Movie: Do You Wanna Party?

Return of the Living of the Dead

I don’t remember the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead. It’s one of those movies that has always been a part of my life. I do though, very clearly remember the first time I saw Return of the Living Dead. My sister was having a couple of friends over and they had rented a couple of movies, and Return had just found its way to the new release shelf. She was about five years older and my mother was watching with us. I was probably ten or eleven at the time. When Trash took off all her clothes my mom made me cover my eyes. I was so mad that didn’t let me see for what seemed like forever. It wasn’t until I watched it by myself years later did I realize, oh yeah, Trash really was naked that whole time, they weren’t being jerks and forgetting about me after all!

Night of the Living Dead is an anomaly. Night is a classic, a staple of the horror genre that has a weird and twisted line of sequels branching off of it. We have the Night, Dawn, Day thread, but we also have the Return of the living Dead thread. What makes Night so unique, is that both threads, in their own way, are just as unique and iconic as the original.  Night, Dawn and Day are classics, but even though it’s a completely different tone look and feel, Return is just as iconic.

For me, Return of the Living Dead was a revelation. It was a different type of horror movie, or any type of movie for that matter. It’s does so much that it is almost a perfect movie.  It was so fresh and so funny and every scene gave you something to look at.

The Cast is amazing.

The chemistry between our four core actors is amazing. Clu Gulager is always great and Don Calfa plays off of him so well. You almost don’t care about the plot, it would be worth it to watch an hour and a half of the two of them bantering back and forth. Thom Matthews and James Karen also play off each other so well, they really sell their character’s plight and bring some genuine emotion into it. The bits with the four of them together almost play off as an Abbott and Costello sketch it’s all so well written.

The Punks are well casted as well. I’ve already brought up Linnea Quigley’s puberty inducing turn as Trash, but her Counterpart Suicide is done so well by Mark Venturini. They were a perfect parody on the punk youth culture. I’m pretty sure I knew both of them in high school, the overly self-absorbed bad guy, and the drunk girl who got naked way to quick.  Jewel Sheppard, John Philbin, Miguel A Nunez Jr, they were all given there little moments so that they stood out. Incredible use of the cast.

Speaking of Punks, I’d be remiss to talk about Return of the Living Dead without talking about its amazing soundtrack. If you only know the line “Do You Wanna Party?” from the epic 45 Grave song, I recommend listening to the entire song. It’s a fantastically dark punk rock epic. Between 45 Grave, The Cramps, and the Damned, Return of the Living Dead helped me fell in love with Punk. I learned just as much about music as I did about film from this movie.

Return of the Living Dead was the first movie that I remembered hiding so many hidden jokes in plain sight. Up until then, I really didn’t know you could do that. My ten year old mind was blown and I started looking at every movie so differently. It never occurred to me that so many people out there could have my sense of humor and get a kick out of such stupid stuff. I remember laughing so hard as a kid at Uneeda Medical Supplies and the eye chart that calls Burt a Cheap Ass.  It wasn’t until I watched it in my teens did I realize that Don Calfa was obviously a full blown Nazi. Every set piece is covered in hidden jokes. It’s amazing.

Not that this is “Comedy”, but this was the movie that taught me that you could be funny and scary at the same time. That you could go all out with some of the scariest zombies ever made and still make me laugh at a velvet painting with big eyes on the wall in the morgue. Dan O’Bannon did an amazing job of balancing that horror and comedy and influenced so much that came after it. Shaun of the Dead owes more to Return than it does to any other Zombie movie.

I’ve always said that a Zombie apocalypse really wouldn’t be as bad as you think. Or at least, a classic Romero Zombie Apocalypse. In Night, Dawn and Day, the recently deceased are coming back to life and killing people. Now really, Right now, in a ten mile radius how many recently deceased people are close enough to you to kill you? Probably not many, probably none. If the dead started standing up, I think we’d be able to contain it pretty easily.

NOW, if they are Return of the Living Dead Zombies? The cemeteries the world over empting? Arms moving on their own?

