SILLY movies that TERRIFIED us as kids...

[GeeWhiz]

OK, so I'm older than most of you here, but here are three that got to me.

Werewolf (1956)

The Blob (1958)

Tarantula (1955)

 I saw "Werewolf" first run theatrical release with "War of the Worlds".  Also, "The Blob" was seen in the theater.  I saw "Tarantula" later on TV on a midnight movie.  Basically, I saw them all before I was a teenager and they had me hiding behind the seats.  Now they seem awfully silly.

[Bargle5]

I caught this one recently on TCM. "The Monster That Challenged the World". Giant water caterpillars start killing people around the Salton Sea. Scared me good as a 10 year old. Now it just seems to be an average b-movie.

[Susan]

Something that freaked me out for years was a show I saw, all I remember was there was a very big tarantula in a bedroom of a house or something..I mean it was HUGE. I think it devoured a lady but ever since then I couldn't shake the image of giant spiders in my room when i turned out teh lights. The only thing I really wish I knew was what show it was off of. I used to watch all the old shows like "Twilight Zone" (which i'm sure it wasn't), ALfred HItchcock ), Night Gallery, etc etc. All the old shows (and ones that stirred up in the 80's) tho from memory I feel like this was an older show...not 80's, possibly black and white. Another one I remember was a man who arrived at someones house who disliked him I guess, maybe he was wealthy. In any case he placed some kind of earwig thing in his ear and explained to him in time how it would grow and grow..i guess feeding on his brain. Again, I probably slept with the protective shield of my blanket over me from spiders and my fingers in my ears..lol  Fear the earwig! That one I am sure was color, coulda been Night Gallery. Unsure, never much see some of those programs on anymore

[Cullen]

Susan Says:

"Another one I remember was a man who arrived at someones house who disliked him I guess, maybe he was wealthy. In any case he placed some kind of earwig thing in his ear and explained to him in time how it would grow and grow..i guess feeding on his brain. Again, I probably slept with the protective shield of my blanket over me from spiders and my fingers in my ears..lol Fear the earwig! That one I am sure was color, coulda been Night Gallery."

Not only could it be, it is Night Gallery .  The episode is called, I think, "Boomerrang"

[Susan]

Ah, thanks! Can only remember parts of it now as it's been years. Night Gallery was i guess the dark side of Serling but I enjoyed it. Can't figure out why no channel has picked it up to rerun, none that I have anyhow. I wouldn't mind seeing it. Shows that came around in the 80's never did it for me. I mean there were a couple of the "new twilight zone" episodes I admittedly like. For instance the one where they go back in time (before man) and accidentally kill a single butterfly which inevitably sets off a chain reaction of events so when the guy returns to present day it's completely different. I think hitler must have won the war or something. The other one was where a guy (not sure if his wife was included) wakes up between seconds and finds out that each second is paused and people come out of nowhere and replace everything. Kind of explains why car keys and socks always get lost.

[Cullen]

Night Gallery appears on the Encore Mystery Channel here in the US.  I remember it as being very bad, but I caught a few episodes recently and found it wasn't as terrible as I thought.  Must of caught a couple of bad ones, is all.

[Mofo Rising]

Cullen wrote:
>
> Night Gallery appears on the Encore Mystery Channel
> here in the US.  I remember it as being very bad, but I
> caught a few episodes recently and found it wasn't as
> terrible as I thought.  Must of caught a couple of bad ones,
> is all.

"They're DOGS!!!  AND THEY'RE PLAYING POKER!!!!!!!"

[Lee]

Does anyone else find that song or whatever "The Cat Came Back" disturbing. Really gave me the creeps. Hell, I still feel weird when I think about it!

[Susan]

re: "The cat came bacK'. First guy who took the cat lived, but the second guy who tried to blow it up and I think that p**sed the cat off and he was blown up himself, after that the cat had a grudge. Next poor bastard plummeted to the earth from miles up in the air. After that we have a mass body count with the train accident. Even his own kittens met their demise. Anyone see movie potential here? ;-)

[John]

>In any case he placed some kind of earwig thing in his ear and explained to him
>in time how it would grow and grow..i guess feeding on his brain. Again, I
>probably slept with the protective shield of my blanket over me from spiders and
>my fingers in my ears..lol Fear the earwig! That one I am sure was color, coulda

 Hehe. Funny you should mention this as recently, I've killed several earwigs in the house. Luckily the story about them entering people's ears at night is just a myth. By the way, the Night Gallery episode went like this; The guy paid to have an earwig put in his enemy's ear where it would supposedly burrow through his brain and come out the other side. It gets placed in HIS ear by accident and as it makes its way through his brain, he does a lot of screaming. Finally, it comes out and he's proud that he survived. Then an expert in insects tells him that it was a female and that her egg sack is empty, meaning it laid eggs in his brain. :)

>there were a couple of the "new twilight zone" episodes I admittedly like.

