the rix mix

Three movies that really freaked me out as a kid were Curse of the Demon, The Birds, & The Blob. Curse of the Demon suggested that someone could slip a piece of parchment into the book I was least likely to open between Friday afternoon & Monday morning - arithmetic, & I'd be ripped to pieces by a monster nobody but me could see. I've always been suspicious of birds, believing even the most beloved parakeet harbors a desire to peck its human keeper to death. The Blob is a mindless, insatiably hungry thing capable of insinuating itself into any space except a cold meat locker & absorbing the occupants. But the movie has an uplifting message that only teenagers, intuitively recognizing the deady silly putty was symbolic of mainstream culture in the Eisenhower era, could discern the threat & figure out how to defeat it (with fire extinguishers stolen from the high school), thus saving their beloved diner hangout. The disturbing depictions of a banshee & chariot of death in Darby O'Gill & the Little People struck an ancestral nerve my parents hadn't bothered to inform me I possessed. I liked Creature With the Atom Brain, but it was a comedy. Plenty in real life caused me anxiety; iron lungs, nuclear attack air raid drills, Catholic nuns & holy roller protestants, joining Little League baseball, robotic TV musical acts like Mitch Miller's Gang & The Lennon Sisters, my dad's bug eyes when he got angry (later discovered to be a symptom of a malfunctioning thryroid),

For you Jersey political junkies, The Tomb of Frank Hague.