freaky old movies
On Sunday afternoon I went with a school chum to a double-feature at the Stanford Theatre, a delightful old place from the 1920s with a balcony and a Wurlitzer and really cheap prices: $7 double feature, $2 popcorn, $1 sodas, etc. I love it.
We saw
Black Narcissus (1947) and
The Innocents (1961). It was Deborah Kerr day, apparently. Both had elements of what I like to call "freakydeskyism," which of course is a highly technical film studies term. Or not. But there sure were some scary parts in each. In
Black Narcissus, standing on the edge of a sheer cliff thousands of feet high while gusty wind blows all around you is basically my worst nightmare. But these nuns tottered on out there and rang the bell, so more power to them. When Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) went insane, boy did she ever look the part. Actually, psycho Sister Ruth looked a lot like Anne Heche.
The Innocents is
The Turn of the Screw put to film and it was in black and white so even spookier than the technicolored
Black Narcissus. So, so funny, all these gen-X'ers (and younger) such as myself getting all freaked out by some crazy-man's face in the window, while the old ladies all laughed at us. We're the generation raised on Stephen King,
The Shining (or "shinning" if you're Groundskeeper Willie), Freddie and Jason slasher movies, and so on, but make a movie with some little English kids possessed by the spirits of dead lovers and we get all freaked out. But it was good and creepy and made me want to re-read the story!
