October 2018

MALE MATTERS
Scariest movies just in
time for Halloween
by Elliot Goldenberg
The Shape of Water, which won an
Oscar this past year as Best Picture,
is a kind of love story that revolves
around a mute girl and a creature who,
for lack of a better description, is half
man and half fish.
To be honest, I didn’t see the movie but I
did see the trailer,
which made me
think of a truly
scary movie I
saw when I was
a little kid:
The Creature from the
Black Lagoon. There
were no Academy
Awards for this
Saturday matinee flick –
with one of filmdom’s great titles. But,
as I recall, the second feature on the
twin bill that day was something called
The Thing, with its monster, essentially
a giant plant, played by James Arness,
who would become famous, later on,
as Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.
Indeed, it was the greatest success story
for a bush not named George — even
surpassing that of Audrey the Talking
Plant in The Little Shop of Horrors.
So, now, as we get ready for Halloween,
I thought it would be a good time to
recall some of those frightening films
that contributed to my grey hair later
in life. Perhaps the scariest — possibly
because I was only six when I saw it –
was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,
about a ravenous dinosaur that made
Godzilla look like the Geico gecko. For
years afterwards I had nightmares about
being chased around my house by a
T-Rex intent on having me for lunch.
As for Godzilla himself, he became less
scary when, as a teenager, I realized that
he was essentially a puppet, kind of like
Kermit or Miss Piggy.
Scary dinosaurs had a huge comeback,
of course, when Steven Spielberg took
us to Jurassic Park. Years
earlier, a young Spielberg
had also introduced us to that
great white shark in Jaws.
Some say the most spinechilling
film ever made,
however, was The Exorcist. Who
can forget the possessed girl’s
head turning around 360 degrees
and that green slime? Tell me that you
didn’t scream. Actually, when it comes
to screaming, anything with a scream
queen, especially Jamie Lee Curtis, is
enough to have you hiding under your
seat at the theater. Then there’s Jason
and Freddie Kruger and that guy with
the needles sticking out of his head. He
looked something like me when I go see
my acupuncturist.
My Mount Rushmore of scary films,
meanwhile, has to include the classic
Dracula with Bela Lugosi, Frankenstein
with the legendary Boris Karloff, and The
Wolfman with Lon Chaney, Jr.
There are really too many scary movies
to count. The list has to include The
Fly – both the original with Vincent Price,
in which he had a human body and
a fly head, and the remake with Jeff
Goldblum. In case you haven’t noticed,
Jeff Goldblum, even with no make-up, in
fact looks like a fly.
Let’s also not forget The Wizard of Oz,
with those flying monkeys; Them, with
those giant ants; The Blob, with Steve
McQueen, and any movie with Chucky
in it.
Does anyone remember that flick in
which ventriloquist Anthony Hopkins
– way before he was Hannibal Lecter
– has a strange symbiotic relationship
with a murderous dummy? Truth be told,
there’s something about dummies that’s
a little weird anyway.
Then there’s also, of course, The Blair
Witch Project and any of a thousand
movies dealing with zombies. The
moral to this story is: you might want to
avoid zombies – especially flesh-eating
zombies – whenever you can. And by
all means – and this is important – stay
away from the Black Lagoon. P
54
OCTOBER 2018