Horror All Night Long: the Joys of All-Night Drive-In Horror-thons

 

How one was first exposed to the joys and frights of Horror films has much to do with when that first exposure took place.  For those fortunate enough to be there at the beginning, their first taste of horror came in a theater, as the classic Universal Monsters first thrilled audiences.  If that initial experience happened in the late 1950s, then in all likelihood it came in the form of a local Horror Host, airing twenty-year-old cheesy movies to a late-night weekend audience, while dressed in a goofy outfit and doing his best to sound like Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi [any resemblance to a certain Vampire Count of my acquaintance is purely a coincidence].  And to those of us who spent our formative years in the 1960s and ‘70s patronizing the local Drive-In Theater, there was a regular ritual in which we took part at least once a season, often once a month.  That’s when, apart from the routine Friday or Saturday night visits to our favorite ozoner, we would indulge in the All-Night Horror Movie Marathon, or Horror-thon.

Often used as a way to package films too played out for a regular run, even for easy-to-please Drive-In crowds, the Horror-thon was just another example of the need exhibitors had to wring every possible cent out of their venues, especially in the troubled decade of the ‘70s.  The decline of the Drive-In was well underway by the middle of the decade, exacerbated by the 1974 OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo, and the resultant Energy Crisis, which had a profound effect on all industries dependent upon the American love affair with the Automobile, Drive-In theaters included. 

Another cause of the industry’s poor health, though still in nascent form, was the growing Home Video revolution.  While the battle still raged between VHS and Betamax to determine which format would become dominant, there was no longer any doubt that home video was the wave of the future, and that the ability for consumers to own copies of their favorite films, for them to enjoy in the privacy and comfort of their own homes, and at their convenience, would strike a severe blow to motion picture exhibitors at every level of the industry.  In order to fight back, theaters in general, and ozoners in particular, had to constantly strive to give the consumer more bang for their buck, and in so doing were faced with ever shrinking profit margins.  Keeping their establishments going all night long, while screening cheaply-acquired films that would bring in a guaranteed audience, was an economically safe bet.

However, the youthful Unimonster was blissfully ignorant of the socio-economic motivations behind these all-night fright-fests.  When I was a ten-year-old Horror fanatic, voraciously devouring everything I could in the way of monsters and scary movies, these dusk-to-dawn bacchanalias of terror were a godsend, an easy way for this young MonsterKid to feast upon the latest and greatest Low-Budget Horror available.

The first time I saw Night of the Living Dead was at just such a festival of fear and the same holds for such classics as Blood Feast, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Movies as diverse as The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, Shriek of the Mutilated, and both Dr. Phibes films were screened for my eager enjoyment at such events, as were a panoply of Hammer’s finest Horrors, the titans of Toho, and the sexy, sensational, salacious Horrors from France, Spain, and Italy.

One might be inclined to say that I was on the young side for viewing many of these films, and I would, of course, be forced to agree.  However, I was blessed with an older sister possessed of three great attributes: a vehicle with a spacious trunk, a susceptibility to a little sibling bribery and/or blackmail, and rather liberal attitudes on just what constituted appropriate viewing for her younger brothers.  Suffice it to say that, the MPAA ratings notwithstanding, even as a ten-year-old I managed to see whatever I wished.

Today, in the age of streaming media, round-the-clock movie channels, and video-on-demand, the notion of sitting in one’s car overnight, to watch movies on an outdoor screen, in the company of squadrons of mosquitoes seems rather quaint—if not completely ludicrous.  And that’s sad, really.  Because those of us who shared the joys of warm summer nights under the stars, watching blood-spattered images flicker across the screen, gained so much more than just the movies we watched. 

We gained the indelible memories of how we watched them—and fell in love with Horror films for the first time.

How to be a Monsterkid in the 1970s, or The Fine Art of Blackmailing your Sister

 

For those unfamiliar with the term “Monsterkid,” and to be fair, that’s likely to be anyone under the age of fifty, it denotes those of us fortunate enough to have done the following: lived our formative years in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s; spent our disposable income on Famous Monsters magazines, Aurora’s Monster model kits, Horror comic books, and Monster movie matinees; and to have received our education from late-night Creature Features and Drive-In Horror marathons.  The first was a matter of fortuitous timing on the part of my Mother and Father.  The second may be ascribed to my general lack of thrift and the proximity of the local 7-11, Pic ‘n’ Save, and the Regency Square Twin Theater.  The last, however—the last took some work on my part.

