Author: unkle lancifer
Twilight Zone :: Season Five "LIVING DOLL"
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INDELIBLE SCENE(S)
- Tina winks at the dinner table
- Tina is an early player in the "phone threat" school of stalking
- Telly beats SAW to the "torture porn" arena, turning the family garage into a HOSTEL-like S&M chamber
- Tina's final advice to mom at the foot of the stairs
Cujo
The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be and the St. Bernard ain't feeling too hot either. Previously precious pooch Cujo got his schnozola chomped by a perturbed bat, and now he's riding the rabies train! Consequently, E.T's mom DEE WALLACE and her little son DANNY PINTAURO are beginning to look like two oversize chew toys to the killer canine. What did they do to deserve the mongrel's wrath? Well, she's having an adulteress affair (Don't worry it's with her real life love CHRISTOPHER STONE) and he's well, he'll grow up to be Jonathan Bower on WHO'S THE BOSS? That could get anybody's dander up! Don't expect high adventure; most of the action takes place in a stalled Pinto. Director LEWIS TEAGUE (ALLIGATOR) is more interested in claustrophobic tension and he brings it by the bucketful. Both leads are put through the ringer, and both deliver spotless performances. We're all quite aware of the awesomeness that is Dee Wallace, so it's Pintauro who surprises. His near constant whines and whimpers may be annoying (especially when a ringing telephone is added to the mix) but I can't think of a more authentic portrayal of anguish by a child so young. (Dude was six!)
INDELIBLE SCENE(S)
- Don't blame Cujo, it's all the bat's fault!
- Child star BILLY JACOBY (SUPERSTITION, BLOODY BIRTHDAY) confronts Cujo in the fog
- "Nothing wrong here!" commercial for cereal that makes you pee red
- In the best scene in any movie ever, mom of the century Dee finally looses her shit and screams "Alright I'll get your daddy!" with all the red-faced rage of a woman who is beyond exhaustion. Get this woman on THE ACTOR'S STUDIO! Dee hit the zone!
- Heads up Cujo, Dee found a Louisville slugger!
What's The Diff?
THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982) was not a scary movie. It was a swash-buckley, over the top action-adventure covered in a big orange mound of Velveeta. All the gals wore ridiculous wigs and were often topless, and all the dudes wore loincloths and were often flogged. Something for everybody! Especially if you are partial to hearts being pulled from chests, heads being sliced in two, and people ripping their own skin off! The opening scene was a standout and it actually did creep out many a critter. Porridge mugged RICHARD LYNCH resurrected a lizard-faced RICHARD MOLL from the bowels of hell with the help of a soon to be deceased witch. The vessel that the creature arises from is covered with stone faces that come to squirmy life with the aid of yummy plastic fantastic eighties style special effects. Both these shots are from said scene but the second one has NINE distinct differences. Can you find them all before the world explodes?…GO!
TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Morris on Robocop
Reader Morris tells us his pick for most traumatizing scene comes courtesy of Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP when Emil (PAUL McCRANE) is melted by toxic waste! Let that be a lesson to you kiddies, do not play around with toxic waste! It was even the undoing of Jason Vorhees when he attempted to take Manhattan!
TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Mikey on Unsolved Mysteries
When I was really young, my mom used to watch that show UNSOLVED MYSTERIES and every damn time the theme song started playing, I would completely freak out and cry like a maniac, begging her to change the channel. It wasn't even the show itself that scared me because I never actually watched any of the episodes at that point. It was just that stupid song that gave me nightmares. At this age, I had already been watching plenty of horror movies and loved them so I don't know why this particular song had that kind of affect on me.
Eventually I ended up catching the middle of an episode one night and unwillingly got hooked by the creepiness about a haunted house. When a ghost inevitably appeared and frightened a little boy, my dumb child mind randomly thought the ghost was Jesus (I guess because I was already scared of Him to begin with) and it totally traumatized me. From then on, I developed an intense fear of Jesus and would stay up nights thinking that he might come visit me while I slept. I even had a panic attack while at church a few years later for a relative's baptism. To this day, I still feel uneasy just thinking about him.
