Campfire time, kids!

[mruzick3]

Okay, since it's that Halloweenie time again and since FilmThreat (along with Anchor Bay) has provided us all with this cult-classic horror retrospective (thanks for the flashbacks), I think it's high time we all have a....

Spoooooky Cinema Story Tiiiimme.....

If everyone's got their marshmallows toasted (some freak forgot the damn chocolate) then we can all add our scariest horror movie moments.

I'm not an avid horror movie seeker. And this is why...Wes Craven's 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.'

It was the summer of 1987, I had just spent the last six weeks at a Boy Scout camp where my mom was working as a nurse. The entire camp was pretty much deserted except for some random staffers waiting to finally leave. The day was approaching dusk and the cold air of the Southern California mountains began to chill the breath. I felt a rumble against the ground and saw the tree braches shadow themselves against the bright halogen lights of approaching buses. Bus after bus filed into the camp. The few who were left in camp stood in open-mouthed wonder as the bus doors swung open and out of the darkness....in droves....stepped down girl after girl after girl. It was later revealed that the camp was to play host to a group of high school/college bound girls in the last weeks of summer.

Well, the sight of this welcome invasion to the reamaining camp dwellers got the collective wheels-a-turnin' and by nightfall a screening of Wes Craven's first exploration into the horrors of teenage dreaming was scheduled. The word had, of course, spread to the newly arrived coeds and in the dark of the camp director's office, we all squeezed in and sat hyptnotized in front of the only VCR and TV working within a twenty mile radius.

(add your blood curdling screams here)

Yep, that's right. I can't remeber the exact numbers in the office but there was not any more than ten of us still in the camp to about 20 to 30 female new-arrivals that decided to brave the night's feature (not to mention the likes of us.) This was the first time I had ever seen this movie and it was pretty much the first full-fledged slasher pic I had seen as well. Tina got slashed within the first moments of the film....everyone jumped...and screamed. The body bag dragged itself through Nancy's high school hallways.....the girls squealed "eeeewwwww!!!." Freddy lunging himself through the maze of gnarly traps set by Nancy.....and everyone triumphed as the hat melted slowly into the bed. The dark, almost exploitive, way in which this movie was filmed drove into my deepest fears and the sexually stimulated collective just added to my anxiety.

The night wasn't over my friends. After being horrorified by a film while in the midst of a number of girls I had to end the night....I was, after-all, TWELVE and pretty much ignored by these budding women. That was when I had to step out into the cold night and make the small trek back to the nurse's cabin. The path was not far but, it was pitch black. It seems that the camp developers did not think much about exterior street lighting in the middle of the woods. So I had to make my way back through the unknown darkness with my recently acquired darker memories of a burn-faced madman waiting to haunt my waking dreams...or just painfully kill me. I ran like a sprinter on steriods and couldn't sleep for two weeks after that.

(crazy pipe-organ sounds here)

So gather 'round the fire kids. Spill your guts if you've seen 'Faces of Death' in a meat locker. Bring the chocolate syrup for the people who've never seen 'Night of the Living Dead.' I wanna hear if anyone has actually had their face melted off from putting a pumpkin on their head. That's right folks....even Halloween 3 is acceptable here.

Keep it goin' until the souls return......

_______________________________
Mike Ruzicka

[Seedy Edgewick]

The single most frightening moment I've ever experienced during a film didn't come from a "horror" film at all. It's one of the reasons this film is one of my favorites.

Miracle Mile.

I was born in 1968 and matured (physically) during the 80's. Any child of Reagan knows full well the subconscious dread of nuclear war. Countless films and TV shows played upon the US-Soviet conflict and the impending doom that followed it. From "The Day After" to an episode of "Night Court," the fear of world destruction was an omnipresent subtext in pop culture. This subconscious fear was fully ingrained in me by the time I was in college (post-1986). Not that I spent time brooding about it, mind you. I was too busy trying to get good grades in class and get laid on weekends.

I remember an episode of the resurrected "Twilight Zone" in which a woman is able to make everything around her stop completely. Balls hang in the air between thrower and catcher; people stand with mouths agape, waiting to finish sentences. At the end, nuclear war occurs, along with the expected pandemonium. The woman desperately shrieks for everyone to stop, and they do. She wanders outside and looks up at a giant ICBM hanging in the air, poised to obliterate the city. That one image gave me a chill.