In the 1970s, these were the Spanish Quarter Apartments, where a young Unimonster called Home.

Not the Creature Features, thankfully.  No, that was easy.  Though the local station that had the early ‘70s version of the Shock Theatre package had dispensed with a host for the movies, I didn’t care.  I eagerly poured over the TV Guide each week, making note of the Horror films on the schedule—and in the early 1970s, there were plenty.  But the week revolved around the Friday night Creature Feature.  That’s where I first met Dracula, and Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Mummy Kharis—both Universal and Hammer versions.  It’s how I came to love Giant Bugs, Zombies, and Charlie Chan.  It was Monsterkid manna from Heaven.

For newer movies however, or movies that couldn’t be aired on television in the early 1970s, there were two options available—the Regency Square Twin Theater, with two, count ‘em, TWO, screens, and the Drive-Ins, of which we had two to choose from, depending on the movies that were playing. 

Regency Square was where we went every Wednesday in the summer for the Kiddie Shows.  It’s where our parents would take us to see family-friendly, age-appropriate movies—in short, nothing I wanted to see.  The Regency was safe, it was supervised, either by our parents, or, if we were dropped off to see a movie on our own, by the theater staff.  It was where I had to sit through Herbie the Love Bug, and Pippi Longstocking.  It was also where I first saw Star Wars, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  And it was where, on a July day in 1975, I stood on line for three hours to see the movie that forever ended my love of swimming in the ocean.

The problem with the Regency, however, was that I couldn’t see the movies I really wanted to see there.  Even if we went without our parents in attendance, there was always some adult nearby to say, “NO!”  “No, that movie is rated R; no, that movie is too scary for kids; no, and do your parents know you’re here?”  It doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it just takes a bunch of adults to act like adults, and treat kids like kids.

If the Regency represented structure, and control, and discipline, then the Drive-In represented the polar opposite.  The Drive-In was freedom, and chaos, and hedonism—at least, it was to a pre-teen Unimonster.  The problem was getting there.  It was a Drive-In; we couldn’t simply be dropped off.  That was compounded by the fact that one went to the Drive-In at night; even in the far more permissive ‘70s, our parents weren’t going to let us roam free once the sun set.  Heathens we may have been, but we weren’t neglected heathens.  And our parents did not do the Drive-In.

And so it fell to my eldest sister, Wanda Susan, to facilitate our trips to the Drive-In.  Mom would give her money—$10 or so—for our admission and for food from the concession stand for our supper or snacking.  It would be Wanda, and I, our younger brother Mark Edward, and usually our cousin Andy.  Andy’s mother Dottie would frequently accompany us, as she and Wanda were close in age and often hung out together.  At a dollar a head, it didn’t leave much in the way of cash for food, but enough for a hot dog, some popcorn, and a coke for each of us.  In theory, and if all went as Mom expected it to.  In actual practice, however, that was seldom the case.

As soon as we were out of the driveway, Wanda wasted no time telling us how it would be.  Forget the hot dogs and popcorn.  We were going to pick up Dottie and Andy, then stop at the closest 7-11 to the Drive-In, where us kids would get a 15¢ bag of chips (always Wise’s Onion and Garlic for me) and a 10¢ Coke.  Then it was into the trunk for the three of us for the trip through the Drive-In’s front gate.  Once parked, it was out of the trunk and onto a blanket in front of the car; sitting inside was reserved for Wanda, Dottie, and any friends they might meet up with at the Drive-In.  Of course, Wanda pocketed the money she saved by not buying our dinner, or paying for us at the gate.  To be honest, we really didn’t mind—in our minds it was an adventure, and we were excited at the idea of putting something over on the adults, parents included.

If there was a drawback, at least in the first few such trips, it was that Wanda chose the movie we would see.  I found that particularly annoying, as her tastes in movies did not correspond to my own, not to mention the fact that they seldom watched the movie anyway.  They were too busy talking, laughing, gossiping, and, being true children of the ‘60s, indulging in a little forbidden weed.  It didn’t take too many such excursions for me to recognize the inherent opportunities for some harmless sibling extortion.

And so a deal was struck.  We would continue to tolerate the snacks on the cheap and the trunk rides to the Drive-In, and in exchange we would go see whatever movie I wanted to see.  Mom and Dad would remain blissfully ignorant of her lack of supervision, her misappropriation of funds, and her “recreational” activities, and I would see the best of ‘70s Horror and Exploitation film.  Over the next few years, we would see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Feast, Night of the Living Dead, Sugar Hill, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, A Bay of Blood, Blacula, Two Thousand Maniacs—and Naughty Stewardesses.  Hey, Man does not live by Horror alone.

