GHOST STORY (For Me The One That Started It All)

For many people my age it was the first time they saw Star Wars. For generations before perhaps it was King Kong, Dracula or Frankenstein. For the latest generation it was probably something like Titanic or the works of Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher that made them interested in cinema. Well for me strangely enough it was 1981’s Ghost Story. I was probably 8 or 9 years old hanging out at my friend Jim Peterson’s house. He had a VCR, which many of us didn’t own yet, and I was spending the night. In the afternoon we watched Cannonball Run and some goofy Western that I no longer remember. Then we played around outside for awhile, came in and ate dinner (with a side of pickled eggs which I found disgusting) and set up for the next VHS tape. That tape was Ghost Story. I knew what horror movies were, but at my young age the most horrific thing I had seen was some 1940s mummy flick or a Godzilla sequel or two. We turned off the lights, got in our sleeping bags and watched the tape. Within the first 5 minutes we were horrified to see a decomposing lady and a skeletal, ghostly entity on the bridge and I assure you that scene on the bridge did truly scar me for life! Actually when I revisited the film a few months ago not only did I still find it very scary and disturbing, but that bridge scene got me again even though I knew it was coming. The movie does slow down a bit after that, but every horror scene they throw at you after the terror on the bridge is still greatly unsettling. I don’t want to ruin the plot, but when you learn the secret of the club that gets together to tell these ghost stories you will probably be quite disturbed like I was. Even at 8 years old I realized after watching that film that I had found something different. This was not The Mummy’s Hand or Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, THIS was what horror cinema was all about. Granted that night over my friend’s house I got maybe two hours of sleep because I was constantly looking throughout his darkened home for something to jump out at me. Nonetheless I found that I actually enjoyed that feeling.
   A few weeks later after I recovered, I purchased a few horror comics and probably a horror magazine as well. My parents acted a bit strange as to why I suddenly wanted books with skeletons or vampires on them, but they were always cool and had no issue with buying them for me. They would also let me stay up late on weekends if there was some old horror movie on I wanted to watch. From that point on I wanted to be scared or at the very least see creepy supernatural images. Sure I still enjoyed GI Joe, Transformers, Voltron and the Star Wars universe like most kids my age, but horror was my own personal thing as my brother, my friends and my parents really weren’t interested in those kind of films. Before I started my teens I had probably viewed over 200 horror films. Most of them were the older, more fun movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s which was what they played on television, but I did manage to see some other terrifying films like Night Of The Living Dead, The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist (which was the one that had me sleeping with the lights on for a week).
   Today it takes a lot more to scare me although I do still get pretty creeped out when watching Ju-On, Cannibal Holocaust, The Exorcist and yes Ghost Story. I honestly believe this film is much more frightening and much better than people, especially critics, remember. I agree it can be plodding at times, but because the prior scenes are so dark and evil, you will still be thinking about them when the movie gets a bit slow. I’m happy to finally own this gem on DVD after it being on my mind for decades. Although my love of horror didn’t become an obsession until I was maybe 16 years old it was Ghost Story that planted the initial seed in my head. Thanks to that scary night over at a friend’s house in the early 80s I now love zombies and slashers. Mummies and gargoyles. Demons and giant apes. In turn it’s because of horror movies that I took some screenwriting classes and became a member of The Writer’s Guild Of America. It’s the reason why I vote every year for the National Film Registry (for which I usually choose horror movies to be inducted). I’m still trying to work out deals with sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb to see if I can improve what they are doing for horror cinema. I genuinely love film and to me that word "film" usually means a horror movie. Cinema is one of the most important things in my life right after my family. Every year I discover forgotten or lost horror gems and my love for the genre and the art only grows stronger. And to think this all of this started because of a scary 80s film that many people to this day have still never heard of…

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