 Me too. First was To See the Invisible Man, where a man is sentenced to be 'invisible' for a year, meaning everyone has to ignore him no matter what. Then there was the one with a weapons expert being thawed out in the future to help destroy a threat from space. Unfortunately, the second one is drastically cut to fit the half hour syndication length. Finally, there was an episode made for syndication called The Cold Equations, based on a short story of the same name. It was about a young girl who stowed away on an emergency medical courier ship only to discover that her extra weight will cause the ship to crash, killing not only her and the pilot, but all the people waiting for the medicine. In the end, the only solution is for her to sacrifice herself. This was also made into a SFC movie that went on way too long and had all sorts of unnecessary subplots.

>Night Gallery appears on the Encore Mystery Channel here in the US.

 Do they air the original hour long episodes, or the butchered half hour ones?

[Susan]

>>Then an expert in insects tells him that it was a female and that her egg sack is empty, meaning it laid eggs in his brain. :)<<


ahhhhhhhhh!

Btw, do earwigs only climb in your ears in the day? They don't call em earwigs for nuthin! Probably the show got to me because when I was 3 I went swimming and got an earwig, screaming pain. No eggs tho.

The New twilight zone never had that "twist", where at the end it often grabbed you..being morbid or eerie..or ironic. It wasn't just that it was in color, it was the new generation of writers that just didn't have it. It spewed out a few good episodes tho. But I can't remember them all. I probably would get them mixed up with shows like "Tales from the darkside" and all that since they all had that same feel and look to them.


Wish I had access to the channel that shows night gallery!
I have to say one thing for the 80's, i was a teen and in love with the weekend lineup. I could sit up and watch twilight zone, night gallery, tales from the darkside, hitchcock..in one sitting and then elvira and the b-movies (can't even find b-movies on tv, I even miss Joe Bobs show that was cancelled recently..sigh) I'm the kid who flipped through the tv guide getting excited over movies like "Alligator" coming on. Now I have 500 channels and none of them shows  b movies! Even teh spanish channel shows recent stuff with adam sandler ;-/

[John]

>Btw, do earwigs only climb in your ears in the day? They don't call em earwigs
>for nuthin! Probably the show got to me because when I was 3 I went swimming
>and got an earwig, screaming pain. No eggs tho.

 As far as I know, they're not supposed to enter ears any more than any other bug. They're mostly interested in plants and are considered a pest. At least that's what all the stuff I read on them says (I was looking for advice on getting rid of them).

>I have to say one thing for the 80's, i was a teen and in love with the weekend
>lineup.

 Me too. In this area one channel out of New York used to have theme weeks each day at like 3 or 4pm. They'd show a week of horror movies, a week of Godzilla movies, a week of SF movies etc. Then there was the CBS latenight movie, which often aired strange old movies like The Manitou, The Spell, The Strange & Deadly Occurance etc.

 Now except for an occasional prime time movie, which is always recent, none of the channels show movies except on the weekends and even then they're mostly recent, sandwiched between the various syndicated shows. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of first-run syndication, but I wish the channels would show old movies. It's sad that the pay channels are more likely to show old movies than regular stations now. And old series only get shown on specialty channels. :(

[Susan]

>>Now except for an occasional prime time movie, which is always recent, none of the channels show movies except on the weekends and even then they're mostly recent, sandwiched between the various syndicated shows. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of first-run syndication, but I wish the channels would show old movies. It's sad that the pay channels are more likely to show old movies than regular stations now. And old series only get shown on specialty channels<<

The more channels you get, the less you get to watch. I mean I remember back when I had 7 stations. And it was sheer madness deciding what I wanted to see. "the blob", "twilight Zone", "the blob" or.......ahhhhhh! So you sit there with your hand on the knob (yes kiddies..we had knobs!) flipping back and forth, knowing station signoff was in just a few hours and you'd be left alone...in the dark.

