Just what is it that makes grown men collect models of the Wolf Man and grown women inwardly quiver a little at an old Bela Lugosi movie? It's that malady we all share, one that can be aptly termed...
(We're happy to introduce another new writer to HORROR-WOOD. John W. Coleman is a part-time freelance writer from Phoenix, AZ. He welcomes your comments and would like to know of your experiences with the madness. He can be reached by email here.) I'm really not sure how it happened. I don't recall if it crept up on me like a vampire in the night, or came crashing into my life Godzilla style. But like a victim of Lawrence Talbot's bite in The Wolf Man, I became infected with a case of Monster Madness.
Burdened with this disease, I just couldn't get enough of monsters. Whether they were at the theater or on TV in classic horror films or the old sci-fi B-movies, in magazines, trading cards, or books; if it had a monster in it, I wanted to see it. I grew up in a small upper Midwestern town (Beaver Dam, WI). My earliest recollection of the madness places me at the Wisconsin Theatre, where for the price of admission of a few Pepsi bottle caps, I would take in one of many Saturday afternoon double features. This was one of those spacious old movie houses with a balcony and a single screen. Besides being fascinated by the prehistoric monsters and giant mushrooms of Journey To The Center Of The Earth and terrified of the Morlocks in The Time Machine, there was the added challenge of trying to outsmart the theater manager with pranks and general naughtiness. I distinctly recall seeing The Giant Behemoth wreak havoc in London, The Blob oozing out those theater doors, and those creepy "little monster" kids in Village Of The Damned. And in the evenings those same double features played at the local drive-in, the Beaver Outdoor.
Of course this always meant trying to convince someone with a driver's license the worthiness of seeing oversized grasshoppers in Beginning Of The End, the giant scorpions, spiders, and worms of The Black Scorpion, the hideous head of The Wasp Woman, or the Ymir in 20 Million Miles To Earth. More often than not, my sister and her pals would fall prey to my madness. I recently noticed that some DVD releases of these films now come with an option of Distort-O Sound, to recreate that scratchy drive-in theater speaker sound. The madness also came in written form, monster magazines. At least that's what we called them. Which ones did I read? I really don't know, but I would guess that Famous Monsters of Filmland was one of them. What made these magazines so great were the pictures, those great still shots pulled from the movies with King Kong, Godzilla, The Mole People, The Alligator People, and The Killer Shrews, to name a few. It didn't matter how cheesy or fake the make-up or props looked, those monsters were scary and creepy enough for me.
I also spent my childhood trying to feed my monster madness while attending a parochial school. That combination was sometimes volatile. Don't get me wrong, my parochial school education was great, but monsters were certainly frowned upon. Topps trading cards came out with the Mars Attacks series in 1962. I was in the 4th grade. In a story similar to War Of The Worlds, the cards told the tale of an invasion by monster-like skull-faced Martians with bulbous brains, and Earth's eventual revenge. There were depictions of a dog being blasted with a ray gun, humans disintegrating into skeletons, and soldiers being crushed in the pincers of giant monster insects, all with a touch of blood and gore, and pretty graphic for its day. My teacher took them away. I was devastated. But I did get them back eventually, only to misplace them somewhere over the years.
A mint original set of these cards today can fetch up to several thousand dollars. The set was reissued in the 90's, and I picked one up for about $30, in another attempt to satisfy my madness. The recent Mars Attack movie was good, but I wish they wouldn't have turned the story into a comedy! Maybe I should try my hand at a screenplay, Mars Attacks – The Real Story, staying true to the original classic story on the cards. Remember, you saw it here first! I also loved building models (maybe it was the Testors cement, a.k.a. glue), and when Aurora released its series of the classic Universal Studio monsters, I had to have them all. You can check out artwork from the boxes and other stories related to these models right here in HORROR-WOOD at "The Collector's Crypt". My friend and I each decided to enter one of our models in the school art fair. I did Dracula, and he submitted the Wolfman. We were disqualified from the fair! Seems these "ungodly" creatures just didn't fit in. But, hey, we were cool, disqualified from the fair for bringing monsters! Far out! Rebels! Radicals! Those were the days!
Let it be known that the madness is not just a childhood disease. In fact, in most cases, it gets worse as one grows older. One reason is purely monetary. As we get older, we get jobs, we make a good living, and all of a sudden we have disposable income to spend on, guess what, monsters! Another reason is the sheer volume of monster movies that are available to us from TV, video and DVD. The madness is probably spread most vigorously through TV. This started with me in childhood and continues to this day. In addition to the movies, magazines, and models noted above, television was a great way to feed the need for monsters. In prime time, I remember waiting with anticipation for the next episode of Twilight Zone. And now today we have Twilight Zone marathons to occupy us for weekends at a time. I have to mention my favorite episode, "To Serve Man", a Rod Serling adaptation of a short story by Damon Knight. Some "friendly" monsters from an alien planet offer to end all of mankind's troubles. They leave behind a book called To Serve Man. This story has one of the greatest punch lines ever, but in case you've forgotten, or just never seen this episode, I won't be a spoiler here. Just check it out sometime. You won't regret it.
Another great show in prime time was The Outer Limits. Probably a bit ahead of its time, it made great use of the limited special effects available in the early Sixties. Most episodes were usually good for a monster sighting, although their appearances were generally brief in nature. I particularly remember the ant-like monsters with human-like faces in the episode, "The Zanti Misfits", in which a penal ship from the planet Zanti brings its criminals to earth for disposal. It made one hour of one weekday evening a special treat for this viewer. Just watching the intro with the famous control voice ("There is nothing wrong with your television set ...") sent chills up my spine. Of course, as I got older, those great movies that played in the theaters and drive-ins were now available on TV. More often than not some pretty scary and sometimes hilarious entertainers hosted these shows. In my younger days, the monster movies came on at 10:30 PM on Friday or midnight on Saturday. One particular station in Milwaukee did not have a host for its show, but the intro featured a clock whose hands would spin, first slowly, and then continue to speed up to a blur.
I had no problem watching the movies alone, but I had to ask my Dad to stay up to get me through that spinning clock intro. It scared the bejeezus out of me! And there were the great hosts that I have had the opportunity to enjoy throughout my monster watching days; from Milwaukee, Dr. Kadaverino; from Madison, Ferdie's Inferno; from Phoenix, Edmus Scary. Unfortunately, I think they are all gone today, and it's our loss to be sure. At sometime in early adulthood, I purchased a book off a bargain book table that listed a selection of the greatest monster movies ever. Included were James Arness' portrayal of the alien monster in The Thing; another story of dino destruction, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms; the monstrous ants of Them; the classic gill man trilogy, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Revenge Of The Creature, and The Creature Walks Among Us; and the giant octopus of It Came From Beneath The Sea. I now had a new mission in life. To continue to feed my madness, I had to record or purchase every one of these movies and start a collection. Here's where the videos and DVDs came into play. And of course it didn't stop with just these movies. My collection continues to grow. I must end my tale here. I'm still infected by this disease, this monster madness. Time to entertain myself with more monsters in a home double feature of Attack Of The Crab Monsters and Tarantula. That will get me through at least a few more days. If you're infected like me, enjoy it! If you think you're not, you're wrong! You are at HORROR-WOOD, aren't you? Lucky you, you've caught it, too! Thanks, Dr. John, for putting a name to that wonderful monster-movie fever so much of us suffer from. But please hold off on a cure...we like our monster madness... Article copyright © John Coleman. Visit his Website. |
