Movies have been central to my life for literally as long as I can remember. I have vague hazy memories of a Hammer Horror film that make up some of my earliest recollections. But even with a lifetime of cinematic treasures there are sometimes moments that stand out for the experience that came to me in darkened theaters. Here is a small sampling, be aware these have spoilers.
Towering Inferno:
I saw this at the Sunrise theater in Ft. Pierce Florida with my friend Brian Hardman. Brian, a somewhat rebellious early teen lit up a cigarette and got us both thrown out. It was years before I learned how that finally put out the blaze.
Hereditary:
Ari Aster phenomenal horror movie of cults, witches, demon gods, and family dysfunction was a terrific film to see in the theater. The transition from Act 1 to Act 2, where Charlie is killed was so sudden, so shocking that for several minutes I convinced myself it was a dream sequence. It was not. Once the reality of the plot became undeniable I knew I was in the hands of a writer/director that was fearless and that made the rest of the film so much more terrifying.
Dead & Buried:
A non-traditional zombie movie, I saw Dead and Buried at one of the grindhouse theaters that used to exist in downtown San Diego. In the film a hapless photographer is lured by a beautiful woman to a secluded spot with a crowd of quite ordinary looking people who slaughter and burn him alive. His burned body is place in a staged auto accident but when authorities reach and touch the corpse, he screams. That remains in my opinion the most effective jump scare in cinema history.
Alien:
20th century films
Staying for scripts from Dan O’Bannon, I watched Alien on its initial release and it was then and remains an astonishing film. Slow deliberate tension that mounts and mounts. With that said I had an idiosyncratic reaction to the conclusion of the ‘chest buster’ scene. For most of the sequence where Cain dies his terrible and horrible death I sat as shocked as the rest of the audience. However, once the Zeta Reticulian parasite raised itself up from his corpse, looked around the compartment at the characters in my head all I could hear was a tiny high-pitched voice saying, “hello.’ It’s not that scene failed but rather I think my brain had simply overloaded and retreated to humor to deal with it.
