TIME MACHINE OF TERROR! 1984: A Year for Big Hair and Coming-of-Age Horror Movies

Waaaaazzzzzuuuuuuppp!!! Welcome back to the Time Machine of Terror! (TMOT! for short).

A little exposition to set the stage for you: As I’ve mentioned in previous installments of this blog. I purchased the TMOT! at a groovy little emporium of second-hand horrors known as PROFESSOR LAGUNGO’S EXOTIC ARTIFACTS & ASSORTED MYSTIC COLLECTIBLES.

The TMOT! bears more than a passing resemblance to a giant, batwinged alarm clock. It can only visit the movies and TV shows of other time periods, for you see, it was broken when shopkeeper Professor Artemis LaGungo acquired it. The prof’s attempts to repair it with spare parts from VCRs, TVs and film projectors only partially fixed it.

Today we’re going to visit 1984, the year my favorite song was released — YOU SPIN ME ROUND (LIKE A RECORD) by Dead or Alive.

YOU SPIN ME ROUND came out in England on Nov. 4, 1984. It reached No. 1 in England in March 1985, and in the United States, peaked at No. 11 in September 1985.

English author George Orwell once wrote a bleak novel called NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, published in 1949, in which he predicted that the future would be ruled by a harsh, totalitarian regime. Well, ya know what? George was wrong. As wrong as 2 + 2 = 73.

You see, George hadn’t figured YOU SPIN ME ROUND into the equation. Really, how could the world ever become a repressive dystopia with that high-energy dance hit rockin’ the house with a strong song? All I can say to George is: You’re a fine writer, but leave the predictions to Nostradamus.

Let’s spin the hands of time round (like a record) back to 1984 and see what else was happening:

On January 24, the Apple Macintosh was introduced to the world.

On February 8, the 1984 Winter Olympics opened in Sarajevo, and closed on February 19.

On March 22, teachers in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with ritualistic abuse of preschool students. The charges turned out to be unfounded and were dropped.

On April 4, U.S. President Ronald Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons.

On April 6, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

On May 23, a methane gas explosion killed sixteen at the Abbeystead water treatment works in Lancashire, England.

On June 8, a tornado ripped apart Barneveld, Wisconsin, injuring almost two-hundred people and killing nine.

On July 18, James Oliver Huberty went on a shooting spree at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing twenty-one people before he was eventually shot and killed.

On July 23, Vanessa Williams resigned as Miss America after nude photos of her appeared in PENTHOUSE. Happily, her career recovered and she’s now known as the mean fashion queen on UGLY BETTY.

On August 30, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off on its maiden voyage. It came back on September 5.

On October 5, Marc Garneau, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, became the first Canadian in space. On October 11, also aboard the Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a space walk.

On October 31, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh security guards. In the riots that followed in New Delhi, 2,700 Sikhs died.

On November 6, Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in the presidential election with 59 percent of the popular vote, the highest since Richard Nixon’s 61 percent victory in 1972.

On November 25, the group Band Aid, composed of thirty-six U.K. musicians, recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.

On December 3, a chemical leak from a pesticide plant in India killed an initial 2,000-plus people and injured up to 22,000 more. In time, 6,000 of the injured victims died as a result of the incident.

During the year, the Transformers, cartoon-stars-turned-toys, made their debut and spread quickly across America. Here are some more outstanding 1984 debuts:

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, was born May 14. America Ferrera, star of UGLY BETTY, was surely a super-cute baby when she was born April 18. Actress Scarlett Johansson arrived pink as a bunny’s nose on November 22.

Singer Ashlee Simpson was born October 3. Her older sister Jessica, born July 10, 1980, recorded a super-lame version of YOU SPIN ME ROUND before she turned her talents toward country music. See? It all comes back to that song.

What else was spinning in 1984? Well, it was a great year for big hair, with little fans in millions of hair-dryers spinning furiously as nightclub studs and hotties blow-dried their moussed-up coiffures. Now let’s take a look at some of year’s horror movies–

What the–? The TMOT! is spinning out of control! It wants to stop at 1989 instead of 1984. But why?

The TMOT!’s chronometer indicates that we’re being pulled into the wrong year because of some other Eighties’ influence with a ’4′ in it … a ’4′ which is exerting a very strong suction….

Of course! AMITYVILLE 4: THE EVIL ESCAPES was made in 1989, and it sucks with the inescapable power of an intergalactic black hole!

Patty Duke stars as a widow with three children who moves back in with her mother. Unfortunately, her mother has just received a huge clunky lamp as a surprise gift. The lamp had been obtained at a yard sale — and in what yard had that sale been held? The accursed front yard of the haunted Amityville house!

It turns out that the evil of the Amityville house had fled into that lamp during an exorcism, and now that very evil has been transferred, via the lamp, into the same house as Patty and the gang. And since the evil has lived in a lamp, it has gained the power to tinker with the mechanical world, and soon an electric tea-kettle, a chainsaw, a garbage disposal, and even the house’s plumbing are out of control.

In the end, the evil transfers into the family cat, Pepper — and now Pepper and AMITYVILLE 4 are trying to take control of the TMOT!

Fortunately, I have a few occult tricks up my sleeve. I shall tap into the ancient powers of the 1974 made-for-TV movie, THE CAT CREATURE, starring Gale Sondergaard and Meredith Baxter. Meredith plays a seemingly meek clerk at an occult goods store who turns out to be a reanimated mummy. Meredith looks a bit more Irish than Egyptian, so I guess reanimated mummies are masters and mistresses of disguise.

