Our Halloween package includes a look at some scary movies. Pictured: A still from “The Blair Witch Project.”
The horror movies that scared us forever may not actually have scarred us
There are few cinematic experiences — or any formative moments, for that matter — that make a permanent impression like a child’s first scary movie.
Chances are you remember the details of yours; the terrifying film, the venue and any night-light-involved aftermath. Maybe you continue to have some baggage decades later — whether it’s a fear of birds, or an uneasiness around new suburban developments that may have been built on cemeteries. Maybe you still don’t think it’s safe to go back in the water.
But are we really worse off seeing “A Nightmare on Elm Street” a few years shy of the recommended 17 years of age? I used to think so, until I interviewed Frank Oz a decade ago, and asked him why Jim Henson pushed the 1982 movie “The Dark Crystal” so far in the direction of nightmare territory.
That “was totally his vision,” Oz said, matter-offactly. “He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe.”
After that, I began to notice a trend in interviews: Talented artists are often subjected to content that is way above their age level. Filmmakers from “Hustle & Flow” director Craig Brewer to “Toy Story 3” and “Coco” director Lee Unkrich had stories of parents who brought them to R-rated movies at a PG age.
In the recent documentary “A Long Strange Trip,” director Amir Bar-Lev frames the entire four-hour film around Jerry Garcia’s viewing of “Abbott and
“Pet Sematary II”: when your older siblings have to let you tag along and that’s what they’re seeing.
Costello Meet Frankenstein” as a 6-year-old — which Garcia credited as a catalyst to his artistic awakening.
Metallica’s Kirk Hammett is another local example. The guitar player saw “The Exorcist” when he was 11, and he hasn’t been the same since.
“I had to sleep with the light on for about a month. I had to sleep with my dog at the foot of my bed,” Hammett remembered. “I thought Satan was coming for me and he was going to possess me and possess all my friends all over San Francisco. … I really thought that the biggest threat in my life was ‘The Exorcist.’ ”
But it didn’t break him. In fact, it did the exact opposite — he now collects horror movie memorabilia, and he wrote a 2012 book about his finds, “Too Much Horror Business.”
“The crazy thing is I’ve seen (‘The Exorcist’) a number of times since then, and there are aspects of the movie that are just plain humorous,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it hasn’t really lost any of its edge for me. It’s still as horrifying as ever.”
After a newsroom conversation started by Chronicle arts content editor Mariecar Mendoza about the scary movie we were too young to see, we asked the Datebook staff to contribute their own formative fright stories. From Blair witches to cannibal rituals, no one has completely recovered. And that might be completely OK.
Scary movies, too soon?
Name: Mariecar Mendoza Movie: “Pet Sematary II” (1992) How old when I saw it: 8 The story: I had older sisters, and they couldn’t really go out with boys — even girlfriends most of the time — without taking me and/or my younger brother with them. Well, one night they decided they wanted to go to the movies and see “Pet Sematary II.” How I was able to get into this R-rated film, I don’t recall. I actually don’t remember if my brother was with us, though I doubt it because he would have been 5 or 6 at the time.
Anyway, what I do remember, very vividly, is freaking out when I saw the scene where the sheriff (played by Clancy Brown) is cracking the necks of the white bunnies. At this age, I had two bunnies at home and wanted to be a veterinarian. I was hysterical! I ended up being taken to the small arcade room in the theater — this was at the then-Century Capitol 16 in San Jose — where I played Pac-Man or something until my sisters were ready to go home. I still have yet to finish that movie, but I recently rewatched that scene for this assignment and completely regret doing that. Name: Lily Janiak Movie: “The Blair Witch Project” (1999)
How old when I saw it: 13 The story: After a childhood full of nightmares caused by movies that aren’t even horror movies — “The Mask,” “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Alice in Wonderland,” even “Aladdin” — I should have known better than to watch something whose promo poster featured a pair of tearful, terrified eyes lit only by a flashlight (or was it by the glow of the character’s own video camera?) in the middle of the woods. But in history’s first instance ever of a middle schooler succumbing to peer pressure, I tried to act really chill so as not to lose face at a sleepover in Brentwood, Tenn.
