I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

In the early 80s, I saw more film in a theatre/drive-in setting than I have at any time since. I lived in a small Air Force town in Nevada called Indian Springs. My father worked at the Nevada Test Site and this town was close enough to his work so that he could come home every evening.  This small, desert town was a fantastic place to be young. Because of the military presence, I was able to attend little league baseball, watch military training exercises from my back yard and see some fantastic movies.

Now I have to explain the military/civilian dynamic that existed in this town so that my situation can be appreciated. The movie theatre was on the military base and was 'officially' off limits to civilians. I had several friends with Air Force parents, so I could piggy-back through the front gates to go see movies from time to time, but I really wasn’t supposed to be there. This was before the horrors of 9-11 and the subsequent lockdown of military bases. I can remember crawling through barbed wire fences to get to baseball practice and wandering through a large field full of mock tanks, wooden and ready for destruction during red flag exercises. The Sergeant that was in charge of the theatre was the warlord in full control of my movie watching life. If he was in a bad mood, I’d be turned away; but if his mood was good, or even indifferent, I was in!

Over the course of the next few years I was witness to such popcorn wonders as Mad Max, Battlestar Galactica, and many family friendly Disney movies. But even more importantly (thank you military ennui) I enjoyed a lifetime worth of exploitation and carnage. I saw classics like The Shining and the original Friday the 13^th, but I also saw European imported horror like Beyond the Door and The Tempter (which my friend’s parents dragged us from in horror, but that’s another story). I saw early 80s low budget horror (The Evil, Schizoid, and New Year’s Evil) and I saw many, many movies that blend together as a personal experience more than a story on the screen played out in front of me. On many Friday nights I would collect my allowance, go to the local convenience store, buy my comic books and head to the movies.  I still get chills thinking about it. This positive feeling is contrasted by the unsettling feeling some of these movies would give me.

It was during this time in my life that I realized that film can have an emotional effect on a person. Fear, surprise, anger and even disgust were right there on the big screen.  My next post will be a list of movies that have horrified and disgusted me and a little explanation of reasons why, but it was during one of these oddball Friday/Saturday night movies that I had my first experience with cinematic aversion. The name of the film is lost, but it was a movie about the gritty gang life in some American city. I distinctly remember a gun being raised to a minor character’s head and I turned away. It was far too much for my youthful sensibilities to deal with. To my relief, the character talked his way out of his situation and the movie moved on, but I couldn’t get the thoughts of this horror out of my mind. Ah, the innocence of youth! Long before the days of atrocity at your fingertips (thanks to the internet), all it took was the threat of horror to make me break out in cold sweat. I’m old and jaded now, but there still exist films that affect me this way. I don’t seek them out like I did in my youth, but I’ll push myself occasionally to experience them.

Stay tuned for my list! Use it as a steer clear guide or a menu of twisted eye candy, but I hope you enjoy it.