogy Of Terror (1975) Dan Curtis

There’s no way I could compile a list of childhood fears without mentioning this absolute classic. Director Dan Curtis was actually responsible for a number of my childhood nightmares which we’ll get to, but nothing could compare to the Zuni Fetish Doll segment of this anthology. Based on a short story written by literary legend, Richard Christian Matheson, B-movie starlet Karen Black is voraciously hunted through her apartment by a 10 inch Zuni Fetish doll determined to slice her up like a Kobe steak. While the film now comes across as barely less than comical, it fueled one particular night of insanity in my household that will forever be lodged in my memories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOEJkeLPSRQ&NR=1

4. Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira
  (Aka War Of the Gargantuas) (1966) Ishiro Honda.

There wasn’t a kid on the block who didn’t share the love for Japanese men in their rubber suits, decimating cardboard cities for our bemusement. We wrung our hands in glee watching Godzilla take the boots to Tokyo, and try to rip King Kong a new one. None of the ‘creature features’ seemed really menacing to me until Ishiro Honda (The Godfather of Kaiju) directed War Of The Gargantuas. Two butt ugly oversized furry troll type behemoths square off against the military in a triple threat match, and run roughshod across Japan. Plot be damned, this wasn’t a Robert Altman film. We just wanted to see them wreck shit, and wreck shit they did.

The primary scene that continued to haunt my childhood, was watching the evil green troll rise out of the sea, and truck through Haneda airport. He casually picks up a woman, and pops her into his mouth like he’s eating sunflower feeds. Seconds late he spits out the ‘shell’ of her dress. From that moment one I knew that Godzilla wasn’t the only mean green bastard on the block. Thank god he didn’t find sun block…

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXRinKfOAr4

5. Black Sabbath/Black Sunday (1963/1960) Mario Bava

Okay, I’m cheating a bit with two films here, but they absolutely intertwine, both being directed by the legend himself Mario Bava. With stunning effects brought about through the craftsmanship of sound and lighting, Bava was able use his magic to create an absolute sense of dread, and teeth grinding tension. In regards to Black Sunday, a lot of the credit must also go to the Enigmatic Barbara Steele. From the moment they nailed the mask to her face, to her inevitable resurrection, Barbara Steele gave off sparks in her performance, and drove daggers into your face with her cold evil eyes. To this day, the film still runs a icy finger down my back, and proves that it is an ageless classic.

Just when I thought that Bava couldn’t go any further in scaring the mustard out of me, he came right back in 1963 with horror anthology Black Sabbath. I remember seeing this the first time in 1976, at eight years old with a negligent babysitter, both fried out of our wits. While Boris Karloff played another classic role, as the Wurdalak’, it was the, ‘drop of water’ segment that absolutely pushed me over the edge. To those who have yet to see Black Sabbath, grab the recently released Bava box, and take a look for yourself. While not wanting to give away the gist of the tale, I do want to say that it still stands up as being truly suspenseful and far scarier than most of the films that came after it. If Bava’s two classic films don’t give you a chill, then you can go back and bury your head in the Platinum Dunes..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3R4ox-_GgM

6. Salem’s Lot (1979) – Tobe Hooper.

I don’t give a rat’s ass what anybody has to say about Tobe Hooper. Sure he’s had a spotty track record over the years with (butt) nuggets like The Mangler, and Spontaneous Combustion,but damn if he didn’t direct two of the most frightening films of all time.

I was in the Hospital when CBS aired Salem’s Lot as a mini-series, and there was nowhere I could hide. Although I wanted to kick myself for turning on my bedside tv night after night, I couldn’t resist. I had to see if Hutch (David Soul), and James at 15 (Lance Kerwin) would get the best of the terrifying Barlow. Sure it might not have been what Steve King had in mind, but Reggie Nalder’s (Mark Of The Devil) portrayal of the lead vampire Barlow was pure evil. Laying alone in that hospital room, I was 10 floors up, but still expected a tapping on the window from a long lost friend…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIbJ2rQ59ZE

7. Songs For Swinging Larvae (1981) – Renaldo And The Loaf

The next selection is an odd one to say the least. Renaldo And The Loaf are an experimental British duo who created music that made the Butthole Surfers sound like Sinatra. Not only were their sounds indescribable, their videos were no exception. I saw this video/film at an art exhibition in late 1981, and it was single handedly the most creepy mixture of film and music I had ever seen. It took me several years afterwards to wrap my head around, this nightmarish snippet of a childhood nightmare. It’s not so much about what’s shown, but what’s implied. For people who have never ingested mushrooms or LSD, this might give them a good idea about the kinds of things that would make you turn your eyelids inside out. Apparently it’s about divorce….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3MbVoLYns

8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – Tobe Hooper.

This is the one that I consider to be the absolute curse of my childhood, yet also my favorite film of all time. Forget the fecal fiasco of a remake that was pinched off in 2003. Nothing, and I mean nothing could come close to duplicating the stark raving madness I felt from viewing the original at ten years old. Even today more so than ever, I can feel myself immersed in it’s griminess, and stark isolation. Texas Chainsaw is a film that you can smell, like blood and ass sweat, and it burns into you like a 100 watt bulb.

What was behind that steel door? Nothing but a 300 pound gibbering grizzly bear, with a sledgehammer and chainsaw,eyeing you up like a pot roast. There was no negotiating with the family. Somebody had to bring home the bacon, even if it was still screaming, tied in a burlap sack. I remember a summer drive in the country, and literally begging my old man not to pull the car over to take a leak. As dusk set in I knew there was a possibility that Leatherface could come roaring out of the shadows, ready to turn us all into headcheese.

9. The Night Stalker – Television Series (1974) – Dan Curtis

Almost two decades before Chris Carter had Mulder and Scully running off on a weekly search for the unknown, Dan Curtis introduced us to Karl Kolchak. In his straw hat, and seersucker suit, Darren McGavin played the first television hunter in the dark, in the classic series, ‘The Night Stalker’.

While the show gradually drifted into a, ‘monster of the week’, scenario, a lot of those monsters successfully made we wake up in a cold sweat. Two that come to mind were the Rakshasa, which was a doppelganger, and the relentless suit of possessed armor that wreaked havoc in a museum. The real nightmarish element of the series was that there wasn’t anywhere that was safe. As Kolchak always discovered, the monsters could show up anywhere, and they always did…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xfl0m6U8IE

10. Pinocchio (1940) -  Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen

While some will forever swear by Disney as a mainstay for children everywhere, there are others who know the real score. The whole, ‘child friendly’ front put on by Disney studios was an absolute ruse. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Walt Disney had a sadistic streak himself, and got off on scaring the holy hell out of the kiddies. From the death of Bambi’s mother, to the Demon on Bald Mountain in Fantasia, Disney did it’s best to make sure we all suffered traumatic childhoods. For me there was nothing more frightening in the Disney genre than the island of lost boys in the 1940 masterpiece Pinocchio. Sure they got to smoke Cubans, and drink beer, but it came with a price. I knew the jig was up the minute they began to sprout tails, and were crated, and hauled off to child labor camps. Pinocchio himself tried to desperately avoid the change into a Donkey, but as soon as he grew those ears, it was too much for a 5 year old to take. Some say the whale was the scary bit, but the Island of lost boys left me leaving the theater with more in my shorts than I started out with…

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mypa-rmn5GE

Thanks for taking the time to dig into this week’s Glass Eye, and I look forward to hearing some replies regarding your personal childhood terrors.