I miss the days of bad movie lineups, lots of shows exploiting horror and the grotesque and bizarre. I miss station signoff and knowing you'd have to be patient. I miss saturday morning cartoons (mainly because you had to wait ALL WEEK to watch cartoons..they weren't on 24 hours a day, so it made you crazy!). I miss days when movies were long and commercials were few. I miss popcorn saturday nights when you always knew there was going to be something good on the tube and you could get your jiffy pop out. Now it's 500 stations of muck, no real good movies - just adam sandler flicks. You can find old movies, just real old ones from the 30's, but you try..just try to find movies from 1955-1983 on any given night! Commercials that are 8 minutes long and every 10 minutes into the movie. Cartoons on 24 hours a day..but ones that nobody cares about! Where's Hercules! Where's the classics. What's really more detrimental for our kids? "Terrorvision" or "The Bachelor"

susan
http://www.geocities.com/smvgrey
(dear god who the hell is making "Men in black" win my poll?)

[Cullen]

Once, in ancient times, when I was visiting my grandmother in Arizona, one of the channels did a marathon of Godzilla and Gamera movies.  24 hours.  I miss that day.
__________________________________________________________________________
Back on topic: I was once terrified by Yog: The Space Amoeba.  I was very, very young.

[John]

>I miss the days of bad movie lineups, lots of shows exploiting horror and the
>grotesque and bizarre. I miss station signoff and knowing you'd have to be

 Yup, although I never knew that many of those old movies were missing major portions. For example, a few years ago, I got to see The Creeping Flesh on Cinemax and it had tons of scenes I don't remember seeing on my local channel. I just recall his daughter getting infected, going crazy and being locked up. I don't remember them ever showing the scenes where she tries to seduce everyone in the bar. Also, The Blood on Satan's Claw was missing quite a bit.

>patient. I miss saturday morning cartoons (mainly because you had to wait ALL
>WEEK to watch cartoons..they weren't on 24 hours a day, so it made you crazy!). I

 I miss the various live-action shows they used to have. Land of the Lost (not the crappy remake), Space Academy, Jason of Star Command, Ark II, Skatebirds and even Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

>I miss days when movies were long and commercials were few. I miss popcorn

 Yup.

>saturday nights when you always knew there was going to be something good
>on the tube and you could get your jiffy pop out. Now it's 500 stations of muck, no

 Never had Jiffy Pop, but I recall watching lots of horror movies that scared the crap out of me. Like one about them finding the armor of some giant spanish warrior and then the giant was supposedly roaming around (I forget if you ever actually see it or not), The Things that Wouldn't Die, where they find a buried, severed head that's still alive and it controls people to dig up his body. Curse of the Faceless Man, about a body that was covered in lava at Pompeii and it comes to life to carry off a woman that reminds him of his dead love etc.

>real good movies - just adam sandler flicks. You can find old movies, just real
 
 Well, I kind of liked Billy Madison. Didn't care for the rest.

>given night! Commercials that are 8 minutes long and every 10 minutes into the

 Tell me about it! I've taped a couple shows on MTV (behind the scenes of movies etc), and I paused it on the commercials only to have the 5 minute pause limit run out!

 There was a local channel that went on the air in the late 80's here and at first they showed almost all older movies and the commercial breaks were like 45-90 seconds. Now they're a UPN affiliate and show the same crap every other channel does.

>movie. Cartoons on 24 hours a day..but ones that nobody cares about! Where's
>Hercules! Where's the classics. What's really more detrimental for our

 Or Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, Fantastic Voyage, Star Trek, The Animated Series, The Herculoids, etc (as you can probably tell, my tastes run more toward SF).

 Even when a channel gets something fresh, they take it off right away. For example; when Fox took over the Family channel, they started showing an Australian series called Spellbinder II, Land of the Dragon Lord. It was a kids' show, but I'd seen the first one on Disney and liked it, so I started watching it. I was getting into it, and then they took it off right in the middle. (it was more like a serial than a series really). I sent them e-mail and they assured me that it would be back on the first quarter of 2000 (I think). They *NEVER* put it back on. I can't even trade for copies over the net, because they'd be in PAL and I'd have no way to play them. For a month or so, Fox was playing another Australian show in the afternoons called Round the Twist. Kids' show with a supernaturl element. They played each one once and then took it off. Fox took off Night Visions, a Twilight Zone type show after maybe 8-9 epsiodes. SFC put it on, played 3 episodes and took it off to show repeats of The Dead Zone, their USA show! :(