WE ARE FUCKED!

 

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Fiction: Outside the Green Tent.

The night air was choked by the stench of the burning meat tossed haphazardly into the campfire before the campers withdrew into the imagined safety of their tent. It wasn’t the odor of the meat as it turned to ash that drew the creature from the darkness. The woods were full of such smells, they clung to the very ground long after we moved on. Instead, it was the faint auburn glow of the fires burning embers, caught out of the corner of eyes from between the trees that called to him.

He had been chasing the raccoon for miles. He could have had it so long ago, but he liked the way the fear made the meat taste. He toyed with it back and forth, watching it run through the underbrush. He moved through the trees so easily, there was hardly any sport in anymore. He finally moved to pounce when he caught the light. He turned his head just enough that the racoon was able to dart under a log.

Safe for now.

It would be easy to pick it back up, but the will had left him. He no longer had the taste for it. It would be a paltry meal anyhow, and he had to bring some meat back to the others. There would be meat in the in the clearing. Meat by the campers who came to the woods and spread themselves out like a sore. And if they didn’t have meat…. He tried to keep the thought quiet, in the back of his head so the others wouldn’t hear it.

His body began to move towards the fire before he realized what was happening. He gave himself over to instinct, better to hide his actions.

He crept across the ground, so quietly and so low, so that whatever was at the camp couldn’t see him. If whoever was at the camp saw him…. There was no telling what would happen. It grinned, sharp teeth gnashing as it thought of the sleeping forms in the clearing beyond. Would a scrap of burnt meat do? Was that enough for today. It had to be, but something told him it wasn’t going to be. Maybe he’d take more, maybe he’d bring them back to the rest.

Maybe they’d see him. Then he could say it was self-preservation. He could say he had to do it. The back of his mind started to buzz. Something was starting to listen, not fully yet, but they were thinking about him. Wondering where he was, what he was bringing back. Soon they’d reach out to him. He had to be quick, quick and quiet.

All was still, except for the small form slinking slowly across the ground, moving ever so slowly. When it finally reached the clearing, it paused on the edge to take in its surrounding.  It wasn’t the first time he had been in the clearing, but it was the first time he had been in the clearing when the people were still there.

Usually, they made them wait until the campsites were empty, and they feasted on the left overs. He was tired though. He was tired of being a bottom feeder. They used to be predators, he wanted to be a predator again. They all did, the young ones. Rabbits and raccoons weren’t enough. He didn’t want to hide from the soft fleshy things in the dark anymore. Why, they had to taste better than that raw, fur covered beast he had been chasing before.

Maybe, he thought, he would try them like they eat. Put pieces of them over the fire, he’s swallow them as the strips of their flesh turned black… Maybe….

It was a small clearing. A single green tent with an open flap. A path lead about a half mile through the forest to the parking area where their conveyance sat waiting for them. The fire pit was in the center of the clearing and around it sat two logs the campers used as chairs. When he had watched other campers, he had seen them sitting on the logs while putting food in the fire. It amused him. They looked silly. They looked like a twisted version of his family, there skin pink instead of grey and brown. There arms and legs so short.

A noise from the tent, caused his head to spin around. One of them was moving. A hiss in his head told him to come back, to leave the sleepers alone, but he ignored it. They were listening now. They were fully with him, trying to pull him back. A few years ago, they probably would have been able to. But he was stronger now, and they were getting weak. Soon he and his sisters would replace them.

Slipping forward he moved around the edges of the tent. He could feel the sleepers heat inside, nestled inside their blankets. Instinctively his mouth began to water as drool ran from his broken jaw line and dripped onto the dirt floor.

With one long talon he reached out and traced the sleeping shape on the outside of the tent. Just a small flap of skin. That was all he had to rip through. If he just pushed a little harder he’d be with them.  They smelled so good. The hunger was building up inside him. It was so long, and they were sleeping. It’s safer when they are sleeping. If the others were with him, it wouldn’t make a difference, but alone…. Alone he had to be careful.