I shall now call upon Bast, the Egyptian cat deity worshipped by Meredith Baxter in THE CAT CREATURE. “Hey, mighty Bast, it is I — Mark McLaughlin, your favorite minion and a true Bast-ard. Please tell Pepper and AMITYVILLE 4 to stop screwing with the TMOT! Thanks, love ya! Call me, we’ll do lunch!”

Okay, now let’s take another look at the controls. Ah! Back on track! 1984, here we come! First stop: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

Like the original HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE (all of which have since been remade), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is one of those movies where young people seem to get hacked up by boogeymen whenever they party, have sex, or basically do something naughty.

Of all those horrific coming-of-age tales, NIGHTMARE stands out from the pack because a.) It isn’t centered around a holiday, b.) Freddy’s victims include innocent children, and c.) It was the first of the bunch to have a clearly supernatural villain.

More clarification on c.): The pick-axe-swinging miner in MY BLOODY VALENTINE was a mere mortal. Michael from HALLOWEEN started out as just an extremely resilient psychopath: later, the sequels made him supernatural. The same with Jason, who wasn’t even the killer in the very first FRIDAY THE 13TH.

But NIGHTMARE’s Freddy–! He was psychotic before he died, and supernatural, powerful and exponentially MORE psychotic after his death.

Plus, he doesn’t just kill his victims, like the others. Freddy claims and imprisons their souls to give himself more power. Basically, he has made himself into a localized and self-contained version of Satan and Hell, rolled into one. That makes the coming-of-age aspect of NIGHTMARE even more tragic: the victims are on the verge of becoming adults, but they’re chopped down by Freddy before they ever get the chance. Their future is Freddy’s fuel.

PHENOMENA, also known as CREEPERS, is a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl coping with all the changes that come with growing up. Aaaww, just like the girls on the old TV show, THE FACTS OF LIFE. But unlike those sitcom girls, she’s also coping with the following unusual concerns:

1.) Her rich actor-dad has sent her to a foreign boarding school.

2.) All her schoolmates have the hots for her dad, because he’s a handsome leading man.

3.) A crazed killer is brutally murdering area residents, including students at the school.

4.) She can telepathically communicate with and control insects — especially those of the winged variety.

The FACTS OF LIFE gang never had to fight vicious psychopaths or summon clouds of flying things with their minds!

The director of CREEPERS, Dario Argento, really likes to mix things up, and in this one, he succeeds in creating one of the most unpredictable movies you could ever hope to watch. He even throws in Donald Pleasance with a Scottish accent — and a chimp!

In CHILDREN OF THE CORN, based on a Stephen King story, the kids in a small, secluded rural town start their own cult, and in this religion, coming of age means it’s time to die. All adults are killed off, unless the kids have some practical use for them.

So what kind of religion requires children to slaughter their parents, you ask? Basically, these apple-cheeked young zealots pray to an amorphous demon called He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Kids! You never know what they’ll worship next!

The best coming-of-age horror movie of 1984 has to be THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, a stylish fantasy-horror film, directed by Neil Jordan and based on the werewolf stories in Angela Carter’s story collection, THE BLOODY CHAMBER.

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES concerns the old-world dreams of a contemporary young lady. No one in her family understands her, so she dreams up a Gothic fairy-tale realm where storybook adventures come alive — usually with a horrific, often erotic twist. Little Red Riding Hood finds herself mighty attracted to a mysterious, well-dressed but somewhat hairy nobleman — a wolf in chic clothing if ever there was one.

Like I said, 1984 was a great year for big hair, and you’ll find hair to spare in this strangely beautiful, beautifully strange movie. Long after you’ve watched it, you’ll remember its haunting images. For example, there’s one scene where a peasant lad in the woods suddenly encounters a Rolls Royce with a wicked but elegant passenger….

Hey, what’s that noise? Sounds like something’s scratching at the TMOT! Let me just take a look in the rear-view mirror–

Will ya look at that! It’s that darned Pepper, clawing at the door. Why, he’s been hanging onto the TMOT! since 1989. He must be sick of AMITYVILLE 4. Can’t say that I blame him!

Well, he’s been hanging on for so long, I’d hate to send him spinning round (like a record) into the time/space vortex. And now that I think of it, my cat would probably enjoy some companion while I’m at work. I guess I’ll keep him!

Until next time!

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MARK McLAUGHLIN is mostly Greek but also part-Irish and part-French. But please, stop talking about his parts … you’re making him blush. He is the author of the story collection, TWISTED TALES FOR SICK PUPPIES, and co-author (with Michael McCarty) of the novel, MONSTER BEHIND THE WHEEL, the poetry collection, ATTACK OF THE TWO-HEADED POETRY MONSTER, and the Darkside Digital e-book, PROFESSOR LaGUNGO’S DELIRIOUS DOWNLOAD OF DIGITAL DEVILTRY AND DOOM.

McLaughlin has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award many times and has won once. The award can be found in his closet next to a vanilla-scented air-freshener. To find out more about Mark’s work, visit www.myspace.com/monsterbook, www.skullvines.com, and/or enter McLaughlin into the search engine at www.horror-mall.com. Peace out!

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