Yes, I'm getting to "Miracle Mile." It stars Anthony Edwards as a perfectly normal, likable guy who's looking for a normal, likable girl. He finds her in Mare Winningham. He sets up a date with her after she gets off work but accidentally oversleeps and arrives hours late. As he paces outside, a pay phone rings. The voice on the other end is apparently someone in a missle silo who's about to fire his payload -- nuclear war is starting. The film progresses from there. Events transpire, insanity grows, and the inevitable conclusion occurs.

This film does not have a happy ending. In fact, there's very little about it that's positive. Throughout the story, as we see various people from assorted lives mingle and interact, we realize that any progress, enlightenment, or value to our existence is worthless now. Everything is about to be snuffed out. And it's these people and their situations that make the movie so effective. They're not stereotypes; they're real people: drag queens and gay boys; retirees; government workers; diner waitresses and helicopter pilots; upper- and lower-class alike. Everyone is in the same boat, and all those things that seemed so important are portrayed as trivial beyond trivia.

It's a portrayal of humanity that has never left my psyche.

Toward the end, some of the characters have gathered atop a high-rise to catch a helicopter to Antarctica -- the only place humanity has a chance of survival. One man, gone insane from drugs and terror, is laughing manaically. "Look at that baby go!" he screams as a missile's contrail slices through the sky. And it's that image that made me go cold. I trembled for HOURS after I watched that flick. The sight of that lunatic gleefully awaiting his own destruction hit me harder than any other image I'd seen. It was a perfect summation of the country's attitude at the time, brought home and graphically displayed in terms no one could misunderstand. It also illustrated the very real possibility of the complete obliteration of life on earth. As one of the characters says toward the end, "I think it's the bees' turn, now."

The classic "horror" film will always be bubblegum and cheap beer to me. Great entertainment, but nothing truly soul-shaking. For pure, unadulterated fear, nothing tops Miracle Mile.

[mruzick3]

Thanks for that affirmation of 'The Twilight Zone' episode. I thought that was a made-up TV memory that is floating around in my head...those often get mixed up with 'Tales From the Darkside' episodes. That single vision of the missile caught in the air scared the begeezus out of me. I also remember one of the stopped people pointing up at it in terror. Great memory. Haven't seen 'Miracle Mile' but it sounds pretty scary. Subtle films that use silence for the apocalypse are truly terrifying experiences.

...pass the flashlight....

___________________________
Mike Ruzicka

[Seedy Edgewick]

I don't know if MM is still available on video. I don't believe a DVD has been made yet, but I'm sure it will be some time. You could probably find a VHS copy on eBay.

Just a clarification: the film really isn't that subtle. It shows the world falling to pieces right before the end. I think what really got to me was the complete lack of nobility or dignity in the characters, with the exception of the two main ones. The film's statement, in a nutshell, is that humans are small, petty vermin who deserve to be wiped out, and even those who aren't can't save the rest.

Yeah, it's bleak, but that's why I went on at length about the dread of nuclear war in the 80's. The film targets that background fear and pulls it to the foreground, forcing you to confront it head-on. It resonated the way The Exorcist did with parents whose children were running amok.

Y'know, I probably shouldn't talk the flim up so much; I don't want to raise unrealistic expectations. It was a powerful experience for me; your mileage may vary. At the very least, it is an accurate portrayal of that subconscious dread and worthy of viewing in that context.

[Hugh]

Even though I'm a fan of Nuclear War films, Miracle Mile has always bothered me probably because I used to live in the neighborhood where it was filmed. I was quite familiar with all the locations, and that sort of added a pall to my viewing of the film.

Of course which was probably even worse was the night I saw two missiles being launched off the coast. This was at the same time-frame that "The Day After", "Threads", and other films were shown on TV. The scary thing was that I realized after seeing these missiles going up, that if in fact we were at war then I would probably find that out in the next 15 minutes or so.

THAT was bad...

Turns out to have been 2 cruise missiles test- fired from a sub laying off the coast. Didn't find that out for two days. Until then everyone thought I was crazy.

Hugh