It wasn’t his first time to taste them. Long ago, so long, he had slipped a little one from his mother. The meat was so soft and tender. They scolded him, but they still ate it, they still shared it among the group. There were more of them then. So many more. Now they were almost gone. Only a handful living deep in the valley. Every day they creeped out a little farther, looking for food, and every day the edge of the forest creeped closer to them.

He closed his eyes, and softly spoke to the other voices hovering the edges of his mind. The other young ones would listen. They were tired of hiding, they were tired of this life. Most of all they were hungry, he knew they would listen. They didn’t want to starve, when you starved the others feasted on you. None of them wanted that.

The tip of his clawed finger tapped on the side of the tent. It would be so easy…

He almost cried out in pain, as he felt them. The older ones, the last few of them that remained, they were calling at him. They were trying to get him to come back, but it was too late. His path was set the moment he entered the clearing. The young ones heard, the young ones understood. He could hear them coming. They would help them. The woods were full of life, and they would taste it.

It was time. The time of the old ones is passed, he would start a new way. In his mind he hissed a message out to the others, a picture. A picture of the young ones feasting on the old ones. Now he screamed in his head! Now! Over and over again. He smiled as he felt the old ones begin to scream back at him, full of pain.

He hissed softly into the night as he pulled himself up to his full height. When he was low, he looked small and compact, pulling up to his full height though, he stood well over seven feet tall, his arms long and thin like twigs. Razor sharp claws kneaded the air as he willed the sleepers before him awake.

As the smaller one inside stirred, he slipped back into the darkness. His skin like bark, the color of the forest. He hid among the trees, almost disappearing into them. His dark green eyes watching them. Watching her as she slipped from the tent.

The others were coming, the flesh of the elders hot on their breath. Now it was his turn.

To be continued in my next Collection…..

Movie: Evils of The Night

“You want it to be good don’t you?”

“No! Right now I Just want it..”

I can’t count the amount of times that I saw Evils the Night sitting on the Vinegar Syndrome table at Cinema Wasteland here in Cleveland and passed it up. If I had even the slightest clue what I was going to be in for, I would have broken down and bought it when it first came out. Evils of the Night might just be the single most 80’s film ever made. It’s a masterpiece of sleaze that could only have come out in 85, smack dab in the middle of the decade.

The movie plays like an 80’s sex comedy, only with blood and evil Aliens. The evil Aliens are played by Tina Louise (Gilligans Island), Julie Newmar (Batman 66) and John Carradine (too many to count!). They play a group of evil alien doctors who are harvesting teenagers for blood platelets that will add two hundred years onto the alien life span. They mascaraed as doctors and came to earth in a ship that was clearly the landing craft from Battlestar Galactica…. Only it wasn’t when it landed. That kind of sets the mood for the entire film. They have two idiotic bumbling human accomplices played by Nevile Brand and Aldo Ray. They are both great and add so much to the film.

The movie has everything that made the 80’s so much fun. It has a great synth score, out of place power ballads, big hair, lesbians, bikini’s, blood, oiled up jocks, naked college girls… Lots and lots of naked college girls. Within the first five minutes we have full frontal nudity and Tony O’Dell from Chopping Mall and Head of the Class getting oral pleasure in a lake. It’s just wonderful.

We also have another Chopping Mall cast member in Karrie Emerson who sort of plays the lead heroine in the movie. She spends a good portion of the movie in a tight t-shirt and her underwear for no reason what so ever. It’s hilarious and she’s so much fun I this. Everyone is fun.

It’s a perfect 80’s film time capsule. Every girl is beautiful and every guy is handsome and shirtless. I had so much fun with this, it was an excellent over the top campy surprise. The movie feels like someone watched a bunch of 80’s horror movies and wanted to make the perfect 80’s style movie, only they didn’t realize that Meatballs and Hot Dog the Movie weren’t horror movies so they tossed them in the mix.

The Directors, Mohammed Rustam, only other Directorial credits were a James Dean Documentary, and a 1977 film called Evil Town. It’s a shame, I would have loved to see him put out a couple of more fun films like this. It was cowritten by Philip Dennis Connors, who has 30 other writing credits, all DTV Porn. So that really tells you what you need to know.

