Friday, October 11, 2013

My greatest fear - LBC topic

My greatest fear has to be feeling powerless to help someone I care about. There are simply things I cannot do to help Lynn. I suppose that is not even really fear - but anger. I am mildly claustrophobic so I do have a slight fear of small ecnclosed spaces - I won't ride a full elevator - It is what it is. Everything else is manageable but it was not always so.

When I was a kid in Colorado I loved horror movies and they scared the bejeebers (nice technical term eh?) outta me. The first movie I ever saw was Tarantula (bonus points if you can name the megastar that made his movie debut in that one) and the thrill ride lasted until I was scared by Alien - the last truly scary movie I saw. Here's a clip of Leo G carroll in Tarantula - sort of Topper gone wild -



Along the way I've been scared by and of giant prehistoric flying reptiles (Rodan - I ran home from my cousin Greg's house, hiding under trees so if Rodan was circling the sky like a vulture he (she?) wouldn't see me and eat me after he and I saw that one), Werewolves, vampires, Abominible Snowmen, giant carrot people (the original Thing), body snatchers (the original rocked, the remake was damn good too)

Then there were the man-eating plants (Day of the Triffids)

Strange lobster-like thingees - (Lynn was terrified of this one - I always thought it odd she loved to eat lobster)

Anything with Voncent Price, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr was pretty much a frightening certainty. And of course Bela Lugosi's Dracula.

The last 2 really scary movies I recall are The Exorcist - saw it and then spent the night ine night alone in a strange house and when the resident cat leapt from the frisge to the stove I about went through the roof - and Alien. Some of my fondest memories are of spending Saturdays at the Uptown Theater in Pueblo, Colorado with Kenny and Tommy - alll 3 of us sitting with our legs curled up under us like we were around a campfire - so the monsters wouldn't get us from beneath our seats.

Todays world can be a truly frightening place. It's a shame we have allowed it to become so. But I'm still more scared by the old classics and I'n happy to be that way.

8 comments:

  1. Now another facet of your personality emerges. A movie buff deeply into the horror genre. You never fail to amaze me. Not however my cup of tea at all.

    I can relate to the mixed emotion of fear and anger. It is among the most difficult of emotions to handle. From what I know, you are doing a great job of that and I salute you for it.

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  2. Remind me not to go the movies with you, Shackman. It would almost be as bad as going to see The Mercenaries (1967) with one of my brothers. It starred Guy Deghy, Olivier Despax, Kenneth More, Peter Carsten, Yvette Mimieux, Rod Taylor, to name a few. Not my cup of tea at all.

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  3. I remember once watching a kids show on TV with my children and there was a song about listening to ghost stories around a campfire that went 'It's kinda fun gettting scared, when you know it's not for real'. That is so, very true.

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  4. You are so right, Shackman. I remember those old horror shows. There is no movie today that compares.
    blessings ~ maxi

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  5. I think I know what movie star launched his career in Tarantula. Was it ..... Spiderman?

    Good film list. The very end of the original Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is stark and scary.

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  6. Clint Eastwood was a jet squadron leader - one that attacked the giant tarantula at the end of the movie.

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  7. I could never really watch the exorcist, or other similar movies. I'm a scaredy pants! :)

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  8. The Exorcist terrified Carol!!! She gets the willies just thinking about it. I think it is all those years in Catholic school.

    Me, being raised a heathen, thought the scenes at times were more gross than scary. But, she didn't mind Alien and it kept startling the calm right out of me!

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