Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

May 13, 2020: So, how’s everyone been sleeping?

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I remember being terrified watching Phantasm as a kid.  And then, about ten years ago, I watched it again – and found it somewhat lacking.  I’ve found a lot of the things I used to love as a kid don’t really hold up: books, t.v. shows, fresca.  What about you?  Is there something you absolutely loved when you were a kid that hasn’t survived the test of time?

So, how’s everyone been sleeping?

Don’t forget to come find us on twitch for this Sunday’s Dark Matter panel!

https://twitter.com/TammyD93312374/status/1260699323744038913

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21 responses

  1. nantokanaru77 Avatar
    nantokanaru77

    Hmm … I still like the things I liked when I was a kid. Just that I’m a big kid now. LOL

    I have been sleeping very well, and having lots of good and weird dreams … from eating around the world, to being a special agent, DC superhero, time traveler and more recently a food delivery driver. Random stuff. LOL

    Reply
  2. Darlene Avatar
    Darlene

    Bambi. I still haven’t recovered. (You’ll have to make me a gif.)

    Reply
  3. Line Noise Avatar
    Line Noise

    I can’t remember my first horror movie. I remember my aunt was babysitting me once and we were watching the “Salem’s Lot” mini-series. I must have been about 12 or something, probably. While we were watching we heard a noise from the front of the house and we freaked out. The noise was scarier than “Salem’s Lot”.

    The very first VHS video that my dad rented was “Xtro”. The whole family sat down to watch, excited to experience the wonder of being able to watch movies in our own home whenever we wanted. My mum was not impressed that within the first 10 minutes we’d already had a scene with an alien impregnating a woman. I can’t remember if my younger sisters were removed from the room but I remember I was allowed to keep watching. I would have been early teens. Definitely younger than the 18+ rating!

    My earliest memory of being freaked out by something I saw on TV was after watching the 1979 “Quatermass” TV series. That thing gave me nightmares! Again, I was probably around 10 or 11 when I saw it. I’m sure it’s pretty tame in reality.

    I’m sleeping great at the moment! I’m getting an extra hour in the morning because I don’t have to commute to work. But I’ve found my evenings slipping later and later and now don’t turn out the light until around 1am. It will be a shock when I have to start travelling to the office again!

    Reply
  4. maggiemayday Avatar
    maggiemayday

    How am I sleeping? Ha. Haaahahahahahaa ha ha.

    As a kid, I loved Beanie and Cecil, and Quickdraw McGraw cartoons. I am afraid to shatter that illusion. I used to like Hostess cupcakes and DingDongs, but I am so sure the recipe and my tastebuds have changed enough I am not even going to try.

    I don’t know if I saw House of Wax as a child, but one of my few childhood nightmares was being trapped in a mannequin, watching the people shopping, unable to move. Maybe I saw an ad for it? I never watched TV late at night, I had an eight o’clock bedtime, there was one TV in the living room, and it had three channels. Never even occurred to me to try. My parents simply did not let me watch scary movies. The first movie I recall in a theater was My Fair Lady when I was seven or so, and Mary Poppins. The first one I got to go to with my brother and not my parents was Peter Seller’s The Party, at about age ten. I think my parents made strange decisions.

    My cousins dragged me to Don’t Look in the Basement when I was 16, which freaked me out because I had a room in the basement at my aunt’s house. Eek. I know it would not hold up today. I saw Alien in an empty theater with my brother a few weeks after it had been released when I was in college. We had no idea what it was about. THAT was truly scary. Later, in the 80s, my adult calm was wrecked by The Day After. Ugh. Honestly, I think the home theater experience and the internet has ruined some of the old fashioned frights. I prefer science fiction scary over supernatural scary, with gory stories coming in dead last.

    Reply
    1. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
      Gilder McCarroll

      “Beanie and Cecil”! I had the game with the Cecil puppet calling the moves! Still had it when we decluttered garage last year, but I think Husband & pro organizer helped me let go of it.

      Reply
  5. gforce Avatar
    gforce

    Nothing is like it used to be, don’t get me started!

    Now that you mention it, I basically didn’t sleep at all last night so I’m hoping that’s not a trend again. 🙁

    Reply
  6. Kat Karena Avatar
    Kat Karena

    I looked up the top 35 scariest movies online, and found that I had seen a few. Although I didn’t think they were scary as a kid, like “the birds”. There’s only one movie I’ve seen that gave me nightmares, that made me check under the bed for two weeks, that when ever I thought of this movie in the first 12 months I had to block it out of my head and say a poem or sing a song or count to 1 from 100 backwards.
    Most won’t of heard of it, it’s Suspiria the director is Dario Argento. It’s about an American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy who comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

    It’s an incredibly beautiful movie, from memory I saw it either in 1977 or ’78. It’s the colour, the beauty of the dancers, the scenery – and the way the film used colour and the angles of the scene shot, even though I was sitting in the theatre I was at times looking at what was happening from the victim or protagonist’s point of view. And this was in the days before 3D gaming. It was so terrifying. Even today now – right now my throat is dry. No one should use so much beauty in a horror movie.

    I was thinking of re-watching, hoping it, it is so kitsch or dated that I will get over the trauma of that movie.

    Reply
    1. Colleen O'Shaughnessy Avatar
      Colleen O’Shaughnessy

      Nope, I think you’ll find it pretty much the same. Very disturbing.

