Stuff That Scared the **** Outa Me

[the_gneech]

Speaking of Space: 1999, one of my most vivid memories of the show is of a betentacled monster that sucked people up and spat out charred husks. (Interestingly enough, that same episode was mentioned at the "Horror In Gaming" panel we sat in at Dragon*Con.) I found the monster again last night on the Space: 2099 site, and unlike many things from my childhood, it still holds up. Click on the "Summary" link to see the thing in all its SAN-loss inducing horror — and remember this was a TV show made in the 1970s, with no CGI and a budget of a few thousand dollars. Holy cow!

Also, The Thing From Another World. Neither Frankenstein nor Dracula ever scared me, but The Thing sure did! Probably cause they set it on fire and it still kept coming!

Finally, Twilight Zone: The Grave. Unfortunately YouTube only seems to have the middle of the episode; and honestly, it's not like much actually happens — but I saw this episode as a kid late one night when I was sick and there was no light but the TV, and believe me, it was plenty scary.

I was going to link to various books of ghost stories that I wasn't allowed to check out from the school library but read anyway, but I've long forgotten most of the titles. At least half of them had "Alfred Hitchcock" in the name, tho...

-The Gneech

Comments

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

As a kid staying up late-late on Friday/Saturday nights, watching sci-fi/horror movies on our B&W TV, the one that spooked me the worst was "The Crawling Eye". (Check out Amazon.com for info) Great fun!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

The Crawling Eye (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydEfMehi5V4), you say? I may be familiar with that one... ;)

-TG

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Classic sci-fi cheese, indeed. };-)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

For that matter, start watching at around 9:45 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8whQrgkJtU)...

-TG

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Blast it! The clip ENDS right in the middle of the scene! (And yes, it does appear to be a take-off of "The Crawling Eye", all right...) };-)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Easy to fix! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9rbNuCvQfM&feature=related)

-TG

[the-mcp.livejournal.com]

No fooling -- that episode ("Dragon's Domain") freaked me right the hell out when I first saw it; I couldn't walk down a dark hallway, even in my own home, for years without occasionally getting the creeps and thinking that thing was right behind me...

...'course, I was only about six or seven when I first saw it (I was fortunate enough to be living in England at the time, so I got to see the episodes when they were first broadcast), so that undoubtedly explains why it had such a profound impression on my psyche. :) Even today, though, it still holds up pretty well. (Actually, quite a few of the 1st-season episodes do. 2nd season, not so much.)

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Holy cow. I still remember watching that episode for the first time. I was probably 11 or 12 and it scared the living crap out of me. I'm glad I wasn't the only one. I don't know what it was that really frightened me about that particular monster, but I do recall having trouble sleeping that night. Thinking about it still gives me a mild case of the creeps.

[the-mcp.livejournal.com]

Part of it, I'm sure, was that the monster and its victims were unusually gruesome for 1970s-era television, especially in the U.S. Had this story been done a few years earlier by an American sci-fi show like Star Trek or (god forbid) Lost in Space, the monster probably would have been done in a brighter, more cartoonish color scheme and either just vaporized its victims (nice and tidy, no dead body to disturb the viewers' sensibilities) or just drained them of blood / life energy / whatever (actor gasps, slumps to the floor, and plays dead).

Instead, we got something that looked rather disturbingly realistic due to the dark, richly-textured color scheme, and spat out smoking husks that looked exactly like a body that had been burned to death. It's amazing they even got it on the air at all back then!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall being more scared by the psychology of the threat — no matter how hard they fought it, the thing just sucked people up. I don't recall if it was in an open airlock causing the air to get sucked out, or it created some sort of vortex, or what, but the fact that people just couldn't stop themselves from throwing themselves into its tentacley maw was one of the things that terrified me most.

-TG

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

As I recall, the monster did have some sort of control over them, whether mind control or just some 'mental lure' that drew them in close enough to let it get hold with its tentacles. Seems that's when they'd really start fighting it and it'd pull them in.

That, plus the big glowing eye, kind of makes it reminiscent of an angler fish or whatever that deep sea fish are with that lure out in front of their mouth is.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

— and remember this was a TV show made in the 1970s, with no CGI and a budget of a few thousand dollars.

...and special effects by the team that Kubrick wanted to hire for 2001, on the basis of their puppet show. When Anderson turned Kubrick down, Stanley hired some of his staff away to do the FX. Brian Johnson later returned to design the Eagle for Space: 1999.

According to the Star Wars Origins site, Lucas told HIS FX team to "make it look as good as Space: 1999".

And, yes, I saw this episode when it first aired in the US back in '75. I was 11 at the time, and, yeah, it was more than a little freaky.

[cyberhorn.livejournal.com]

i was the same way about the dragon episode used to be super cautious opening doors and closets <..< O..o'

[barberio.livejournal.com]

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

That was intensely silly.

-TG

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

The first movie I can remember seeing that scared the crap out of me was the HammerHorror X..The Unknown (1956) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xk3vdAGdv4). This was the Blob two years before 'The Blob'. I remember it gave me nightmares.

But the one that still scares me to this day is Fail-Safe (1964) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSBHtk8Lj2Y). Not a scifi/monster thriller. A far scarier subject with a very VERY dark ending. Scarier still because it could really happen. The YouTube clip is truncated at the end... the crowd noise eventually turns into the high pitch whine.