I know that I’ve written previously on this topic, of how my sister Dee Karen introduced me to Horror films at a young age, and fostered my growing love for the genre, a love that continues to grow to this day.  I’ve related how my sister Wanda Susan did her part to encourage that love, unwittingly and perhaps unwillingly, as the case may be.  But I think it bears repeating.  No one springs fully formed from the womb; we are all products of our experiences and influences, be they positive or negative.  I have been blessed with wonderful siblings, including two older sisters who have had a profound influence on my life.  Both of them, each in her own way, played a huge part in their baby brother Johnny growing up to be the Unimonster.  And for that, I love them both dearly.

Halloweens, Past and Present

Adults measure time in dates… the date your mortgage payment is due each month, the date of your next physical, the date of your next business trip.  Children measure time in events … the time you broke your arm climbing a tree, the Christmas you got a BB gun, the grade you were in when you had your first kiss.  Childhood memories tend to flow together, mingling like streams feeding a large river, until it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other.  Only the major happenings of life stand upright, like islands in the river.

To be sure, there were the usual milestones in the life of a young Unimonster, as well.  My first kiss was in Sixth Grade; my little brother and I got matching BB guns for Christmas 1978, over the objections of my mother (thanks, big brother!); and I’ve never had a broken bone … despite totaling a Cadillac that hit me as I dashed across a busy highway when I was 15.  But along with these, rather mundane, highlights of my life are those of a more … unusual nature.  And some of the most prominent “islands” in the river of my memory center around my love of Monsters, Horror, and Halloween.

Halloween when I was a child was quite different from the two-month-long shopping extravaganza that it is now.  Now, Halloween is celebrated by nearly everyone, of nearly every age, and is second only to Christmas in terms of sales generated.  Halloween decorating is big business, with dozens of companies supplying everything the home-bound haunter could desire for their porch-side graveyard, from 99¢ hokey rubber bats to animatronic reanimated corpses costing hundreds, even thousands of dollars.  The same people who go overboard when decorating for Christmas have taken to Halloween with gusto, pushing the bar ever higher with scary, gory, creative displays.  And costumes have progressed far from the screen-printed vinyl pajamas of my youth.  Today’s parents routinely spend $40, $50, even $100 on costumes for their children … and even more on their own outfits, something of which my parents never would have dreamed.

In the early 70’s, my peak Trick-or-Treating years, any house with a Jack o’Lantern on the porch was considered decorated and fair game for a visit.  We thought ourselves fortunate if stores had Halloween supplies two weeks before the big day, and even then, the selection left much to be desired.  That never mattered to me, as once I was old enough to know better

the thought of wearing a store-bought costume was simply unacceptable.  Store-bought costumes, at least in my childhood, were anything but scary.  Rather than making a costume that would allow your average MonsterKid to in some way resemble Frankenstein's Monster, the companies that produced them gave you a cheap plastic one-piece with a picture of the Monster (and not a very good one, at that …) printed on the front, with the word FRANKENSTEIN in large block letters underneath.  Add to that a thin polystyrene mask, with a rubber band that was guaranteed to break before you got home with the loot and a far too narrow mouth opening that cut your tongue every time you tried to talk, and it’s easy to see I wasn’t missing much by passing on the mass-produced monster togs.  Not to mention the fact that, if you had to have the name of the monster you were Trick-or-Treating as stamped on your chest in order for others to identify you, then it wasn’t much of a costume.

No, for my cousin, my brother, and me, only homemade costumes would do.  As I’ve mentioned previously in this column, my usual alter-ego was a vampire; smooth, scary, but most of all cheap ‘n’ easy.  But that wasn’t the only creature I was capable of pulling together on a $2.00 budget.  I could be a very convincing zombie, with some fake blood, some mud and dirt for that crusty, just-dug-my-way-out-of-a-hole look, and some tattered clothes for the basic raw materials.  Once I was “Dr. Death,” complete with saw, stethoscope, and blood-soaked lab coat.

