Only three movies ever scared me. One of them made me jump in my seat and emit a strangled scream. I was young when I saw them.
Previously, I wrote here about two of the movies.
Diabolique was a 1954 French film that scared audiences so badly, some people left the theaters crying. Back in the mid-1950s, there were no ratings or age restrictions for movies, so as a pre-schooler, I bought a ticket and watched, bag of popcorn in hand. I didn’t cry, but I darn near wet my pants.
The other film, the one that made me jump, was The Killer Shrews, which I saw a few years later.
I can’t tell you the name of the third movie. I was quite young when I saw it. I was home alone, watching our crappy little black and white TV set that only got one channel. Back then, television programming didn’t amount to much.
There was a movie—the sort that today would inspire snide commentaries—about some treasure hunters. One of them, a man, found his way into a cave.
I sat there entranced, hoping he would find the treasure. In the cave, sitting upright against the wall, was a skeleton. Suddenly to my surprise, and to the man’s as well, the skeleton slowly stood up. The man was horrified, and so was I. The scene shifted back and forth between the approaching skeleton and the face of the terrified man.
We were not shown what happened, but we saw the aftermath. The other explorers made it to the cave and found the skeleton sitting where it had first been, leaning against the wall. And they found their friend dead, with a look of horror frozen on his face.
The part of the film when the skeleton came to life scared me more than anything else in my life. Later on, I would see Diabolique and The Killer Shrews, but scary as they were, that early skeleton movie was the worst.
I didn’t want to turn the TV off, but didn’t want to leave it on. I didn’t want to turn the lights off, but didn’t want to leave them on. My mother worked nights and wouldn’t be home until the wee hours. My brother, six years older than I, was in a habit of staying out late.
My mother, my brother, and I were poorer than poor. Our house had two rooms: a kitchen and a bedroom. The three of us slept in the same queen-sized bed. I managed to turn the TV off, but not the lights. I got in bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. And I waited and waited for my brother to come home—or the skeleton to walk in from the kitchen.
I’ve had a number of frightening experiences in my life—mostly in the Army—when it seemed I was a breath away from getting killed. None of those experiences scared me half as much as that movie did.
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