I usually don’t like to recommend films, but I really recommend Evils of the Night. It’s just good old fashion out of this world inappropriate 80’s fun.

Movie: Children of the Corn

Children of the Corn

The name Sarah Conner and Linda Hamilton are inseparable. It’s hard to think of her doing anything else. Personally though, I came to Terminator Late. I think I was in my early teens. At that point I was already addicted to Stephen King novels and his books. So the first place I ever saw Linda Hamilton was in the 1984 classic, Children of the Corn. I was nine when it came out and while I didn’t see it in the theater, I know I jumped on it as soon as it hit the video stores and Cable.

Linda, along with Peter Horton, play a couple driving cross country and after hitting a kid in the corn fields of Nebraska, they get stuck in the town of Gatlin. The movie begins with a flash back sequence setting up that three years earlier, a cult of children executed everyone over the age of 18.

Linda is beautiful and playful in the beginning of the movie and her character is instantly endearing. She acts as the audience’s inner monologue. While Peter Horton’s character charges boldly into the fray, she sits back and vocalizes our thoughts, at one point even going as far to ask, “Are we safe?” At this point, we already know that they aren’t safe, and suspect how bad things can get.

I also really like Peter Horton in this. I wish that he had a bigger career. He’s so friendly and such an affable guy. He’s got a good look and I’ve liked him in everything I’ve seen him in. He doesn’t really play that deep of a character, but that isn’t really an issue. Peter and Linda’s roles here are reactionary. They are dumped into a horrible situation and are forced to react however they can. I do like that they are seemingly nice people. When you put nice characters into these horrible situations, it increases the drama tenfold in my opinion.

The real stars of this movie though are John Franklyn and Courtney Gains as Isaac and Malachi, the child leaders of the cult. John plays the creepy cult leader so well that it’s believable that all these kids would fall for his flowery words and old bible justice. As for Courtney, he is lost inside the evil holy enforcer and genuinely feels dangerous. He doesn’t feel like he’s acting, neither of them really do. They feel like they really are these crazy religious zealots. They s sell this movie and their religious fervor is palatable. They make you legitimately afraid of a group of kids. I guarantee that if two other kids were cast in those roles that it would be a completely different movie and not nearly effective. Take those two out and children of the Corn would have been forgotten.

The look of the movie really helps to add to the mood and realism of the film. The corn cob crucifix and the picture of the Jesus in the church with the corn stalk hair. It’s all so creepy, and weird it puts you slightly off kilter. The entire town is coated in corn stalks and the characters all look like they’ve made their own clothes. They look like a group of Amish gone bad. It really helps sell the message.

One of my favorite things about this movie, is that about an Hour and Fifteen minutes into the movie, something happens that makes you question everything that has happened into the movie before this. It really changes the movie and what’s going on. If I could get a tad spoilery for a sentence, it turns the movie into a monster movie at the end and it’s glorious!

It’s funny, one thing I didn’t remember about this movie was the weird creepy kid voice over. The kid who plays Job starts off in the beginning talking about how the town turned into what it is, and then pops up every so often to give us a few lines of exposition. A half hour in or so they almost completely drop it like they forgot they were even doing it in the first place. It’s a really odd an unnecessary choice.

Children of the Corn will always hold a very special place in my heart, it’s message is a little heavy handed, but I really don’t care. It moves at a nice pace and is fun 80’s film. Unlike a lot of 80’s films, it really doesn’t look that dated. Because Gatlin is a dead town, and the kids all look out of time anyway, it gives the film a timeless quality.

I think this is a movie that due to the less than stellar series it spawned, could easily be dismissed and lost. I think that’s sad, Children of the Corn is a fun movie, and a good example of Stephen King done right.

Movie: Christine

A Love Letter to Christine.

Before I start, I want to stress the point that to me, Christine is not a Horror movie. It’s a love story. It’s the story of two misfits who found each other and spiraled down the drain into a toxic romance.

