By Stephanie Scaife
This is a story that I’ve told before, but it bears repeating. When we first got a VHS player in the mid-80s and I started frequenting the local video store, I was quickly seduced by the lurid covers of the horror section and the age restrictions that applied to these titles. I became obsessed with the idea that these films contained something that I wasn’t supposed to see, that there could be something so awful and disturbing that I’d have to wait ten plus years to find out… it was all just too much for my seven year old brain, fuelled by every possible horrible thing I could think of that might be contained in titles such as Chopping Mall, Creepers and Ghoulies. Just thinking about what they could be about made me scared, but also extremely curious.
One of the most popular playground games at around this time (at my school anyway) involved re-enacting scenes from Robocop. I’m sure an older sibling was responsible somewhere along the line, but someone had seen the film and everyone quickly became desperate to be Robocop in the game. Unfortunately for me as the only girl willing to play along, I was usually cast as the victim that Robocop saves from would-be attackers by shooting the guy between the legs, through the woman’s skirt. Of course through much exaggeration and Chinese whispers, what I heard second-hand about Robocop made it out to be the most unbelievably violent film ever made, which just made me want to see it even more. Similar games popped up around A Nightmare on Elm Street and that ilk; it’s crazy to imagine such a thing today where instead of a film being verboten you can just watch it online or on your smartphone.
My young mind swam with imagined horrors, often way worse than any film ever turned out to be and soon my fascination took on the form of nagging my mother. I was unrelenting. I just had to know what was on these video tapes that I’d heard about in the playground and had been hypnotised by in the video store, which often felt sort of illicit in itself, just looking at them. Eventually she caved, and in her infinite wisdom decided the best tactic would be to rent something terrible to throw me off the scent, believing that if I was bored or unimpressed then I’d give up on my mission to watch every horror film in the store. So, what did she rent in a bid to persuade me that my fascination was unfounded? It was The Howling III: The Marsupials. This movie is awful, there’s no two ways about it, but of course I absolutely loved it! That’s where it all began and there was no going back after that. Of course, if something particularly horrible was coming up, my mum would instruct me to go to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea or some other distraction. I was undeterred though and from that day on I have ploughed my way through every horror film, anything that’s sparked any sort of controversy and anything that’s just sort of weird I could get my hands on. It’s a love that as lasted more than twenty five years and shows no signs of slowing.
I miss the anticipation though: reading about movies in magazines or seeing clips on TV and of having to really seek something out that you wanted to see. Another early example of my interest in things I wasn’t supposed to see was when moving to the States aged 13 – the first thing on my to-do list was to head to Blockbuster and rent everything that had been banned in the UK. This included A Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and A Clockwork Orange. This was an odd experience as I mostly just discovered that they were really good movies, not some awful vision guaranteed to promote moral decay (which is what I’d imagined them to be). I’m glad that as a child there was still an element of the unknown, and that ultimately is what I have to thank for my lifelong interest in the horror genre and counter culture as a whole. Perhaps it wouldn’t have sparked my imagination to such an extent if it had been as easy as tracking down controversial or banned cinema today (which let’s face it, we all did with A Serbian Film and Grotesque).
Realising that I was actually a fairly sensible kid who knew that movies weren’t real life, as I grew up my mum was intrinsic in introducing me to firm favourites like David Cronenberg, David Lynch, John Waters… she even took me to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show live on stage for my eighth birthday! If that isn’t top parenting, then I don’t know what is. Now I’m not saying you should show The Brood to your ten year old – I was just pretty self-aware and precocious from a young age. Most kids dreamed of becoming doctors or lawyers, but all I wanted to be was Rick Baker.
What I soon found out, though, was that what I had imagined was oftentimes not so much the reality and whilst there were (and still are) many films I saw that I loved, there were very few that scared me. The films that really left a lasting impression, that truly were the stuff of nightmares, were not the Hellraisers or the Friday the 13th movies… it was movies that were actually aimed at children that scared the bejeezus out of me!
Here are the films that had the biggest, longest lasting impact on my subconscious. Tapping into something, more often than not it was the idea of a child in peril, it’s perhaps those first introductions to something tangibly relatable that terrified me the most. So whereas monsters and demons and decapitations didn’t faze me, a lost or vulnerable child almost certainly did…
Although the whole of Alice in Wonderland is actually pretty weird and creepy, it was the angry blue caterpillar that really scared me. I’m not entirely sure why but I had recurring nightmares for years about him. Who… are… you?
Even though Labyrinth was a firm favourite of mine growing up and David Bowie’s skin tight leggings were almost single handily responsible for my sexual awakening, I was completely freaked out by the Fireys and the fact that they wanted to take Sarah’s head off!
The final chapter in this portmanteau movie where a young Drew Barrymore battles against a troll scared me so much that I would check my skirting boards every night before bed, making sure that there were no tiny troll sized doors. It’s also why I insisted on having the cat sleep with me, just to be on the safe side.
2. Various Public Information Films from the 1980s
Looking back through these, it was amazing just how many from the late 80s and early 90s were cemented in my subconscious. I particularly remembered the football one where the kids are electrocuted. I certainly never went anywhere near a pylon ever again.
Now, this scared the absolute crap out of me… so much so that I literally didn’t sleep for months. I would keep my eyes tight closed listening intently for any unfamiliar sound, just in case the sandman would come and pluck my outs out during the night!