Going in for True Romance now. Been saving this one for white boy day.
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Banger, always a good decision 
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Just finished. Such a great movie. Every scene has some interesting detail or flourish, down to stuff like the flying feathers in the final shootout scene. Definitely in my top 10, probably top 5.
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My theory is that everyone has that one movie that blew their young mind, and that one movie that scared them worse than any movie ever could. Could be same move I dunno. Iāll start.
Alien will always be the movie that blew my kid brain to smithereens. I saw it when I was 11 at the Midland Theater in KC - a converted opera house with the first Dolby system in KC. It had little side cubbies and a balcony and gothic shit all over the ceiling. It literally felt like the ship they go into in the beginning of the movie. It also felt like the size of an NBA arena to me as a kid. Iām sure if I ever went back, Iād be shocked how much smaller it actually is.
Even pre-internet we all knew about the chestburster before seeing the movie. My friends and I would make a double fist under our shirts and then shoot it out and go BLAHHHHAAHH. But in the beginning when theyāre looking at the eggs I had no idea something was going to happen. Itās just an egg, what harm can that do? Until I looked over and saw my Mom curled up in a ball in her seat peeking through her fingers. Then I was like āOhhhhh shit.ā
So no movie will ever blow my mind like that. I took the kid I had in my life to see Slumdog Millionaire when she was 14. Iām pretty sure that was her mind-blowing movie. Her eyes were so big coming out of that. And she listed it as her favorite movie years later.
The movie that scared me 10x worse than another movie ever could was Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70s version obviously) when I was in 4th grade. My parents wouldnāt let me see Jaws for years because they thought Iād be scared to go in the ocean. Big deal, I knew sharks werenāt that common. Same with Alien, I knew one wasnāt waiting for me behind the door when I came in my room.
But some weird thing comes from space and turns everyone into pod people, and my parents couldnāt do anything to protect me, in fact they could even turn into pod people? THAT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN.
Maybe it was the dark ending as well. But the world never looked the same to me after that movie. I had nightmares that night where I literally just gave in and said fine, make me a pod person, Iām tired of running. THAT IS FUCKED UP.
My mom said she had a similar experience when she read 1984. I think thereās that one movie/book/whatever that opens your kid eyes that the world isnāt as safe as you think.
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For me it was the 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars. I checked the back of peopleās necks for signs of infection for years.
Written by Dan OāBannon, who was the screenwriter for Alien.
And directed by Tobe Hooper, seen by some as both the best AND the worst director lol. His stuff includes cult classis like Lifeforce and Texas Chainsaw 2, as well as HUGE movies like Poltergeist and Salemās Lot.
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The movie that scared me the most ever was Shyamalanās Sixth Sense. In fact itās pretty embarassing because I wasnāt really a kid (13 yo maybe). I remember Iād been really offended and rolled my eyes when a friend of my mother had suggested that I might find it scary, and yet for a few weeks after seeing it I really had to turn all the lights on before going to the bathroom at night.
Not sure why that specific movie had this effect on me (all I remember is this frame with a kid turning his face and some part is missing maybe ?). I obviously knew that ghosts donāt exist, and yetā¦This is the only time that something like that has happened to me. The magic of movies I guess 
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That movie for me is Poltergeist. There are so many R rated movies that should be rated PG. Poltergeist is one of the very few (only?) PG movies that should be rated R.
I was a cocky twelve year old kid and figured a PG āhorrorā movie produced by Spielberg was just going to be a slightly heavier version of Close Encounters or E.T. Movies like Freddy, Jason, Halloween always seemed sort of comical and I knew what to expect going in. Poltergeist was terrifying because it seemed more real and I was completely not expecting it to be so scary.
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The āblow my mindā movie was ldo Star Wars ep IV. Sure, it sounds like an obvious choice, but I was 5 years old when it came out and I still remember seeing it in the theater and not being able to sleep for days on end and talking about it for months on end with my friends. And then of course began the never-ending quest to collect every single action figure and other piece of merch that Lucas bestowed upon us.
The one that legit scared tf out of me as a kid was the first Friday the 13th film on HBO. Couldnāt sleep for a week after my cousins and I stayed up late at my auntās house to watch it. She had HBO and let us stay up as late as we wanted and it scarred me for years.
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Oh man that movie is so wild! In the podcast thread I mentioned Dana Gouldās podcast. He was a huge monster kid and kinda still is, and every Halloween he does a big show on horror movies and such and always brings guys in to talk about them. Anyway, a few years ago he had Patton Oswalt on and they were going through all their faves and Oswalt brought up Body Snatchers. He said, āThat movie was WAY scarier to when I saw it years later as an adult than when I first saw it as a kid.ā I watch it again last fall when the streaming services were doing all their horror stuff, and damn, he was right! Thereās all kinds of shit going on in that movie that youād never notice as a casual viewer. People in the background, out of focus, being chased down and dragged away and shit by aliens while Sutherland and co just casually go about their day, not realizing what is happening around them. Itās just a really fantastically done horror/suspense film.
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As an 8-year-old, I was pretty freaked out after seeing Spielbergās movie Duel.
As a 13-year-old, I got really freaked out by Helter Skelter (1976).
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Duel set the bar high for suspense flicks
My mom showed me this when I was like 8 years old and it scared the piss out of me.
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It also set a higher bar for made-for-TV-movies, which he made when he was only 25.
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Poltergeist was pretty scary.
Yeah I think the dry cleaner lady freaked me out the most. The fact that your spouse could be replaced and no one believes you.
The originally 50s movie was basically an allegory for communism and not nearly as freaky.
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Yeah Duel totally freaked me out.
In the same vein, The Car was always on early cable. Iām sure it would be stupid as hell now but it freaked me out as a kid.
Watching Stripes now. I still say āson of beeech, sheetā all the time and Iād completely forgotten where it came from.
Lighten up Francis!
To the extent I have positive memories of Stripes, itās because Iāve completely forgotten about the entire second half of the movie. Just like Full Metal Jacket.
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So many lines already. I wanna party with you pal.
And I love John Candy. Very wistful seeing him.