 

I don’t remember the first time I saw Christine, but I do remember the first time I saw it after reading the book. It was on Good Friday and we were coloring Easter Eggs. Ever since then, I always get in the mood to watch Christine around Easter. I mean, she dies and comes back to life, so it’s totally an Easter movie right?

 

In my mind there is no separation between my love for the book and my love of the movie. I’m not a car guy, but there’s something so romantic about finding that broken piece of trash on the side of the road and turning her into something special. I’m not a masculine guy, but that appeals to something deep down inside me. I can relate so much with Arnie just trying to find something beautiful. I think that’s part of what I love about this movie and the book. When I found it, I was Arnie, only with less friends. In a twisted way I admired that toxic love that Arnie found.

 

Arnie and Christine though, they aren’t the focus of the movie, or a better way to look at it would be they aren’t our eyes in the movie. We are watching the movie through Dennis’s eyes. We are watching as his best friend finally finds someone and realized that he doesn’t need him anymore. He watches, lost as Arnie makes all the mistakes and falls in all the traps we all do with our first love and he’s helpless to do anything. He watches it all fall apart as Arnie loses his life to a toxic addictive relationship.

As I said, to me this is a love story. Let’s look at the movie in a different way. Let’s look at it less literally. Instead of a car what if Christine was a girl? She’s a girl who would do anything for him. She drives every one away until it is just the two of them, and he’s so starved for affection he lets it happen.

 

When he finds her, she’s literally dying of a broken heart because her previous owner turned her away when his wife died.

 

It’s almost beautiful, their devotion to each other. You can’t help but wonder if there is a world in which they could have worked. Maybe a world with better parents and without the Buddy’s and Moochies.

 

But it’s not a different world and the weight of it all turns them into the worst possible versions of themselves.

 

And Dennis watches it all, impotent to help until it’s too late. If this was the story of a guy and a girl instead of a guy and his car it would be sitting in on the drama shelf instead of the horror shelf.

 

For purely personal reasons I think this is my favorite of Carpenters works. He creates the horror out of the toxicity of their love. Each shot of Christine show us how Arnie sees her, as a thing of beauty. This is also, in my opinion his best usage of music. He gives us his signature Carpenter sound, but also used classic rock and roll to give the mute Christine a voice of her own.

If I were to pair this film with another, I would take a step forward musically to the punk rock classic Sid and Nancy. Two toxic love stories about the dangers of addiction that show us that just because two people love each other they don’t necessarily belong together.

Yet again, I have Embarrassed myself at Hotheads.

Yet again, I have embarrassed myself in Hotheads.

Let me start, by setting the mood, so you’ll fully appreciate my state of mind and the full chain of events that lead to my shame. First, I didn’t sleep well last night. Not at all. I stayed up way to late playing the video game and then fell into the hell of waking up every ten minutes to check the time. On top of that dinner was small the night before so I woke up HUNGRY. The plan was to grab something to eat on the way in, but traffic strongly disagreed with my plans for the morning.

Don’t worry, the story does get better… I hope.

Typically, I go to lunch at 1, but I was feeling peckish, so I wanted to go earlier, but I couldn’t because I had a phone meeting I couldn’t miss at 1 O’clock, and If I went to early I couldn’t guarantee I’d be back in time. So not only was I already annoyingly hungry, and honestly a little light headed from lack of sleep, lunch was going to be late!

I’m a mature grown adult. I can deal with being hungry? My three trips to the vending machine would not agree with that statement. Anyway, finally done with the meeting and at one thirty I am off to Hotheads for a nice filling Burrito…. No my mind screamed! Even better, a nice Deluxe Quesadilla with White Rice, Black Beans, Spicy Barbacoa, Corn Salsa, Red Onion and a Cavalcade of Cheeses!!! Little did I know…. This simple decision would later prove to be my undoing.

