In the summer of 1969 my twin sister and I were nine years old. My father took us to the drive in for a double feature: WILLARD and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. I thought it was bad enough that the mean teenaged boys made rat noises when we walked to the concession stand during intermission, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when my father drove us through a cemetery on the way home and pretended to run out of gas. We screamed and screamed and screamed. To this day he insists that was the best way home, but we had never seen that cemetery before that night, and we never drove through it again. I can't watch NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (a personal favorite) without chuckling over that memory.
Renee, my dad and my uncles used to love scaring me and my brothers and cousins also. Usually it just consisted of one person telling a story while the other waited to pounce at the appropriate moment. I, in return used to try to scare my younger cousins like this and would get into trouble, but who do you think I learned it from? The running out of gas in the graveyard thing though, is perfectly brilliant. You can't beat a graveyard as the ultimate scare prop. I laughed out loud when I read this traumafession. God bless your pops, please tell him nobody believes his "best way home" story!
You saw 'Willard' at a drive in 1969?? That is very interesting, especially since 'Willard' was produced in1971 two years after you saw it in the drive-in!! Ummmmm!!!????
Yako,
Good eye and great attention to detail! In Renee's defense she must have seen those movies in 1971 upon Willards release. But give her a break she was only two years off and these ARE childhood memories we're talking about! Between you me and the lamp post Yako, I've spied a couple other questionable dates in a traumafession or two, but we decided long ago that we want to hear people's stories exactly how they remember them, which means they may not always be 100% accurate. Meanwhile, Yako how's about sending us your traumafession! we're all ears!