I’m not going to write about last night’s debate, because a) I only saw a few moments of it and b) I cannot bear it. I spent my evening grading exams while playing a movie in the background because that was a less agonizing use of my time. Maybe you’d like to hear about the movie instead? It was crap, but it warmed my heart anyway.
The movie was Die, Monster, Die, and I first saw it when I was 9 years old. It triggers a cascade of remembrances, most of which have nothing to do with the movie itself, but with the circumstances. If I had to pick a happy moment in my life to dwell in for eternity, it would probably be being 9 again.
The context first, what came before. My family had gone through a rough patch, what we’d now call “economically distressed”, where everything conspired to increase our misery. My father was, as he was for many years, struggling to feed his family. He was on the Boeing roller coaster, occasionally getting a job with good benefits at that company, only to be laid off shortly afterwards and have to scramble to find some miserable manual labor job. My mother, with 4 kids, had tried to get a job herself, and this had increased Dad’s distress — he was a man of the mid-1960s, after all (he got better). If I had to name a moment of misery in my life, it would have been the year before when my parents were fighting and threatening divorce and I was totally bereft.
But that was all over when this movie came out. Parents were reconciled, family was stable again, and honestly, I came out of the experience with a deep appreciation of family. It was all that got me through the 1960s, and 70s, and 80s, and 90s, and 2000s, and 2010s, and it’s my only hope for the 2020s.
I also had a grand extended family. In my childhood times of trouble, I’d stay with my grandmother. My Uncle Ed lived with my grandmother, and he was one of those man-children who doted on his nephews and nieces, and had a near-total lack of ambition. He was always cheerful, though, and he seemed to have a thorough understanding of what children liked, because he was one himself.
On a fairly typical weekend, my brother and I would spend it with my grandmother and Uncle Ed, and get indulged. A great Friday evening would start with getting out of school, having dinner, and then going off to grandma’s house. Uncle Ed would take us to Stewart Drug in downtown Kent, and we’d buy comic books, come home, and lounge about for a while reading. Then we’d head over to the Vale Theater if there was an interesting movie playing (I’m getting to the movie, don’t worry!). After the movie, we’d get home to put on the Friday night creature feature, and stay up ridiculously late while Ed fell asleep on the couch.
Paradise, right?
So finally, this one night, the movie in town was Die, Monster, Die, irresistible bait to a 9 year old. We piled into Ed’s old Ford and trundled off across town. It was going to be a thrilling experience, even if an honest assessment of the movie is that it was fairly typical American International Pictures cheese, mainly about milking the name of its star, setting the stage with nice set full of creepy staircases and cobwebs, and throwing an occasional jump scare at us. In the 1960s, though, a jump scare was the sudden appearance of a bunch of rubber bats on strings. That was enough.
The star was Boris Karloff.
The story was based (loosely) on HP Lovecraft’s “The Color Out of Space”. There was another recent remake of the story, I think because it’s a classic of familial anxiety. It’s about a family that finds a mysterious glowing rock that corrupts everything — it generates monstrous growth and slowly poisons the family and leads to horrifying mutations.
It’s a metaphor for capitalism, you know.
So Karloff has a greenhouse full of giant plants and a zoo from hell, all made by tainting them with fragments of glowing green rock.
But his intentions are good! He wants to feed the world, he thinks his mysterious rock will lead to prosperity and restore the reputation of the Witley name. He continues to think that as his loyal servant, Merwyn, sickens and eventually dies, leaving a greasy stain on the floor. His wife Letitia is confined to her bed, her skin turning grey and mottled, begging her daughter and her boyfriend to escape while they can. Eventually Letitia goes mad and attacks everyone, her head covered with horrible growths, and she dies and decays in front of everyone’s eyes. That finally convinces Boris that he’s wrong, and he goes to destroy the rock with an axe, but is attacked by the family maid, also made monstrous by the malignant influence of capitalism the color out of space, and she pushes Boris into the rock, and he starts glowing and raging and rampaging, until the boyfriend knocks him off a balcony and he falls, his glowing body parts explode in blood and fire, and the movie ends with the family mansion burning down.
For some reason, this cheaply made “B” movie resonated with young Mr Myers. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time — the ghastly fate of the Witley family worried me so much and I took the deaths personally. I still remember the highlights of that otherwise nondescript cookie-cutter horror movie.