Now, typically the Hotheads by work is fairly quick. Especially at the odd hours I always go. This time though… Oh no my friends!! Oh no!!! This time I was stuck behind two lovely ladies who obviously had just been birthed the day before and had never heard of a BUR E TO and kept asking odd questions over and over again… Why does it have Rice? Do all Burritos come in a shell? It says your tacos come in hard or soft shell, can I get a hard-shell burrito? Do you have any other types of beans? What if it’s too much food? What’s a Habanero?

I stood behind these women for almost twenty minutes before it was time to order.

Side note, at the beginning of this wait, the Plumber showed up because they had a leak in the men’s room sink, and the water was off to the bathrooms. I share this for two reasons. 1. It explains why another employee couldn’t take my order and 2. He factors into the story later! Now I do have to point out that about ten minutes into my wait, a mysterious third employee with pretty blue hair floated in from the back room, happy and excited to help me, Until I said I wanted a Deluxe Quesadilla. At that point she exclaimed, I haven’t been taught how to make that yet, and returned to the back room.

I should have taken that as a sign.

Finally, it’s my turn to order, and it went pretty smooth. She understood my order and even was nice enough to charge me for a small Guacamole for my chips instead of the large I ordered because of the extreme wait. Finally, it was swinging in my favor.

I was wrong. It was not in fact, swinging into my favor.

I ordered, I paid. I requested TWO sides to dip my quesadilla in. NOW, this is an important detail in the story. So, pay attention. I requested TWO sides. The first side is a delectable delight known as “Hotheads Sauce”. It’s sort of a spicy garlic ranch? It’s wonderful and is the closest I’ve ever come to believing in an interventionist god. NOW, this is the important part that will come back and haunt me later in the story. I also got a side of sour cream.

Because really, who doesn’t love Sour Cream?

So, I sit down at my table, armed with my fork for the bits that fall off into Styrofoam container when the Deluxe Quesadilla comes, two dipping sauces, a tub of guacamole that I only paid half price for, and a Bag of Tortilla Chips. Now, Quesadillas take time, Deluxe ones even more so. They must heat them. Usually it’s about two to three minutes. Today though, they forgot and eight to ten minutes later, it arrived at my table.

Amazingly! Not Burnt!

By the time I got it, boy was it worth the wait. So yummy and delightful. Like the Vienna boys choir singing a symphony to my taste buds alone! Now, it was slightly messy, BUT, I amazingly managed to keep myself clean and not get cheese and sauce in my beard or on one of my “Adult” shirts. Finally, I was done, a little longer then I would have liked, but I finished my joyous lunch and went to throw my garbage away.

And that my friends, is when this story goes horribly wrong.

I tip my tray up on the end, so that everything funnels into the little round hole over the garbage can, and the small plastic cup filled with sour cream gets caught, and flips over the tray, spraying Sour Cream on my arm. Two things then happen at once, for some reason I shake my left arm, the arm holding the tray, sending more garbage flying. I think I was trying to shake the sour cream off? I’m really not sure what my end game with that was, but whatever it was, it sent napkins flying.

I must note that I’m naturally messy, so I use a lot of napkins. Ask my wife and kids. They’ll tell you.

At the same time though, with my right hand, I reached out to desperately grab the flying sour cream cup from the air. This does not go well. Instead of grabbing it, my fingers graze it, pushing it forward where it ricochets off the little shelf above the garage and flies back…. Towards my face. As it flies, it flips over, spraying Sour Cream across the bridge of my nose, my glasses and into my hair.

This is not the end.

I shriek slightly as I swipe at it again. Again, instead of grabbing it I hit it with the palm of my hand, this time forcefully slapping it to the ground. It hits, with such force that sour cream rises up into the air and splatters across my pant leg, my crotch, and all over my right boot.

Now, as that was happening I jerk my left arm back flipping the rest of the garbage into the air and sending my Styrofoam container for the quesadilla into the air behind me where it lands on a table next to a young man who is trying his best not to openly mock me.

I thank you for that sir.

At this point, I drop my tray and kneel down in the napkins and carnage spread out around me, trying to pick up my as much as I can. At which I failed miserably. Instead I’m just waving my hands at it and spreading the garbage around the room. As I do, I hit the sour cream cup and send it rolling behind the counter up under the grill.

