Totally Terrifying Moments Of Youth

“I’m terrible at horror movies, by the way. I get scared so easily. “~ Oliver Stone

 

I am not the kind of person that hides the fact that I love to watch horror films. I’m also not the kind of person that tries to hide the fact that something made me jump out of my skin while watching horror films. But there is one film. One stinkin’, lousy film that just about scared the shit out of me when I was still living at home.

 

That film is “Demons”.

 

Demons or “Dèmoni” was the original title, released in 1985 and written by Dario Argento and directed by Lamberto Bava.

 

Allow me to give you one heck of a spoiler for you, just in case you have not seen this foulness.

 

On the Berlin subway, university student Cheryl is pursued by a mysterious, masked man. However, rather than attack her he offers her tickets to a free screening at a local, recently renovated cinema. She talks her friend, Kathy, into going with her. At the crowded theater, they meet two young gentleman, George and Ken, and sit with them. Before the film begins, a woman named Rosemary scratches her face with a bizarre mask in the lobby. The film is a violent, disturbing horror film that features the mask from the lobby.

 

 Feeling ill, Rosemary goes to the bathroom. The scratch on her face bursts open, spewing out a foul pus. She is soon transformed into a bloodthirsty, fanged demon. Rosemary attacks her friend, Carmen. Carmen rips through the screen and transforms into a demon in front of the rest of the cinema goers.

 

The group of uninfected race to any exit they can find, only to find that they have all been bricked up. Although they attempt to barricade themselves in the balcony, many of them are attacked and infected by the demons. One of the demons escapes into the city when four punks break in to the building through a back entrance. The punks are soon transformed into demons as well.

 

In the cinema, only George and Cheryl remain uninfected. Using a motorcycle and sword props from the lobby, they ride through the auditorium slicing down many demons.

 

Suddenly, a helicopter crashes through the roof. George and Cheryl use its winch to climb to the roof. There they are attacked by the mysterious man from the subway but are able to kill him by impaling his head on an exposed bit of rebar.

 

The two climb down onto the streets and discover the demonic infection has spread throughout the city. They are picked up by well-armed survivors in a jeep. As they drive to safety, Cheryl transforms into a demon. She is killed by one of the other passengers, leaving George as the only survivor from the cinema.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound like much in words like that, so let me tell you my side of the story:

This movie was rented from the local video store by myself and my younger brother. We figured we’d satisfy ourselves with yet another horror film. The thing of it was that movies that were rated R by the MPAA were not allowed in the house. A rule my parents had made. But this time, they were out of town.

And I should just briefly mention that because of a bad choice that my brother had made about a year earlier that dealt with underage drinking of alcohol while the parents were away caused the parents to believe that some supervision was necessary this time around. Some how, we had influenced that particular person to allow us this rated R treat into the house to watch. Heck, that person even sat down and watched it with us.

It wasn’t anywhere near Halloween, just some random day that we decided to rent a movie.

We watched this film at night and we were fine. Although when it was time to go to bed, I declined to even get off of the couch. I said that I was going to sleep on the couch because I was “too scared to sleep in my own bed”. That was actually a lie. The fact of the matter was at the time, the family had two new house pets. One puppy and one kitten. The puppy had actually taken a dump in my bedroom prior to being trained to do it outside and of course the smell was still in the bedroom. So I didn’t want to go sleep in there.

And so there I was, laying on the couch in the dark. Revisiting in my head what I had just seen. There is one particular scene in the film where the punks are in a vehicle, involving themselves with illegal drugs. I think cocaine.

Someone spilled it all over the female in the car and there someone was, scratching it off of her breasts with a razor blade. Now knowing what I knew about the film at that point, I wondered if he was going to cut her, and then she’d end up like one of these creatures.

And then the whole idea of turning into these horrible things just from a scratch??? How could that possibly be? What was the point to it?

Just when I was pondering these totally ridiculous questions, the kitten (which was mostly black in color) and come into the living room without me knowing it. The thoughts poured over and over again… turned into a monster by a scratch.

About that time, the kitten had started to swiftly crawl up the back of the couch, using its claws and I WAS DONE! It scared me so bad that I jumped off the couch and ran around the house screaming like an idiot.

The kitten had reached the top of the couch and then jumped onto my body before I even began to bolt from the living room. Its claws dug into my flesh as it landed.

After I finished screaming like a sissy, all I could hear was a faint and ever so innocent “meow, meow” from the cat that just scared me so badly. I woke everyone up in the house and scared them to death as well. When they realized why I was screaming so maniacally, well, my younger brother just rolled his eyes at me and referred to me as something similar to a female reproductive part of the body.

I was done with Italian horror films. I never watched another one voluntarily again.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, WORDPRESS!!!!!