Scary movies

Every August, the church we went to in Birmingham had a Friday night sleepover at the preacher’s house for the high school young people. Thinking about it, my heart goes out to the family, to let about 100 teenagers invade their house.

My friend Lynn brought her best friend to the first one we went to, and that was that. My brother was smitten, and she became his girlfriend, then his wife. Lynn also brought her little portable record player and a huge stack of 45s she had. I remember listening to “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,” among others, and was so impressed that she had all of the latest hits. Lynn was the first person I knew who had Ray Charles records since most people didn’t listen to music by African Americans.

Everyone congregated in the basement of the preacher’s house where we played games or sat around and talked. Around midnight, they showed scary movies such as the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” and “The Maze.”

The 1956 version “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter was re-made in 1978 with Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams, but it lost something in translation. When we saw the movie in 1961, it was in glorious black and white, which somehow made it more frightening. Now the movie is considered to be a thinly veiled allegory on the evils of communism, coming as it did in the McCarthy era – Joe, not Kevin. It’s a good one to look at if you want to see what cold war hysteria looked like. A town doctor discovers that all of the people in the town are being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

“The Maze,” on the other hand, was pretty cheesy. The soundtrack was classic – the spooky music told the audience every time something scary was happening. Richard Carlson, who also starred in “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” breaks off his engagement and moves to his uncle’s castle in Scotland. When the girl follows him a few weeks later, she finds he’s aged considerably. Why? What lurks there that only comes out at night to wander the castle’s maze, leaving bizarre-looking wet footprints?

As in “The Maze,” the music is what I remember most about 1954’s “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” the music and the image of the creature carrying Julie Adams into a cave. A scientific expedition traveling up the Amazon River encounters a dangerous humanoid amphibious fish creature. Unlike 1999’s “Lake Placid,” however, they blow the creature to smithereens. I think the theme of bizarre creatures turning up, both in “The Maze” and “Creature” is similar to the Japanese monster movies of the 1950’s (my favorite is “Mothra”). People were afraid of what unleashing the atom bomb on the world might have created, and it showed in these so-called horror movies. Next to the “Saw” series, of course, these might well be rated “G” – as in GOOD GRIEF, weren’t movies better back then!

After the scary movies were over at our sleepover, around 1am, the girls said goodnight to the boys and headed upstairs. We were all pretty good kids, so I doubt the door between hims and hers was even locked. Besides, this was the preacher’s house! We had each brought blankets and made beds for ourselves on the floors. I preferred the living room with its deep pile carpeting.

We were up pretty early the next morning for a donuts and orange juice breakfast, and most of us were headed home by 8am. I learned the first year that my best option was to mumble a little and take a nap until my head cleared.

I doubt things like the sleepover still happen anywhere. Teenagers aren’t as naive and inexperienced as we were, and movies aren’t as innocent as they were. I have learned that there are some movies I’m not cut out to see.

In 1978, I let one of my roommates talk me into going to see “Jaws 2” at a theater. I’d steadfastly refused to see “Jaws,” knowing I’d never go in the water again if I did. The movie horrified me, and at one point, the ten year old sitting next to me starting crying, “Lady, lady, let go of my arm. It’s only a movie!” I realized I’d grabbed him, a total stranger, and was wringing his left arm in fear. The mother glared at me and disengaged her son from my grasp. Fortunately, they didn’t press charges.

©2009 jgschenck