At this point, as I’m on my hands and knees in the middle of Hotheads trying to retain my dignity, and desperately trying to not make a scene. Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up slowly and see the very nice lady who helped in the first place smiling and looking down on me.

“It’s okay sir” she says as if she’s talking to a child, or a senile old man with a true look of pity on her face. “You can go, we can clean this up.”

Any trace of dignity I had, floated away on the breeze. At that moment I felt every second of the past forty-three, almost forty-four years of my life pushing down on my shoulders, and I was defeated. She looked at me as a nurse in an old folks home looks at an old man standing in the middle of the room trying to understand why FDR won’t return his phone calls as he wonders what so cool about that Elvis guy anyway!

I Stood, mumbled a weak apology and went to go to the restroom and clean up….  When she pointed out that the water was out in the bathrooms, and I’d have to go next door.

On the way out…. I grabbed a pile of napkins and wandered off, letting the rain wash away my sour cream flavored shame as I drove back to work and awkwardly smiled at people in the men’s room as I tried to clean white sour cream stains off my pants.

Yeah….

Ben, Willard, and Some Rambling.

The new book is coming along pretty good. I’m two stories away from having it completed. They would have been done already, but one of them twisted itself into something so much bigger and more complex than it started at as. It was supposed to be a simple black dahlia style murder mystery, but part way through, i realized i really wasn’t interested in writing that type of story. so it became something else entirely.

While I’ve been writing I’ve also been working on editing. Twelve of the Eighteen completed short stories have been edited and i’m pretty proud of them. I just need to get them done so i can move on. I have lots of ideas, and plans, it’s just hard to implement them.

Life has a way of getting in the way and making it hard to carve that much needed writing time into my day. I need to figure out a way to balance all this.

Maybe watch less movies?? Speaking of movies……

I meant to watch Ben back in June as a double feature to Willard when I first bought the discs.  Didn’t work out though. See, I’m on medication for a medical condition that is either slowly killing me, or all in my head. Who knows. One of the side effects of this medication are occasional extremely vivid dreams.

After finishing Willard, I was oddly anxious and skittish about watching another Rat movie. So instead, I just went to bed. Now, one of the symptoms of this thing o mine, is that sometimes the electrical impulses in my body will go off and I’ll get odd sensations and pain….. Sometimes it feels like something small is chewing on my toes. Or that cat, or other furry animal is rubbing against my leg.

You can probably see where I’m going with this.

So that night, after watching Willard several things all occurred at once. I was almost asleep and my pillow started falling off my bed, it moved really slowly and with the help of gravity, started pulling the blanket off of me. I sat up in bed, convinced it was a rat gigantic black rat moving under my blanket. Needless to say, I gasped and almost fell off the bed though.

In my mind though, it wasn’t the floor, it was a writhing mass of rats. At that exact moment, because it can be exasperated by stress, as I teetered over the edge of the darkness, trying not to fall to my death, the electric impulses started going crazy in my legs and toes. I kicked in pain as it felt like a wave of rats swept over my leg and started chewing on the tips of my toes and my legs.

Trying not to cry, or wet myself, I struggle to turn on my Christmas Story Leg Lamp that sits on my bed side stand, and as the room floods with electric sex, I’m alone. Covered in sweat created by the fear of my imminent demise.

Not to spoil the story, but I lived. Rats didn’t, and still haven’t eaten me.

Since that day though, partially because of my medication, the Rat dreams keep coming back. Not every night, but just often enough. I’ll be in the middle of a Dream and a Rat will lunge out of the cupboard and I’ll wake with a gasp.

Willard is a good a movie. Deserving of six months of nightmares? I don’t know. It has a good cast and a sympathetic down on its luck lead. Ben on the other hand? Hmmm….  Hard to say. It’s not nearly as good. Worth watching to complete the two, but it goes in some odd directions.

Hopefully a second dosage of Rat horror will wipe away the trauma that Willard gave me back in June.