The other thing I remember is the ride home in Uncle Ed’s 1950s era car, the one with the high bench seats and no seat belts, of course. Those seats weren’t flush with the floor, and I was positive there was a monster under them, waiting to grab my ankles with malformed glowing claws, so I rode all the way home with my feet up on the seat. It was the only way to be sure. I didn’t sleep well that night, either. It was a great experience!
So I rewatched the movie last night while grading papers. It was a trifle, not too distracting, and it was bad. Not recommended unless you’re also carrying similar baggage, and unless the alternative is some ghastly shitshow. I won that evening!
Come to think of it, though, it would have been entirely appropriate to title the debate “Die, Monster, Die.” Can we please get rid of the green glowing rock imbedded in the heart of America? I want a simple solution like that, even if it ends with the entire goddamn thing burning to the ground.
PaulBC says
I think this was remade as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. (half kidding)
I grew up loving schlock movies that I watched on our B/W TV (so it wasn’t till years later that I realized many had been made in color). I think it is totally fair to say that at 9 you saw more in the movie than there was but that doesn’t invalidate your interpretation.
(I definitely read a lot more into Lost in Space and Land of the Lost that either of them really could bear, not in a political sense, but I did expect some consistent world building.)
christoph says
There was one good part of the debate where Biden told Trump to shut up.
PZ Myers says
Did Trump shut up? No? Then it wasn’t a good part of the debate.
BACONSQAUDgaming says
Reminds me of the original Jack the Giant Killer. When I saw it as a kid, I thought it was great! It had giants, witches, leprechauns, spells, sea monsters, sky turning purple, etc. When I was in university, I hunted it down and watched it again. Oh boy was it terrible, with ridiculous overacting, etc. Amazing what a decade or two will do to your perspective.
Badland says
A beautiful anecdote
brucegee1962 says
Regarding the first part of this post, about PZ’s family: perhaps the single thing that bugs me about Christian conservatives the most is their appropriation of the term “family values.” For fun sometime, ask them what there is in the New Testament that supports families, besides Jesus speaking approving of children one time and asking his disciples to look after his mom while he was dying. Aside from that, there’s nothing — all the things Jesus has to say about families are disparaging.
These conservatives who bray about family values are the first ones to disown their children if they don’t turn out to be exact clones of themselves. I’ve seen more actual family values in one episode of Queer Eye than in the entire RNC.
One of the recent right wing dustups was about BLM’s website saying they wanted to disrupt the nuclear family. The wording was unfortunate, but if you actually look at what they said, it wasn’t that they wanted to get rid of it — they wanted to expand the concept. The Democrats need to brand themselves as the family party — the Republicans have got nothing but hate.
PaulBC says
On my commute back from work a few years ago (back when there was such as thing as a “commute” and back when I was still willing to have NPR on in the car and risk hearing Trump’s voice) the alternative shitshow was to hear him babble on about something that would probably leave me feeling angry and hopeless (Afghanistan–I just checked).
Instead I decided to put on Sun Ra’s Space is the Place and actually give it a good, careful listen. This was kind of the opposite experience because I liked it a lot more than previous times I had heard it and just thought “This is super-weird.” I especially liked what I think was the baritone sax.
So I guess it can go either way. I am not sure I want to dig up those old B-movies. Too much risk of disappointment.
Ridana says
I have a couch made out of one of those, reupholstered with end tables built into the frame. It’s very comfortable!
flange says
Reminds me of a Simpsons episode. “Die Bart, Die.”
greenspine says
The new Color Out Of Space is really fun. Beautiful to look at, great fx, creepy soundtrack, Nic Cage at his cagiest. It was over the top in all the right ways.
garydargan says
Does this cover the entire Goddamn thing burning to the ground?
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/model-predicting-united-states-disorder-now-points-to-civil-war/12365280
Luis Daniel Carbia says
I followed your recommendation and saw it yesterday. It is possible that I also saw it as a child (or, at least, the comic book version from Dell*) because the gargoyles on the door were familiar to me.
The unspeakable monstrosities of the greenhouse are pretty well done … but the most disturbing part was the butler, Merwyn, who looks like Liam Neeson in old makeup. You expect him to do something. Once Merwyn is out, the film becomes lame.
*BACONSQAUDgaming, both Jack The Giant Killer and Die Monster Die have comic versions and they were sinister!