The Internet can help in many ways but not in every way.
March 25, 2008So first I was thinking of this news story I remembered from when Henry was a baby. He had this Fisher-Price Aquarium thingy that strapped onto his crib. It had fish bobbing around and various interactive doodads and it played music and he loved it. But that's not the news story! Can you imagine what a terrible story that would make? "Fisher-Price Aquarium Has Doodads, Music." No no no. No, the story I was trying to recall is how Walmart made a knockoff of the item, and alarmed families discovered that underneath the music, in a barely perceptible whisper, you could hear the words I hate you. But did this really happen? I was so tired then. I also remember exposing myself to the UPS guy, but I couldn't have done that, right?
But the story really did happen. ("A Vancouver, Wash., family discovered the toy they unsuspectingly attached to their 6-month-old son's crib utters the words "I hate you" amid the rhythmic ocean sounds designed to lull the baby asleep.") And I really did flash the UPS guy. Thank you, Internet!
Then I was trying to remember this movie that I saw probably 30 years ago. (And at this point you're thinking, Alice, don't you have anything better to do with your time? But I don't want to do those things, you silly goose; I want to look up obscure news stories and movies I half-remember. It helps me get through the day.) The movie was about a modern gal living in modern times who has these vivid dreams or flashbacks of living in Ye Olde Pilgrim Times, where she's being called Goody whatever-her-name-is and men in pilgrim hats are judging her sternly. And then she's put in a shallow grave and giant stones are placed on top of her so that she can't breathe. Then (SPOILER ALERT!) she's with her husband or friend or SOMEONE, driving in a car, and she turns away and turns back and he or she is wearing Ye Olde Pilgrime Costume! SHRIEK! And he or she drives our protagonist to some secluded wooded area and the shallow grave is waiting for her and AIIIEEE! Anyway, this movie scared the crap out of me. Where were my parents? Probably going to key parties or taking Valium. Oh, the seventies.
Anyway, searching for Stoning Pilgrim Movie or Pilgrim Nightmare or Movie I Saw in the Seventies hasn't gotten me anywhere. If you know of this movie, don't be shy. I'm beginning to think I made it all up. It wouldn't be the first time.
This weekend we were visiting my parents for Easter and as Henry crammed his maw with Chocolate Bunny, my mom and a family friend were discussing this incident when we were all on vacation together, in this cabin in Vermont. There was a propane gas leak and we had to evacuate the house in the middle of the night. I was maybe five. My mom was busy congratulating herself for being the first to notice the smell, when I realized something. Something important!
"Was this house on a hill?" I asked my mom, who said yes.
"And the driveway was steep? " Very steep, said the family friend. And it led right down onto a busy road.
And poof, years of recurrent nightmares—running out of a house in the middle of the night in footie pajamas, trying to make it down a steep icy driveway, cars below, terrified of falling—EXPLAINED! All that therapy for nothing!
Truly, sometimes one's family is better than the Internet. Then again, they couldn't help me with that damn movie, either. So it's pretty much a tie.
Reader Comments (75)
but I am SURE it was awesome.
For good 1970's fright, may I suggest Burnt Offerings? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/Still spooks me to this day.
Soilingly (my pants in fright) yours,Joe
Also, this reminds me of watching "Stigmata" on our honeymoon. I actually woke my husband up to go to the bathroom with me the next night. We had rented a vacation cabin in the woods. *SHUDDER*
Yikes!
Oh great, it's time for bed. Checking for snakes under the bed before I turn out the light! and snakemen in my closet... brr!
I was more scared of the blob that they cut in half with the ax and it bled chicken noodle soup like substance and I knew those noodles were the bones of the people it had eaten... Oh god now I won't be able to sleep....
I am going to look up so many of these old movies to see how I can get a copy. Why - I do not know. I just know I"ll need to sleep with the lights on for weeks.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099188/
Now, does anyone remember a movie starring Shirley Booth ("Hazel") set in WWII? She was a single woman who fell in love with a soldier (High ranking officer) and they spent a few romantic weekends(?) together whenever they could. At the end of the war she finds out while watching a newsreel in the movie theater (?) that he is happily married with children and that all they shared was a lie...I was 8 when I saw this and it broke my heart for her. I think I remember that he died at the end of the war and his wife somehow let the main character know that she knows about the affair and she knows that he was happy with her and it's OK, but I may be way off. My understanding of such adult emotions/themes was obviously limited by my age...
Anybody?!?
When I was a kid I had a friend whose parents let us watch insanely inappropriate stuff. The one that sticks in my mind was about these two teenaged girls who get abducted and eventually raped and killed by these men. AT one point, they're in the wooods and he's making them kiss and make out. It's all very seventies looking. It seems similar and maybe loosely based on the Joyce carol Oates story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" but that story doesn't go into what happens to the girl; just the abduction from her home. But I do remember a song from the movie that was slow and had the words "and the road leads to nowhere" like maybe on the closing credits. They're in the woods for a lot of it and there's a lot of Fall foliage. Not long after making the girls make out, he tells the one with long, straight dark hair to walk into the lake, and he shoots her and you see her go under. Anyone know?