Once costuming was out of the way, then the hunt began for pillowcases.  This was before the days of fancy manufactured bags, buckets, and pails for the collection of our Trick-or-Treating loot.  We had two options—paper grocery sacks, which were tough to carry and prone to tearing; and pillowcases.  Pillowcases were strong, they were large, and they were convenient.  There was only one problem with them.  They were my mother’s.

There was no chance of us using her good linen, of course … we knew enough not to even try that.  But like everyone, we had some old, faded, stained, ragged sheets and pillowcases in the back of the closet.  We had precisely three cases with enough structural integrity to carry a load of candy:  one was white, one avocado green, (hey, it was the ‘70’s, after all …) and one a flowered print.  You did not want to Trick-or-Treat carrying a sack with flowers printed all over it … at least, not where I grew up.

Our preparations complete, we would set out on our route with the resolve of Caesar's legions off to vanquish the Gauls.  The ritual was the same from year to year, never varying.  We would wait until it was dark, and then head out.  We would then immediately turn around and ring our own doorbell, shouting “TRICK-OR-TREAT!” when my mother opened the door.  She would grumble, but nonetheless dropped a few pieces of candy in each of our sacks.  Then the adventure would begin in earnest.

For those readers who are parents of young children; no, our mothers and fathers weren’t exceedingly neglectful or careless of their offspring.  That was a different time, and only babies went Trick-or-Treating before sundown, or accompanied by their parents.  We knew our neighborhood, and felt completely safe and comfortable in it … even at night.  That confidence was doubled on Halloween, when we always traveled in a pack, constantly crossing paths with other, similar packs doing the same.  As we passed we would hail each other, like old-fashioned sailing ships meeting far out at sea.  We would exchange information on the houses we had visited; who was giving out the good stuff, who was tossing out the cheap crap, who wasn’t handing out anything at all.  It was a cooperative hunt, and like wolves word would’ve traveled swiftly of any threat to the pack.

Quite frankly, it never occurred to us that there could be any threat … at least, not the immediate kind.  We had all heard the stories about razor blades and broken glass in treats, of course, and our parents always told us not to eat anything before they checked it out.  We never were overly concerned about that, however.  Personally, I thought that was just an excuse to give the adults first crack at their favorite treats.

Once we had thoroughly covered the neighborhood we would stop somewhere, typically the 7-11 just down the street, and take stock of the night’s haul.  Seldom were we satisfied with the results of our officially sanctioned panhandling, but there’s a fine line between persistence and obnoxiousness, and we usually tried not to cross it.  Contrary to our parent’s instructions, we would eat a few pieces of candy while deciding on our next move.  Occasionally, we would have some change in our sacks, from people too busy or too disinterested to shop for candy, and sorting that out was a high priority.  As always at that age, if I had 25¢ to my name, it was going to be spent on a comic book … ordinarily, it would be Batman, Action Comics, or The Flash, but not on Halloween.  On Halloween it had to be Ghosts, or House of Mystery, or The Unexpected.  Not that I didn’t buy those titles throughout the year, but they were must-haves to cap off the perfect Halloween night.

When we finally did straggle on home, we would camp in front of the TV, watching a holiday-appropriate Creature Feature on one of the local stations, as we munched happily on our Halloween bounty.  My dachshund would throw herself protectively on the sack beside me, snarling menacingly at anyone who dared approach it—especially my little sister.  This never failed to earn her a treat; butterscotches a particular favorite, though she also had a fondness for Mary Jane’s.  The sight of her working her way through a piece of peanut butter taffy was guaranteed to bring laughs.

 

All too soon, the night would end.  We would be sent upstairs to bathe and prepare for bed, and as we scrubbed the residue of fake blood and Hershey’s miniatures off ourselves, another Halloween would officially draw to a close.  Those days are more than forty years in the past now, and I’ve known great joys in my life since then, as well as the heartaches that all of us are familiar with.

But I’ve never known pure happiness like Halloween nights when I was a child.

Halloween—Unimonster Style

As long-time readers of this column are no doubt aware, Halloween is, and has always been, a special time of the year for the Unimonster.  Most of my happiest childhood memories revolve around the month of October, and I’ve been pleased to share many of them with you.  Whether it was the effort expended in trying to come up with the perfect homemade costume, or the pleasure of sitting on the living room floor after a successful Trick-or-Treating expedition, bag of candy in my lap, dog by my side, and Lon Chaney, Jr. on the TV screen, my Halloween memories represent some of the simplest, purest joys one can experience.