      Reply
  7. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
    Gilder McCarroll

    Sleeping: I inherited a night owl gene and worked nights /weekends in the past. Recently, I’ve been making progress towards sleeping midnight to 8 AM, rather than 4 AM to noon. Yay!

    Reply
    1. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
      Gilder McCarroll

      Loved as a kid but disappointing now?

      Original “Star Trek”. SFX improved SO MUCH between 1969 and 1987.

      Reply
  8. Drea Avatar
    Drea

    1st horror movie:
    https://images.app.goo.gl/tRH3MaTzTyG6VhFs5

    How am I sleeping?
    Let me put it to ya this way:
    Considering those of us at higher risk of serious-fatal illness
    are still stuck in solitary confinement
    with no release date in sight
    and may soon seriously need to reinvent ourselves
    to find careers where we don’t have to come into physical contact
    with our lovely fellow human beings,
    I’m thinking of teaching a course to young orphaned bears
    on proper long term hibernating techniques.

    Reply
  9. Michelle Avatar
    Michelle

    Mine was The Incredible Shrinking Man, which I saw when I was only 6 or 7. Completely freaked me out, even though it’s more SciFi than horror. That poor man, and not a happy ending (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rce3YHKBHhk)! No wonder I still don’t watch horror movies.

    My sleep has been fitful. A lot of people are having super vivid dreams in this crisis. I know I am – very long, anxiety-fueled dreams that are not fun. How is yours going?

    Reply
  10. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
    Gilder McCarroll

    First horror film: THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
    One of the major US networks showed it every year when I was a little one. I was terrified of the Wicked Witch of the East and her flying monkeys.

    Reply
  11. Ponytail Avatar
    Ponytail

    When I had to occasionally stay up all night at my parent’s house to keep an eye on my dementia dad, I could usually find either Drea, or Tam Dixon, and sometimes PBMom on twitter at all hours of the night too. That was pretty cool. You think you’re the only one out there, but then you see a familiar person post something out there too.

    My dad has moved in with me now. If he sleeps during the night, I sleep too (with one eye open watching him on camera). If he does not sleep, I do not sleep either because he is always calling me. That makes for a grumpy day.

    The Incredible Shrinking Man – I loved that movie, ESPECIALLY when he had to live in the doll house. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to live in a doll house! Oh yeah, the ending…. Oh well…

    Reply
    1. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
      Gilder McCarroll

      (((Ponytail))), can you get some day or night help via Medicare (assuming USA Medicare or disability insurance)? Been there.

      Reply
  12. Colleen O'Shaughnessy Avatar
    Colleen O’Shaughnessy

    I saw “Creature from the Black Lagoon” when I was young and loved it. I watched it again a few weeks ago and I still love it! I hold that movie responsible for getting me hooked on sci-fi and horror (not gore).

    As for a movie I watched when I wasn’t supposed to and got freaked out, that would be “Circus of Horrors.” Facial bandaging and disfigurement have always been a phobia of mine, so that was definitely the wrong movie for me. I screamed out loud at one point and woke my parents. Sorry, no .gif because I didn’t have any footage.

    Reply
  13. jerry Avatar
    jerry

    My nightmare show was the ant-filled Them! with the appropriately tagged exclamation point. The stuff of nightmares after the Saturday matinee ended and the thrown popcorn was collected. Great casting with James Whitmore, james Arness, and Fess Parker thrown into a sci-fi classic that pre-dated Godzilla and other atomic age beasties.
    I got a couple plastic models to build as long as I am tripping back to the early days: X-15 and an SR-71 I am painting white and silver to resemble the alternative X-15A and the A-12.
    Sleeping well in my waterbed…

    Reply
  14. Kent donnelly Avatar
    Kent donnelly

    Shows from my childhood that just did not hold up would include The Bananasplits and any Sid and Marty Kroft show. On the other hand classic Scooby Do always holds its own.

    Reply
  15. Mick Bruce Avatar
    Mick Bruce

    As a child I loved Thunderbirds ( held up VERY well ) , Get Smart ( maybe 1/4 of the shows are worth rewatching still) Star Trek TOS ( the best dozen shows like The Trouble with Tribbles are still a joy to rewatch) and Space 1999 ( special effects held up well but acting and dialog is lame).Its 1980s TV and film stuff like Buck Rogers that is the most dated. Some older big screen movies I saw as a child are still all time greats like 1969 oo7 movie OHMS , the original Gone in 60 seconds and 1968 versions of the Italian Job + the Thomas Crown affair. I never had any patience with horror – the only complete horror movie i ever sat through was Interview with a Vampire on a date !

    Reply
    1. Gilder McCarroll Avatar
      Gilder McCarroll

      Mick B, it might interest you that Gil Gerard is involved in developing a re-imagining of “Buck Rogers…”. Last I heard, it would be called “2419” and be similar plot, new story due to non-participation of “Buck…” intellectual-property owners.

      Reply
  16. Ruben A. Hilbers Avatar
    Ruben A. Hilbers

    I was never into horror – Thunderbirds and A Team were my thing growing up, fool ! – but I did see some commercial for the IRS (over here in Holland). And then I became an adult and actually had to pay taxes ! Oh, the horror, the horror !….The humanity of it all !

    Reply

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