What scared you as a child? Most people grow out of childhood fears but its always interesting to revisit them and try to remember what it was like to truly be terrified by something we saw on TV or elsewhere. Its certainly not a feeling I’ve been able to experience since. As we grow up reason and clear heads usually prevail and beat our silly child hood fears into submission. So lets revisit our Childhood Nightmares…
Zombies! Nothing could scare me like a zombie could! For whatever reason the concept of the dead coming to life and the world as we know it coming to an end was terrifying to me and I’m sure many others. At the time I didn’t fully understand why, but, even a silly zombie movie could keep me up with nightmares for the night. Today I realize that it probably had more to do with the fact that life as I know it would end if such a thing as zombies, could occur. The comforts of life would be no more as we boarded up our houses to defend from zombie attacks. Having a creature after you that just wants to tear you apart and eat you is a terrifying concept and it was one that haunted my childhood mind. Today zombie movies and even TV shows have so saturated our culture that they are becoming mainstream. It sounds good now but something tells me we’ll all be sick to death of zombies by this time next year.
The movie that absolutely terrified me the first time I watched it was Return of the Living Dead. I know, your saying “But that was a funny zombie movie”. I know but hear me out here. Dan O’Bannon’s humorous take on the zombie stories played that the story of Night of the Living dead was real, that it really happened in some small town somewhere and the government covered it up. The chemical that caused the dead to come back was shipped across country and somehow one of the barrels got delivered to Uneeda Medical supply where two blue collar guys are working late. Its Freddie’s first day on the job and the older Frank is showing him the ropes. In a rather spooky scene Frank tells Freddie the whole story of the mis-delivery of the dead raising chemical. He even goes so far as to show Freddie the barrel in the basement. Of course it leaks and begins spewing out its zombie gas all over the place and before you know it the area is overrun with the dead.
Watching it today the film is very funny and is intended to be a satire of zombie films. However to my 8 year old mind the movie was pretty terrifying. The zombies ran after their victims which was something I had never seen up until this point., The zombies were smart enough to call for more paramedics on a radio at one point which made me laugh and scared me at the same time. At one point they barricaded survivors capture and strap down a dessicated female torso who tells the group that eating brains is the only thing the stops the pain of rotting. It was nightmare fuel for my childhood mind but I still loved the movie even though it terrified me.
The sequel was apparently made with kids in mind. The Hero of the movie is a 10 year old boy and I remember loving it as a child. Kids like to see Kids as the hero of films and I was no different. I look back at that film now and can’t believe how weird it it is that they made a R rated horror film with a 10 year old boy as the lead. The movie was toned down from the first film but still it was too bloody for that PG or PG13 rating. Interesting Side note the director of ROTLD2 also directed the Nazi Zombie classic SHOCKWAVES! Which is worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it.
Today Zombie movies are still can occasionally inspire a good nightmare from time to time but these days I actually like it when that happens…
