My Debt to the Boogeyman

First off, I want to apologize for my lack of posts here. I wrote a great post back in January boasting about the great things I planned on doing this year, including posting on this blog. Unfortunately, life hit pretty hard around these parts and my writing plans were derailed. At any rate, it’s time to get back on the horse and give it another go. What better time than now with Halloween lurking right around the corner.

I was having a conversation with a friend earlier about movies that influenced her to write horror. We tossed a few titles around and when it came time for the movie that probably influenced me the most, it had to be John Carpenter’s Halloween. Instead of hashing out the details of why this movie has influenced me and my love for horror, I thought it might be better to tell the story here. I will try and keep this spoiler free, but I will say if you haven’t seen this movie yet you’ve had ample time to do so (it only came out in ’78, so sorry, not sorry- you’ve been warned).

Halloween was the first horror movie I can ever remember watching. I was around five years old and very sneaky as a kid. One night as I lay in bed, I heard the unforgettable tune of the HBO Feature Presentation intro (if you’re old enough you’ll remember the camera panning out of a family’s living room, flying down some town’s street and soaring up into the stars where the chrome HBO logo slowly spun into frame like some majestic sign from God to cozy up on the couch and break out the Jiffy-Pop). Excited, I crept into the living room and crawled in behind the couch as my unsuspecting parents prepared to watch Halloween. Now before I go too far into this you must keep in mind, I was five. Halloween meant nothing but loads and loads of candy to me! Here was a movie about candy! Right from the start I spot the glowing jack-o-lantern (the symbol for all things yummy and delicious) and the word Halloween. I was stoked and this was definitely the movie for me.

Needless to say, my mind changed in a hurry. Teens making out on a coach? A topless girl changing in her bedroom? Five year old Mike was grossed out, but something kept my eyes locked on the screen. Looking back on it, I think I was mesmerized by the masked point of view and the tension building music, but whatever the reason, I stuck it out. Then the topless girl said the one thing that could hold my attention- she said my name. Here I am watching a movie from a masked point of view shot and the first line in the movie is someone calling out to me- chastising me for “looking”. My young brain was stunned. Was she talking to me? How could someone on TV know I was watching something I knew I wasn’t supposed to be watching? Before I had time to think about it, the girl was getting hacked up with a knife… like I was doing it. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal as an adult, but as a child, I was traumatized. Still, I kept watching and the next thing I know the point of view is taken away and they pull the mask off of a kid who actually looked a lot like me at the time- more mind bending trickery from the television I just couldn’t comprehend.

From there, it got a lot worse as you can imagine. I won’t give a rundown of the whole movie, but there are a few more things I believe played a huge part in cementing this film in my brain at such a young age. For starters, the main little boy Jamie Lee Curtis is babysitting (Tommy) was someone I began to relate to. He talked about the “Boogeyman” and the name stuck in my head (probably the first time I ever heard of such a being). This would come into play long after I watched Halloween, especially when the adults tried to convince me the Boogeyman wasn’t real. More importantly, Tommy says the one thing I totally believed- you can’t kill the Boogeyman.

Then, of course, there was Michael Myers. There is just something about this silent, towering man in a distorted face mask that creeped the shit out of me, especially once the bodies started dropping. He was taking out grown adults with ease, so how was a kid like me ever going to get away from something so strong and terrifying? I had no clue and in the weeks to come, it became a real problem.

I don’t remember going to sleep that night and I can’t tell you when the nightmares began, but I do remember them and let’s just say the movie was tame compared to my over-active imagination. Before long, I was seeing the Boogeyman everywhere… watching and waiting to kill me. One memory I have is of arguing with my grandmother. She wanted me to go and check her mailbox… in broad daylight, mind you… and I flat out refused for fear of the Boogeyman. On a similar occasion, I did everything in my power not to play in our backyard because I was convinced Myers was in our tool shed.

Nightmares are one thing, but when you start to have daytime hallucinations shit gets real pretty quick. I would peek out of the blinds and see him across the street waving at me (side note- it probably didn’t help that the town cemetery was visible behind the neighbor’s backyard as well, but I digress). My mom could be shopping at the grocery store and I would cower down in the buggy when I spotted him in the produce section or behind the glass in the meat market. I know this sounds crazy and I know he wasn’t actually there, but I have vivid memories of it to this day. There came a point when I would wait for my parents to go to sleep so I could crawl in between them at night, terrified the Boogeyman would “get” me. The most vivid memory I have is of him standing in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom. He was patiently waiting for me to fall asleep.

These late night trips into their bedroom became an annoyance (especially for a young couple trying to make me a baby brother). Crawling into bed with them became unacceptable, but I was determined to be safe, so I would sneak into their adjoining bathroom and curl up on the floor with the light on. This worked for a while until my mom tripped over me one night. Finally, they realized I had a serious problem.

This next part is going to sound bad, especially for those of you who may disagree with spankings and whatnot in today’s age, but I have to stress something here. My parents were and are GREAT parents. They had their faults like anyone else and like I said before, they were young (early twenties). I hold no ill will for what happened and in fact, it molded me and my love for horror, so please understand, I don’t mean this as a sob story or anything of that nature. I love them and they have always loved me, but by God, dad was going to break me of this fear and to be quite honest, I’m glad he did. He didn’t beat me or anything like that (I rarely remember the few spankings I got), but he had a different plan in mind. In the middle of the day he took me into their bedroom, sat me down and we had a long talk. He explained to me there was no Boogeyman. He explained to me that I shouldn’t be afraid in the dark because there was nothing to be afraid of. Then he turned off the lights and shut the door, leaving me to fend for myself when Michael Myers would surely attack. I screamed like a banshee. I would have run across the room and beat on the door if I hadn’t been so scared to move. I cried and cried to what for me felt like eons. In hindsight, I probably wasn’t in the room more than thirty minutes if that long (seriously my dad is a big softy).

Slowly, I came to a realization. I was okay. Nothing tried to hurt me. In fact, the only sound in the room was me. The tears stopped flowing. The screaming came to a halt and absolutely nothing happened. I actually became comfortable in the dark. I don’t know what it was or how this could have possibly worked, but something clicked in my mind. There was no Boogeyman and the silent dark was actually nice. I wasn’t scared.

In time, this little event would mold me in ways I could have never predicted. I became a huge fan of everything horror. These so-called scary movies stopped scaring me entirely. In fact, most of them make me laugh (twisted, I know). I love to scare people. I went from letting my imagination run wild and terrifying me to utilizing that imagination on paper to terrify others. I like to think it gave me a new perspective on the world in general, but I won’t wax philosophical on you. The point is, without Halloween I wouldn’t be writing this blog entry. Thanks Michael Myers. I owe you one.