The first movie that ever terrified me was Stranger in Our House. It haunted my nightmares for two decades until I finally saw it again in the late nineties. Not being five-years old anymore made me see this 1978 made for TV-movie rather differently (I thought it was bad). Seeing it again last year when I was no longer a cynical twenty-something, I viewed it differently again, and though it no longer frightened me, I enjoyed its deliberate humor, no-bullshit pacing, and story line that does tap into a primal fear (being the only person who recognizes a monster). Would you expect anything less from a horror craftsman like Wes Craven.
I wouldn't exactly call myself a serious Wes Craven fan, though even movies that I don't personally love--such as Scream or The Hills Have Eyes--are clearly made by an artist who knows his audience and how to satisfy and upset its expectations. In the case of A Nightmare on Elm Street, he made a truly great horror picture for the ages, once again giving his eighties audience what they wanted--lots of dead teens--and what they didn't realize they wanted--an interesting monster, an interesting hero, a witty script, and well-brewed atmosphere. Still, that movie never scared me like Stranger in Our House did (read more about that in Psychobabble's currently-hibernating series Things That Scare Me).
Craven's work in the eighties was so contemporary and fresh, I briefly forgot that he'd been at it for some 15 years before Nightmare on Elm Street, so my jaw dropped when I read about his death this morning. When I saw he was 76, I was surprised by my surprise, though the fact that the cause was brain cancer makes me feel that Wes Craven still went too young. I'll miss him every time I have a bad dream.
In spite of (or, perhaps, because of) my adult infatuation with all things horrifying and horrific, I was scared of absolutely everything when I was a kid. A television commercial for a horror movie was enough to send me racing from the den in a sweaty palm panic. As an ongoing series here on Psychobabble, I'm going to be reviewing some of the things that most traumatized me as a child and evaluating whether or not I was rightfully frightened or just a wiener.
Case Study #2: Stranger in Our House (aka: Summer of Fear)
Following two super low-budget horror flicks that are now regarded as genre classics—The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes— Wes Craven brought his schlock-shock vision to the small screen with a movie called Stranger in Our House (1978). The film starred Linda Blair as Rachel, a teenage girl skeptical of her cousin Julia (Lee Purcell), who has come to stay with Rachel’s family after her parents die in a mysterious car accident. As it turns out, Julia’s got some evil juju running through her and makes it her mission to cause trouble for Rachel and her kin.
I distinctly recall my mother watching this flick one afternoon when I was a kid. Initially, I was merely disturbed by the age-old concept of “I’m the only person who realizes you’re a monster and everyone else thinks I’m crazy.”
The most frightening moment arrived after Julia is inevitably dispatched at the end of the movie. During the closing credits we see her reeling in sickening slow motion with those creepy contacts in her eyes. “Wait, so she’s not really dead?” I wondered, now having been introduced to not one but two deathless horror clichés. Of course, she was dead. I just didn’t grasp the fact that the closing credits weren’t a continuation of the film, but a sort of recap.
The Verdict: About ten or fifteen years ago, I noticed that Stranger in Our House was being shown as a late night movie on TV, and I made sure to stay up and check it out to find out if it still packed a punch. What I saw was a cheap, crappily acted crap-fest with crappy special effects that wouldn’t scare a six-year old. Only they did scare a six-year old… me. Ergo, I was a wiener.
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