If this doesn’t make your skin crawl, it’s on too tight

I think that is an appropriate title for this blog because today’s theme is scary things. Scary movies, and shows, and albums. The main reason I chose that specific title though, is because it is the tag line for my favourite horror movie of all time. A movie that the first time I watched it, at 2 in the morning, I got so scared and so paranoid that someone was in my house, that I almost had to turn it off.

Movie: Black Christmas

Now, this is not the movie that came out a few years ago around Christmas time, from the director of Final Destination. That was just an over the top, really dumb remake of this movie. The remake was soo bad that I laughed in the theatre. The gore was neat, I’ll give it that, if you’re in to that kind of stuff, the gory over the top bloody scenes. But back to the original.

The original was filmed in Canada, which is just another plus not only for the movie, being proudly Canadian, but I see it as a boost and a big plus to the films of Canada, since Canadian films usually get a really bad wrap for just being, well, not good. It is about a killer, whom is never seen, and we never find out anything about, who climbs into the attic of a sorority house, and starts to kill the girls living in the house. The girls don’t notice that people are missing in the house, because as the title alludes to, this movie takes place at Christmas. The girls just figure that they’ve gone home for Christmas. The only clue they have is that a stranger keeps calling them and saying lewd and disgusting things into the phone, and finishes off one of his calls with a death threat.

This movie is my favourite horror film because we don’t know anything about the killer. We only know that he is a guy who is killing these girls out of cold blood, and in very creepy ways, for what seems like for no reason. He has no Jason Voorhies, Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers background. He is just some messed up guy. On top of that, the fact that our homes are the places where we feel safe, where we feel secure. So to be thinking of a killer living in your attic while you are downstairs and unaware is just terrifying.

The other amazing thing is that this movie has every scene with the killer filmed from his point of view. This movie is where John Carpenter got the idea for Halloween, and having a first person view for the killer. In fact, John Carpenter loved this film a lot, and when he asked the director, Bob Clark, if he ever planned on doing a sequel, he said that he didn’t really want to do a sequel, let alone any more horror movies, but if he was going to he would have the killer escape from a mental institution at Halloween. Sound familiar everyone? But Bob Clark doesn’t mind that Carpenter ran with the idea, because he wasn’t going to do anything with it anyways.

Speaking of the director, he also directed another great Christmas classic: A Christmas Story. With Ralphie and the Red Rider BB gun. Yes, this man made not only the best Christmas horror movie, he made the best Christmas family movie.

Anyways, sorry I got a bit off track there, but I love filling people in when they think Halloween was the beginning of slasher films. But yes, the movie has such a great scary atmosphere and attaching a scary negative stigma to the one holiday where people try and think happy and feel love is just genious. So if you’re looking to watch an intense movie, with a creepy atmosphere, and that’ll have you checking your attic before bed, then check this movie out.

No for a TV show. Picking one out of the many creepy shows over the years was tough. But sometimes it’s good to go with the classics.

The Twilight Zone (The 50s and 60s version)

Now I’m not saying that these are some of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. As a kid who grew up in the nineties, had I been shown these episodes as a kid, I probably would have laughed. There are some episodes of The X Files, Millennium, Twin Peaks and Masters of Horror that just freak me out with their visuals. But where The Twilight Zone lacks in the visual scares, it makes up for in the psychological ones.

Thinking about the show in the era it took place, post World War 2 America, where everyone was afraid that their neighbours were damn commies, the time itself was scary enough. People weren’t as trusting as they had been, and this show really played off of that, just like how these days, a lot of shows play off of fear of people after 9/11.

A lot of episodes sort of dealt with “aliens among us” or being in your neighbourhood and trusting the people around you. Not only did it play off of social fears though, it played with people’s personal fears. Many episodes deal with just being inside one person’s head, or something only they can see, and the thought of being crazy is one that harrows and terrifies lots of people.

So while this show may not make you jump with it’s monsters and special effects (which, I’ll admit, are soo cheesy that they’re laughable these days), but the way it will make you think, and make you paranoid and make you realize fears you didn’t know you had, is why it tops my list.

Some episodes of note are: Nightmare at 20,000 feet (The one with William Shatner and the monster on the wing of an airplane (If you saw the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror where the gremlin is destroying the bus, it was an homage to this episode), Time Enough At Last (Where a man who loves to read finally has all the time he needs to finish his books), The Eyes Of The Beholder (One of the top favourites of Twilight Zone fans, about a woman undergoing surgery) as well as just a slew of others. They may not be jump out of your seat scary, but when you think about the episodes after you watch them, you’ll see what I mean.

Finally, for an album, this was a tough choice. There are 2 albums I own that when I listen to with all my lights off, they just give me goosebumps they’re so creepy. The first is the soundtrack for The Shining. The other one was this one.

Music: Suspiria Soundtrack

I bought the movie that this soundtrack is of on a whim. I had heard good things about the director, and it sounded like a cool concept (I’m sure I’ll review the movie at a later date) When I popped the movie in and turned up the volume, the score is what really got me scared. The music makes this movie what it is. It is very very creepy. It still creeps me out to listen to the whole album in the dark. The band who recorded the entire thing is named Goblin. They did the music for the original Dawn Of The Dead and other various horror movies. They are sort of a bizarre, techno electric metal band. They use some instruments in their music that I had never heard, let alone heard of, before I listened to this score. I didn’t know that instruments could make sounds like the ones that appear in these songs.

The opening track, called Suspiria, starts with a creepy techno synth sort of thing. Then it gets into creepy chanting that goes from quiet to loud and booming. The singer also starts just saying “La la la la la la la” but in this scary haunted doll house kind of sound. As the tracks go on, the music just gets more intense. istening to this with the lights off you just start to feel panicked, as it just gets really intense and loud to the point where you can’t think of anything that isn’t scary. It’s hard to describe entirely, but it is creepy, and if you’re in the mood to be scared, give it a listen.

After this blog, I’m gunna try and cut the length down as I am way over 500 words, but this one was just too good to not put up all as one big blog.