Guess what turned up deep in my jewelry drawer? Yes, I am cleaning out a lot of things - must be what happens when three of four kids go away to college. Anyway, the following turned up from the depths of my drawer:
Oh yeah - you know you had one, too. Especially if you were a pre-teen girl in the 70s. This one was no bigger than a small address book. Remember those psychedelic satin covers? I wasn't very good at keeping a diary. A typical entry was not more than a sentence or two. From Saturday, March 6, 1971:
Who is Mark? One of our weekly crushes, no doubt.
My best friend, Sherry, and I would often get together and watch scary movies on Saturday afternoons in her basement. Channel 18 in Milwaukee often broadcast creepy movies during "Saturday afternoon Theater." I don't remember, but I thought there was a costumed host introducing the movies. Maybe I'm confused with Shock Theater or Nightmare Theater or Dr. Cadaverino. My entire diary entry from Saturday, March 13, 1971:
A week later and another scary movie.
Bela Lugosi in Murders at Rue Morgue (nice eyebrow/s). Sherry and I couldn't get enough of horror movies - even if they were awful, B-rated and kind of stupid. We'd sit on her basement couch wrapped up in blankets and if we were lucky, we'd get permission from her parents to have a Glen Rock soda.
They always had a case in their basement.
And if the movie lightened up, we might spend some time jiggling our midsections in her mom's belt exerciser thing - but we didn't wear heels like the lady in the picture above who actually kinda looks like Sherry's mom.
The other night my son DVR'd Bram Stoker's Dracula off the television. Although we don't really watch scary movies too often, we feel it's in order every year to watch one good one to celebrate Halloween. We watched the edited television version (thank goodness) of this 1992 version of Dracula starring Gary Oldham, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves. Yuck, was it creepy. I am not a better person for having seen that movie. My son kept saying the story line just didn't make any sense. It kinda reminded me of those awful, B-rated scary movies of Saturday afternoons in Sherry's basement - gross, gory and bleak. I'd much rather have a scary, suspenseful movie with a good story -- like Disturbia or Signs, which we've watched for Halloween in the last few years. I'm not afraid of a little gore, but please give me a decent story, something that will make me jump, and some good acting.
OK, I'm taking suggestions - a good Halloween movie - what are your ideas?
It's a great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. That's about as scary as I will watch!
ReplyDeleteOn TV the other day (The View), I heard Whoopie saying she had just watched The Exorcist. Said it was STILL the scariest movie ever made. My 20 year old recently watched it and agreed they don't come much scarier. I saw it once when I was about 18 and that was enough. Never again. Not a fan of scary movies, especially ghost movies. I have my own haunted house.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Kathy, great post. You are seriously a very good writer!
ReplyDeletehmmm let's see, I think you should watch "the unborn"!! except it wasn't really that scary..I laughed through most of it :) love your daughter
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