In 1983 (Yes, I’m a child of the eighties), my friend and I went to the movies. There was this flick in the theatres called The Twilight Zone. We knew nothing about it, nothing about the original series, nothing about the show’s habit of ironic and moralistic O. Henry endings, nothing about scary movies beyond knowing that they were scary and they were sometimes sexy. Sex was something you could see in scary movies without your parents knowing.
The opening scene is set late at night, in a car, on a long, lonely highway. The two men inside are singing along to the radio. They have a conversation after that, a lively conversation, and then the driver says, “Do you want to see something scary?”
After the passenger agrees, the driver turns out the indoor lights. They’re in the dark, out in the middle of nowhere, roaring blind down the highway. The passenger is understandably frightened. He begs for the lights to be on again.
After the lights come on, the passenger says, “Do you wanna see something really scary?”
When the driver says yes, the passenger says, “First you have to pull over.”
The driver does so. After they are safely pulled over and the engine is off, the driver turns to the passenger. After the constant drone of the car engine, the theatre is quiet, and the driver’s voice is very startling and loud when he says… “Okay! Scare me.”
The passenger smiles and turns away towards the door, hiding his face. After a moment of unbearable silence, the passenger turns around again. And this is what we see.
I just about died. I turned and hid my face as the audience screamed in delight. A second later I peeked around to see this thing begin to eat the driver’s face.
I recovered, and the rest of the movie was quite average, until the the final story in which a plane passenger has to watch a gremlin eat the wing of his plane.
That was the most terrifying moment of my young life. I remember it like it were yesterday.
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A year ago, I decided to look up my old nemesis, the movie that scared the crap out of me when I was a child. I finally saw the old scene on YouTube. I was so thankful. Everything is on Youtube. When we’re all dead, YouTube will still be around to explain everything.
You know what I saw in that opening scene? Albert Brooks and Dan Ackroyd in that car.
That song they were singing along to on the tapedeck? A cover of Midnight Special by Creedence. Then they play a musical guessing game – they hum along to the themes to Hawai’i Five-O, Sea Hunt, and even National Geographic. Eventually they sing The Twilight zone theme. It’s hilarious. It’s a young Brooks and Ackroyd – of course it’s funny! Not only that, I completely blanked out and had forgotten that game. I only remembered the frightening bits.
So there you have it: One of my most formative scary movie experiences was comedy and I was too green to realize it. Looking back, I can see that it’s a delightful scene, full of fun and love of old television, with two wonderful comic actors who act as if they were enjoying every minute.
Look up the scene. It’s wonderful and can be found here.