My First Horror Film
Thursday, April 1st, 2010 by Nos
Greetings Lippy fans!
Okay I’ve got be honest, I’m gonna cheat a little on this column. Technically my first horror film was about a certain man eating shark that shall go nameless. I was 3 when I saw that and now I have a for real phobia of the stupid creature. To it’s credit, it did it’s job extremely well…it scared the shit out of me.
But today we’re gonna talk about my slightly less traumatizing experience with a little movie called GREMLINS . If you weren’t alive during the 1980′s or have just been really out of loop, let me give a brief synopsis: Dad finds strange creature in an oddities shop in Chinatown. Dad MUST buy creature for his son Billy’s Christmas present. Old Chinese dude won’t sell it. Dad makes a back alley deal with Chinese dude’s grandson. The creature is a Mogwai and it can’t be around bright lights, must never get wet, and never, EVER be fed after midnight. As you can guess the rules get broken, gremlins pop out of the Mogwi’s back and chaos unfolds. And while this may not be the most horrific thing ever captured on film, it is most certainly a horror movie and it’s what I’m claiming as my first.
Released in 1984, the year of my birth, I didn’t actually see GREMLINS till ye old 1989 when I was 5. My beloved babysitter had me for the evening and the movie was on television to promote the upcoming release of GREMLINS 2.
I’m pretty sure it was around Christmas time.
The movie was fascinating to me and I really took a shining to bad gremlin “Spike”. Naturally I let out freakish out bursts of 5 years old laughter at parts that only made adults chuckle. I started making plans on how I could obtain my own Mogwai.The whole thing was pure magic and the best part was all the bad gremlins went away at the end … or did they? Leave it to that silly Chinese shop owner to ruin the end and inform me that there just might be a damn gremlin under my bed! Really? Just waiting to swipe it’s ugly, claw filled hand at me when I got up to use the bathroom? Fuck that!
Needless to say I took this little warning to heart and when I got home that night I made my mom check under my bed. She gave the all clear and I went to go brush my teeth. My mother never was one to turn down an opportunity to scare the piss out of me. As I stood at the sink, innocently scrubbing my teeth, my mom let out a damn good imitation of a gremlin laugh. I came screeching out of the bathroom and stood in the middle of the living room crying. Mom thought it was funny until she realized I wasn’t calming down. Every time she tried to get me back in my bedroom, to show me there was no gremlin, I started flailing my hands around and screaming. I think I may have slept with her that night.
It’s laughable to think this is what used to scare me. The shelves in my my living are now home to some the most gory, trauma-inducing films ever recorded … and that’s what I watch while I’m eating dinner. But there is a bit of innocence lost and part of me really misses that little girl who got all worked up over a kids horror film. She grew up to make scary movies and kiss boys (and girls) and traveled across America to follow her dreams.
Say it with me now: AWWWWWWWWW
Anyways… March turned out to be an uber productive month with lots of fun and excitement! I flew out to L.A. for various projects and ended up shooting some rather scandalous photos with model/actress Ruby Violence. Most of what we shot we highly inappropriate for those under 18 but I’ve including a few behind the scenes and PG13 stills below … so you’ll get the idea. For folks over 18, I’ll be posting our sexy set on my website (goddessofgorenos.com) soon!
Other adventures included looting the Lip Service warehouse for new clothing and catching a performance by Lightnin’ Woodcock – you should really go check out his music the moment you stop reading this column!
Oh and I also got to see PUMPKINHEAD on the big screen and the New Beverly!!!
I was also featured this month in a KICK ASS zine called AX WOUND. It’s really worth getting your mitts on because Eli Roth, Rebekah McKendry, Shannon Lark, and Sarah Jahier (among others) are also interviewed in it!
XoXo
Nos
