I've been a fan of horror movies my whole life, growing up watching the sci-fi and horror classics from the 1950's (which were only about ten or fifteen years old at the time). My favorite "classic" horror movie without a doubt is "THEM!", which is a movie starring a pre-"Gunsmoke" James Arness as an FBI agent who joins forces with a New Mexico State Trooper played by James Whitmore to fight giant ants in the New Mexico desert. They're joined by the usual duo of scientists, who blame the growth of the ants on the usual culprit of the time: radiation from all of the hydrogen bomb tests that were done in the desert in the late 1940's and early 1950's. It's a great movie - for its time, anyway - and is still my hands-down favorite classic horror movie to this date, but it's not the one that scared me the most.
Not by a long shot.
It was Hallowe'en 1969, and my family was living in Highland Springs, Virginia, a small town (at the time) about ten miles southeast of Richmond. The local theater was called The Henrico Theater (named after the county in which HS was located and pronounced "Hen-RYE-co"), which was built in the Art Deco style of the 1930s in which it was built. This old theater was huge, with a balcony and everything, and it must have sat about 300 people or so. You have to remember that this theater was built when there was no television, so for entertainment people either listened to the radio or went to the movies - for that reason, the theaters built in those times had to be big.
In any event, for Hallowe'en 1969 the theater staff decided to hold a horror movie marathon that was going to be hosted by a character called "The Bowman Body" who was the host of Channel 12's "Shock Theater" which played every Saturday night. I was a HUGE fan of The Bowman Body and Shock Theater, so of course I made plans to go. I tried to get the other kids in the neighborhood to go with me, but they wouldn't do it. So I said the heck with it (hey, I was 12) and went by myself. The festivities were supposed to start at two PM with the first of three movies being shown at three, so about one thirty on Saturday afternoon I put my foot in the path and walked up to the theater which was about a mile or so away. Once I got there I paid my fifty cents to get in, getting to finally meet The Bowman Body in person. And promptly at three PM the movies started, with the theater containing quite a few kids. Not enough to fill the place, but still there were a lot of kids there.
To this day I can still remember the movies that played and the order in which they played.
First up was "The Fearless Vampire Killers," a movie made by Roman Polanski right before his actress wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Charlie Manson's 'family.' I was 12 and thought the movie was pretty lame, so that tells you something about it. Not even Sharon Tate, who was absolutely gorgeous, could save it.
Next up was a classic Hammer film called "Island of Terror," which starred Peter Cushing. The special effects were kinda schlocky, but that was part of the allure of the old Hammer films. Still, the movie was pretty good, and it scared me pretty good.
But nothing like what was about to happen, trust me.
The third and last movie, which started at around six thirty PM or so, was the original George Romero classic, "Night of the Living Dead." To this day I am absolutely convinced that the staff of the Henrico played those movies in this order on purpose, the purpose being to give us kids a chance to drool over Sharon Tate, get scared a little bit by the bone-sucking monsters in "Island of Terror," and then get the living shit scared out of us by "Night of the Living Dead."
And let me tell you, if that was their plan, it worked like a charm.
It was full dark when the last movie ended and I came out of the theater, and I was so scared I was literally shaking. Then I realized that I was going to have to walk home, in the dark. Alone.
At that time my family lived on the 200 block of New Avenue, which ran north and south from the main road running through Highland Springs, that being Nine Mile Road. (Three guesses how it got its name.) The 200 block was the third of three blocks which made up New Avenue, and the blocks were pretty long. There were two streets that crossed New Avenue, one at the end of each block, with Washington Street being at the end of New Avenue. Like I said, each block was pretty long, and it was an old town so the trees growing along the sides of the road were, at times, pretty big, the branches just about covering the road which made it cool in the summer - and dark as the inside of a cave at night. Of course there were streetlights at each of the two intersections separating the blocks - that were built in the 1930's and were the kind that had the ruffled tin shades and 150 watt bulbs in them, which threw a circle of light about five feet across before it faded out into nothing.
This was the walk I had ahead of me as I stood shaking in my Keds, standing outside of the Henrico Theater in the chilly late October night, just knowing for sure that somewhere along the way that little girl from the movie was gonna jump out of the shadows and stick that cement trowel in my back.
I was so scared I walked home backwards so nobody could sneak up behind me.
I also slept with the light on for the next three nights, and when the other kids in the neighborhood asked me about the movie I refused to talk about it. That movie scared me so bad that it was the 1985 showing of the movie on MTV before I could bring myself to watch it again, and even then the movie still spooked me.
If you've seen the movie, then you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen it, then you should. Just don't watch it alone.
So, what horror movie is it that scared YOU the most?
Happy Hallowe'en, y'all...
IHC
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