Video Store Horrors.
Behold, the Ghoulies videocassette box. How it frightened and flustered me, yet filled me with so much wonder.
As a wee little kid in our neighborhood’s first video score, I’d spy that toilet monster on a weekly basis, afraid to look at him but always looking at him.
I was there for Disney tapes and nothing but Disney tapes, so even if my mother would’ve let me rent a horror movie at that age, it was the furthest thing from my mind. Still, the boxes always intrigued me, because back in an era when so many horror video releases saw little-to-no time in theaters, the box art needed to be intriguing. Often enough, that was how they made their first impressions.
Since I only had the box art to go on, I assumed that horror movies were so much “worse” (gory, violent, etc.) than they actually were. In the case of Ghoulies, I’ve since seen the movie more than a dozen times, and while it certainly wouldn’t have been suitable for the four-year-old version of me, it’s far from the two straight hours of absolute mental torture that Kid Matt imagined.
So, tonight’s questions for you:
1) Did any VHS boxes put serious fear in your heart as a kid? (Bonus points if that fear was unwarranted.)
2) Did spying horror movies at video stores leave you with any screwy opinions about the genre, or the people who loved it?
3) Last night we talked about the first horror movies we remembered seeing. But do you remember the first one you ever rented?
First Horror Movies?
Tonight’s survey, should you choose to participate:
What were some of the first horror movies you ever saw?
What effects did they have on you?
I’ll have to give this some thought, but mine may have been the original Halloween. As mentioned on one of our recent podcasts, my sister watched it on some long ago night when she was ostensibly babysitting me, but really just existing in the same space.
I have no idea why I decided to join her, but minutes after I did, she retired to her bedroom for another of her classic hourlong phone calls, leaving me on the couch with nothing but dim lighting and Michael Fucking Myers. I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t even turn off the television.
It was an awful feeling, but one I’d pay (and in fact, have paid) good money to feel as an adult.
Cryptozoology.
Tonight’s survey is all about CRYPTIDS.
You know, creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Those guys. The ones that have cute nicknames even if they eat people.
My questions to you:
1) Which cryptid is/was your absolute favorite?
2) As a kid, which one(s) did you 100% believe in?
3) Were there any cryptids close enough to home for you to consider a local monster?
Here are my answers, hastily written because I’m racing against the clock tonight:
1) I grew up as a Loch Ness Monster fanatic, but these days I’m all about yetis. Specifically the more cartoony versions that aren’t at all accurate if you believe the stories. (Basically, picture Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, but as an albino.)
2) As a kid I believed pretty much all of them. I may have been skeptical about ghosts and space aliens, but cryptids rarely seemed implausible. The most famous examples have since been outed as hoaxes, but for a long stretch, I completely bought the idea of sasquatches in forests and relict plesiosaurs in Scottish lochs.
3) I don’t live in Jersey, but it’s close enough for me to count the Jersey Devil as part of my home team.
Your turn!
Spooky Video Games!
Can I just say how blown away I’ve been by the great responses to the surveys, here? Way to run with the ball, guys. We’re still ironing out some functional/visual kinks with Dino Drac After Dark, but even as we do, thanks for proving that this was a concept worth trying!
Tonight’s topic: SPOOKY VIDEO GAMES.
Which ones were/are your favorites? Which ones legitimately creeped you out? Tell your fellow creatures of the night, in the comments!
As for me, any regular reader has probably picked up on the fact that I’m not a modern gamer by any stretch. And when I say “modern,” I pretty much mean the past 20 years. If it’s not a Smash Bros. game or some bullshit on Facebook, there’s a strong chance that I’ve never played it.
Still, I must admit that the first Resident Evil seriously freaked me out. I never got very far in it — certainly not far enough to hit any of its big moments — but just the whole design of that game, even from the very start, felt like a living horror movie.
I have much stronger feelings about older horror games, namely Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Castlevania, both for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Relive ‘em with these two walkthrough videos, crafted by people who are much better at video games than I’ll ever be.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins is notoriously hard, but since I kinda sucked at all video games, I’m not sure I ever even realized that it was inordinately difficult. The graphics are cartoony by today’s standards, but there’s still something so sincerely Halloweenish about those monsters. I look at them, and all I remember is drawing spooky pictures on construction paper with two markers and five broken crayons. That was yesterday.
Castlevania is more famous and held in higher esteem, and was clearly the superior game. I didn’t get the cartridge until it was completely out of style, so my fondest Castlevania memories are of going to my best friend’s house for sleepovers that consisted of me, him and his big brother trying to beat their game all through the night. Back before we watched horror movies, Castlevania was our surrogate.
Your turn! In the comments, talk about your experiences with spooky video games from the past and present!