Face might not have been lost, but since then, I haven’t gone outside.
Not really, but the total lack of movie-studio polish — directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez filmed the whole thing as if it were a documentary shot with handheld cameras — underscored how much it could have been me with my pals out there in the woods, searching for a witch. Name: Tony Bravo Movie: “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” (1988) How old: 6
The story: As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of glamour-ghoul horror movie hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (a.k.a. Cassandra Peterson). I have a vivid memory from that era of watching Elvira wisecracking in character with Joan Rivers on her talk show, her punk-rock-meets-Morticia-Addams dress barely containing her. When I was 6, my parents finally let me see the full “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” movie on video after much pleading.
For all the film’s broad comedy, there were quite a few B-movie scares that kept me awake at night. A scene where Elvira is chased through a graveyard (in stilettos, no less) by a fire-shooting warlock was terrifying for a kindergartner. When she took off said stiletto and flung her heel into the warlock’s forehead, I let out a falsetto scream Edvard Munch would have been proud of. Needless to say, I didn’t look at my mother’s pumps the same way for weeks after.
In addition to being a good scare, it was a good lesson for me as a future editorial stylist: Never underestimate the power of the right shoes.
Name: Peter Hartlaub Movie: “The Shining” (1980) How old: 11 The story: My parents would never take me to a scary movie when I was a kid. But the early 1980s was a lawless time for video rental stores, and Burlingame Home Video was happy to rent a 90pounds-when-soaking-wet seventh-grader all manner of R-rated sex, horror and carnage.
I saw “Escape From New York,” “Caddyshack” and, most memorably, “The Shining,” which I wasn’t able to finish. The last frame I saw before calling it quits was Danny riding his Big Wheel through the Overlook Hotel, then running into the murdered ghost twins. “Come and play with us, Danny. Forever,
and ever … ” I was sure they were talking to me. While I didn’t finish that movie for another two decades, and still curl into a fetal position every time I turn the corner of a hotel hallway, I consider this a positive formative experience. At least the most terrifying movie experience of my life was created by a cinematic master like Stanley Kubrick. Name: Sam Whiting Movie: “The Nanny” (1965) How old: 10
The Story: I grew up in a suburban ranch house with lots of sliding glass doors that never locked properly. For some reason, “The Nanny” was deemed suitable for kids’ afternoon TV. My sister and I were always home alone. There were no babysitters, which was a good thing once I saw what they could do to you.
Bette Davis played an English nanny, and the boy she was out to kill was my age exactly. I can still see her, caught standing outside the boy’s bedroom. She was holding a pillow and acting innocent. But we knew what that pillow was for. I remember immediately going down the long halls of the house to try to get those sliding glass doors to lock. Name: Charles Desmarais Movie: “Mondo Cane” (1962) How old: 10
The story: I would go with my brother Tom, younger by a year, to kids’ matinees at what was probably a seedy theater (who knew then, or cared?). When we could get away with it, we hid between the rows to stay for the early show of the adult feature. We saw movies, many of them what we would have called “reruns,” that would have scandalized our mom: “Some Like It Hot” and “Carmen Jones” particularly stuck with me.
“Mondo Cane” is what the film website IMDb calls a “‘shockumentary’ consisting of a collection of mostly real archive footage displaying mankind at its most depraved and perverse, displaying bizarre rites, cruel behavior and bestial violence.” It is available free these days on YouTube, and it’s mostly pretty boring. But the opening scene of a small dog being paraded in front of a kennel full of much larger, viciously snarling and barking animals still has me cowering in my seat, and the yelping when the gates open and the poor creature is tossed into the cruel pack is a sound that has disturbed my dreams for decades.