But some have asked me if Halloween still holds that same charm, that same appeal for the middle-aged Unimonster, and obviously the answer is no.  I’m no longer that wide-eyed, (mostly) innocent MonsterKid, living in a much simpler time, and society does seem to frown on 45-year-old Trick-or-Treaters.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t found new ways to celebrate my favorite holiday, or that I’ve outgrown all of my childhood traditions.

Though there’s something of a chicken-or-egg quality to it, there’s no denying that my love of Halloween and my love of Horror Films are directly related, and those beloved Horror Films have assumed top priority in my seasonal planning.  Just as I used to plan my Trick-or-Treating well in advance, I now spend weeks scheduling my assault on the October Couch Potato Film Festival title [An October Tradition, October 24^th, 2009].  I carefully choose the movies I’ll be viewing throughout the month, with more consideration given to quantity than quality, I will admit, but I never forget my favorites.  There are some movies that just have to be viewed each October; without them, the month would seem incomplete.  Some of these I discussed in a recent column [Halloween Movies to Watch, October 10^th, 2009].

The first of these films is ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.  This 1944 classic, starring Cary Grant and Raymond Massey, is pure comedic gold; a shining example of Hollywood in its heyday.  I often devote an entire day during the month to Horror Comedies, and this one always makes that list, along with movies such as GALAXY QUEST, SCARY MOVIE, and of course the Abbott & Costello Monster pics.

Other days during the month are devoted to different themes…  Alien Invasions, Slasher Films, Euro-Horrors, and Giant Bug movies are favorite themes during the days leading up to Halloween.  Halloween night itself is devoted to the best of the genre, from DRACULA to the one movie that must be viewed to end the season—John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN.

But movies aren’t my only means of celebrating the holiday.  While the Crypt always has a ‘Halloween’ feel to it, from the middle of September to early November it is decked out from top to bottom (or as much as the Unimonster’s budget will allow…) with Ghosts, Goblins, Witches, and that most necessary and iconic of Halloween symbols, the Jack O’Lantern.  Real ones, plastic ones, foam ones, even glass ones… nothing screams “Halloween” at the Unimonster as loudly as Jack does.  In fact there are always three on display in the living room—a foam one that stays lit 24/7; a vintage plastic blow-molded one that was a gift from a dear friend, and is exactly like one I had as a child; and a glass candy bowl, that I try to keep full.  There are others that appear during the season, and of course, the highlight of the year is carving a real Jack for the front porch.

As I’ve mentioned before, my artistic talents, such as they are, start and end with the written word.  Though I can visualize the fantastic Jack O’Lanterns I’d love to carve, when I sit down in front of blank pumpkin, the same Jack always emerges—two triangular eyes, a triangular nose, a lopsided grin, vaguely triangular, with three or four triangular teeth—let’s just say that I handle curves like an overloaded minivan.  Not even those booklets of pre-printed stencils help… besides, that’s cheating.

Finally, everything comes together for the big night.  The Crypt is decorated, the Jack is glowing on the front porch, and Bela is waxing poetic over the music of his night-children.  And the large empty skull by the front door is filled with candy for the Trick-or-Treaters.  Now I’ve mentioned before that my friends and I had considered ourselves ‘candy connoisseurs’ once upon a time, and I can still remember the disappointment I felt as someone would thoughtlessly drop a handful of crappy candy, or even worse, a box of raisins, into my bag.  I resolved as a young Trick-or-Treater that I would always pass out the ‘good stuff’—M&M’s, Hershey’s Kisses, Tootsie Pops—when it came to be my turn at the door, and I still hold true to that resolution.  So here I sit—lights low, the room lit by the yellow glow of electric Jacks and the silver gleam of Lugosi and Karloff, skull full of candy—waiting for that first knock on my door, remembering the thrill and joy of being the vampire, ghost, or ghoul on the other side.

First Impressions, and Second Looks by The Unimonster

As is probably the case with most people these days, when I listen to music it’s usually in the form of mp3s, on my cell phone. For someone whose second album purchase (ten points if you get the significance of that) was the soundtrack of Superman, the Movie on an 8-track tape, things have come a long way. One thing that hasn't changed or at least, I didn't think it had, is my taste in music. I grew up in a house filled with music lovers, though each followed the beat of a different drummer. My eldest sister Wanda Susan loved Motown, our sister Dee Karen was deep into what I still think of as ‘hippie music’, the Beatles, the Doors, Janis Joplin. Our brother David was Southern Rock—Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot. The youngest boy, Mark, was a heavy metal headbanger who loved Def Leppard. Our mother was pure country. And from all of these influences, and others, my rather broad and eclectic musical predilections were formed.