Believe it or not, I'm a really sweet person and I don't worship the devil. I'm NOT the antichrist, as this would suggest. Well, at least I don't think I am…
Something Evil
Thin skinned, quivering watercolor enthusiast Marjorie Worden (marble-mouthed SANDY DENNIS) and her work-obsessed, ad executive hubby Paul (KOLCHAK's DARREN McGAVIN, who not only exudes Captain Carl level machismo, but is also notably one of the few people who can truly pull off wearing a hat) trade city rats for country rats when they move into a rural Pennsylvania farm house. Along with their two children, a tow-headed Carol Ann Freeling prototype and seventies ginger staple/sea monster advocate JOHNNY WHITAKER, they discover that the devil is not only in the details, but is also residing in the barn. Marjorie is the first to suspect something hoofed is afoot when she wakes to the sounds of a baby crying and discovers an apparently long expired jar of glowing red jelly is the source. The jar proves to be as difficult to shake as one of Paul's commercial jingles as it reappears in various parts of the house causing Marge a great deal of anguish. Oldster Harry (ROSEMARY'S BABY alum RALPH BELLAMY) the lone person not chalking Marge's erratic behavior up to hysteria, is quickly dispatched via a swooping demon P.O.V. shot. What may have been a standard seventies occult pastiche is elevated to classic status by the talents of a still-hungry, young STEPHEN SPIELBERG, fresh off the crashing success of DUEL. Incorporating inventive camera moves and creeped-out sound effects, whilst always taking full advantage of the charismatic cast, this made-for-T.V. movie rises far above the chaff and delivers an eleventh hour switcharoo truly worthy of preservation.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
- Sandy's Pennsylvania Dutch pentacle necklaces
- The never explained jar of red goo
- Car crash initiated by red orb and shattered glass
- The glowing yellow eyes caught on the commercial
- Whitaker's windy arbor beat-down
- Devil frog!
- "Apples are chocolate brown, mmmmmm…wonderful!"
TRAUMAFESSIONS :: Reader Holly on E.T.
This may sound crazy but when I was a little girl I was terrified of E.T. I remember seeing it with my brother and cousins when it first came out. My crying was so bad that we all had to leave the movie. A couple years later at my first sleepover my friend Rachel had a picture of E.T and Michael Jackson on her wall. I did not sleep a wink that night. I just stared at that picture, scared out of my wits. I still have not seen the whole movie and I'm always worried that one of my kids will want to watch it some day.
P.S. The part where E.T. dressed up as a woman scared me the most!
Editor's note: A tip for folks like Holly who are scared of E.T. in drag, just blur your eyes and PRESTO! It's America's sweetheart GOLDIE HAWN!
Dolls
Don't you love it when bad things happen to bad people? It's a major flaw in the universe that this does not occur more often. A wonderful aspect of the cinema is that it can easily create the moral universe that we all secretly yearn for. Case in point, DOLLS. Meet Little Judy Bower (CARRIE LORRAINE) an adorable dickens who is strapped with two atrociously mean spirited guardians. Her father (IAN PATRICK WILLIAMS) is a gold digging condescending Prig and her new step mother (played to a campy hilt by CAROLYN PURDY-GORDON) is a shrill, haggy, grade "A" bitch. After their car gets stuck in the mud, the three find themselves fortuitously located in front of a crusty old mansion framed by requisite lightning bolts. Once inside they meet a sweet, yet strangely sinister elderly couple (GUY ROLFE & HILARY MASON) whose pregnant glances toward each other might as well be yellow canary feathers hanging out of their mouths. They are soon joined by the affable Ralph (STEPHEN LEE) and two rude, sly, opportunistic Brit punk Rockers he was kind enough to give a lift to (one of whom, BUNTY BAILEY is the chick from the A-ha video!). Did I mention the house is filled floor to ceiling with dolls? They're everywhere and they're the scary old-fashioned kind; this is way before BRATZ. Anyway, that night, "The longest night ever," is a night of wonder and mystery for those who keep their inner child well fed, and a night of murderous blood soaked reckoning for those who are assholes.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to get trapped inside a pop-up fairy tale book, this may be the closest equivalent. STUART GORDON the director responsible for breathing life into the dead with legendary results in RE-ANIMATOR grants the same favor to the creepy little playthings that line many a child's bureau. In an early fantasy sequence, Judy's beloved teddy bear shows his true colors when he splits apart at the seams and begins mauling the deserving adults. It not only sets the stage for black humor and pre-adolescent revenge wish fulfillment, but also perfectly captures the movie's being as a whole, a cuddly charming toy with hidden claws.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S)
- Teddy shrugging after his double homicide
- The "Take on me" girl takes her eyes out
- Toy soldier attack
- PURDY finds she's not alone in bed
- The BOY TOY belt
- Punch speaks!
- Judy's bloody slippers
