4.17.2005
ten things that once terrified me
(*** indicates things that still do)
10. the high dive.
9. what would happen to my body if i drank enough jolt colas in a row.
8. that thing that crawls into that dude's ear in wrath of khan. it's still gross. (oh stop pretending you don't know what i'm talking about...)
7. the film version of whitley strieber's communion-- which i still have not seen to this day. its sheer existence was enough to bring on the willies. two of my closest friends growing up had parents who believed quite genuinely in alien abduction. this factor, overlapping with my already overactive imagination (as well as whatever psycho-sexual mumbo jumbo you are inevitably whipping up, dear reader), created a short-lived era in which i was totally terrified of aliens. then along comes this movie-- which is bad enough-- with christopher fucking walken in it, on top of it all.
*** 6. those weird, often patriotic segments they play when a t.v. station goes off the air for the night. cliche as it may be, nothing triggers that uncanny world-is-ending feeling quite like it. the fact that a signal meaning "no more t.v." has the power to unleash a primal sense of my own mortality is rendered no less visceral by its extreme and unforgivable banality.
5. the dance sequence from alice cooper's welcome to my nightmare video.
*** 4. the alien from meatballs II...
*** 3. when kids would wrap rubber bands around their fingers and make them turn purple.
2. two separate scenes from the 1984 film ice pirates:
A: the "time warp" sequence at the end, in which all of the characters start to age really rapidly
B: the scene where robert urich picks his nose and eats it.
*** 1. sex
10. the high dive.
9. what would happen to my body if i drank enough jolt colas in a row.
8. that thing that crawls into that dude's ear in wrath of khan. it's still gross. (oh stop pretending you don't know what i'm talking about...)
7. the film version of whitley strieber's communion-- which i still have not seen to this day. its sheer existence was enough to bring on the willies. two of my closest friends growing up had parents who believed quite genuinely in alien abduction. this factor, overlapping with my already overactive imagination (as well as whatever psycho-sexual mumbo jumbo you are inevitably whipping up, dear reader), created a short-lived era in which i was totally terrified of aliens. then along comes this movie-- which is bad enough-- with christopher fucking walken in it, on top of it all.
*** 6. those weird, often patriotic segments they play when a t.v. station goes off the air for the night. cliche as it may be, nothing triggers that uncanny world-is-ending feeling quite like it. the fact that a signal meaning "no more t.v." has the power to unleash a primal sense of my own mortality is rendered no less visceral by its extreme and unforgivable banality.
5. the dance sequence from alice cooper's welcome to my nightmare video.
*** 4. the alien from meatballs II...
*** 3. when kids would wrap rubber bands around their fingers and make them turn purple.
2. two separate scenes from the 1984 film ice pirates:
A: the "time warp" sequence at the end, in which all of the characters start to age really rapidly
B: the scene where robert urich picks his nose and eats it.
*** 1. sex