I long ago thought that my musical preferences were set, carved in stone, beyond the point of change. From pure honky-tonk country, to 1950s Doo-Wop, to the symphonic works of Tchaikovsky, music remains one of the great joys of my life, and until recently I was content. However, while talking with a friend, the topic moved to favorite music, and she mentioned a favorite song of hers, one that she loved as a child, one that was on an old cassette of her mother’s. That song was Eric Carmen’s Make Me Lose Control, which topped out at #3 in 1988. My first thought was that I was twenty-four when that song came out, and she was not yet born. My second thought was that I hated Eric Carmen when he was ‘popular’, and then I realized, that very song is on my phone. Not only is it on my phone, but I paid $1.29 to put it there. When in the hell did I start liking Eric Carmen?

But as I pondered that, a more disturbing thought arose. That wasn't the only Carmen song on there, including some of his work when he was lead singer with the Raspberries. I soon realized that there were more songs from artists who I once disliked and who I now enjoy.

Okay, before you regular readers start believing that the Unimonster is now doing a music blog; let me reassure you that this article is about horror movies. It occurred to me, as I was considering the rather surprising turn in my musical affections, that there are movies which I disliked upon first viewing them, and about which my opinions have mellowed, somewhat.

One of these, and the one that might be the most surprising for those readers familiar with my love of the classics, is the 1992 version of Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola’s take on Bram Stoker’s classic novel. Though far more faithful to Stoker’s vision than most of the films that preceded it, upon my first viewing of it twenty-two years ago I found it slow-paced, talky, and for the most part uninteresting. My thoughts on it, from the personal notes from my database of Horror films, were, “Overly pretentious version of the Classic vampire tale nearly works, but is finally dragged down by the weight of its own pomposity, as well as Keanu Reeves’ absolutely wretched performance as Jonathan Harker.” Recently however, I bought the Collector’s Edition DVD, released by Sony Home Entertainment in October, 2007. While Reeves’ performance is still just as wretched (seriously, was every other possible choice for Harker tied up at the time?), and the film still comes off as pretentious, I found it far more enjoyable that I did then. The 49-year-old Unimonster was more appreciative of the theme of the film, which is ‘Love, lost yet still eternal’, than the 28-year-old Unimonster had been. I also found the manner in which the historical Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracula, was reconciled with Stoker’s fictional Count very satisfying. It will never be my favorite version of the story, but it’s definitely one I will watch again.

Another that has grown on me with repeated viewings is The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This picture has gone from being one that left me cold, to being one of my favorites. My first thoughts on this movie, again from my database: “Though it may rule the midnight movie show, on TV it's just a silly, dated musical. Tim Curry's performance is inspired, but it can't lift this out of mediocrity alone. Without the insanity that is the Audience Participation, it just falls flat.” Boy has my opinion changed! So much so that I’m embarrassed at how wrong I was about this movie. While I've yet to attend a midnight showing of the film, experiencing it the way it was meant to be experienced, I can say that the experience of sitting in your living room, singing along with all the songs as the dog looks at you with a strange mix of concern and, yes, pity, must be similar.

However, the movie that surprised me with how my opinions have changed over the years is one that, if I had to be honest about at this point in time, is in my personal top ten of Horror films, of all-time. That movie is Sam Raimi’s classic The Evil Dead. Now when I watch it, I see one of the most imaginative, innovative horror films of the last half of the 20th Century, a movie that defied conventions, low-budget, and good taste to become one of the most popular films of the Drive-In era. Compare that to my database: “Made on a nothing budget, Sam Raimi’s cult blockbuster has never been a favorite of mine. Still, its popularity can’t be denied … it’s become one of the biggest Horror franchises ever.” Well, I was right … and wrong. Not about the historical significance of Raimi’s movie; but about it not being a favorite of mine. That part is no longer true.

Will my taste continue to evolve over time? What will the 60-year-old Unimonster’s opinion be of the movies that his 50-year-old self detested? Some, I’m sure, will have aged well in my eyes, perhaps prompting a similar look back in the 2024 version of the Unimonster’s Crypt, delivered via thought waves directly into the brains of my readers. Does that mean I’ll be sitting through my eighth or ninth viewing of Snakes on a Plane? I wouldn't bet on that.