31 Uncanny Bits of Terror for October - Day Ten: Horror Films Bring Us Together

I managed a video store for almost ten years. From about 1994 to 2004. It was eight years of absolute immersion in film. The last two years were more of a pathetic ride into the belly of ugly Failing American Corporate Chain Store Reality, but that's a very sad story for another time. Being a life long lover of movies, the idea of being able to take home two or more movies a night for free and receive NICE discounts on films for sale was absolute heaven to me.

Of course, the job was not all days and nights filled with watching obscure crime and horror films and kibitzing with fellow lovers of funky, cinematic ephemera - there were late fees to be collected and phone calls to be made to folks with long overdue movies on their accounts.


There was one terrible moment during one of those late calls that has really stuck with me through all these years. I accidentally dialed a wrong number and left a message on an answering machine regarding a late copy of Jerry McGuire or something hot and new on video at that time.

The human with that number got home from a hard day at the office, checked his messages, heard the message meant for someone else, promptly freaked out and placed a call to the offending video store.

It did not take me long to realize the error.  I quickly explained to the frothing man-thing on the line that I had transposed the numbers.  The call was meant for someone else. The fellow's heavy-breathing and yelling slowly calmed to a low murmur of disgust. Through clenched-teeth and spittle he said, "I knew there was no way this message was for me or any member of my family. We do not watch movies. We are not MOVIE PEOPLE."


You see, I understand not everyone likes the same things. I can understand if someone is just not into listening to Free Jazz or reading the nonsense verse of Edward Lear. It was the sneering tone of the words, MOVIE PEOPLE...it really got to me.

As if a person who watches movies is in the same category as a Nazi, child abuser or killer of kittens.

If he knew the call was surely a wrong number, why did he call and scream as if I had commented about his wife's butthole or something equally as offensive?

Well, obviously he was an asshole, but maybe not having films in his life had dimmed all the lights in his noggin and crushed any sort of humanity in his soul.

This angry man obviously lived an empty, sad, little life.  An existence concrete and reality-based, devoid of flights of fancy, musical numbers, slapstick routines, car chases, dark alleys, adventures in foreign lands, trips to outer space, outlandish dream sequences and freakish landscapes, gorillas, romantic interludes, talking animals, melodrama, wacky histrionics, Doris Day, Marie Windsor's beautiful eyes and  M. Emmet Walsh.



It's just a theory.

But this is a post about Halloween, right?  I kinda got side-tracked there  thinking back to those days behind a counter foisting videos, pop and over-priced snacks to the great unwashed.  I just wanted to get that off of my chest. Ruminating over the anecdote I'm going to relate next got me thinking about that awful moment with the barking man who lived the vacuous life without movies...

I do feel better.

Now.

Here goes:


Horror films can bring folks together.


Let me tell you about this fellow...

He walked into the video store to browse a little while he waited for his prescription to be filled in a drug store that was located in the same strip mall as the video store.  He was probably in his early 80s.  He had the sort of wrinkled face that a person gets from a lifetime spent laughing and smiling...

He approached the counter after a few minutes of wandering about the aisles and asked:

"Have you ever seen the movie, The Body Snatcher?  The one with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff?"



I answered, "Of course, good gosh, that is my all-time favorite horror film!!"



Then, regardless of our places in that present moment - me, a 26 year-old-college-drop-out-video-store -manager and him, a jolly looking Senior Citizen who lived volumes past my meager years - we were both twelve years old again.

We gushed over Karloff's performance in the film.

We talked a little about some of the other times Karloff and Lugosi shared the screen together.






It was the ending of that film, the mention of the still-to-this-very-day horrifying ending that he stopped and asked:

"Did you feel that?"

"No, What, what was it?"

"The chills!  Did you get chills down your spine?"

And I had felt chills down my spine.

We both laughed.

He became a regular customer.

Over the next few years, he slowly revealed himself to be a racist, sexist, anti-semitic prick,
but for those few seconds
when we talked about Boris and Bela
we could see eye to eye.

Happy Halloween.