The only thing we have to fear is monsters in the closet
Every child has that moment when they see something on television, or in real life, that scares the absolute crap out of them and leaves them traumatized for a looong time. For me, it was an episode, or, more particularly, the first half of an episode of the television show, Tales from the Darkside. I recently found the episode posted on YouTube, and had the chance to revisit something from my childhood that left me fearing my closet, the dark, and bedtime in general. I'm unsure how long this will video will remain posted, but if you're wondering, it's from season 2, episode 12, titled "Monsters In My Room."
If you notice by the opening credits, yup, this episode stars Seth Green... as a young boy. I was roughly 6 or 7 years old when I first saw this during a late night rerun, several years after it had already aired and was in syndication at this point. It was late at night, and I wasn't supposed to be awake, but I got up and snuck to the livingroom to watch TV. Flipping through the channels, I found this, which aired right before the late night reruns of Unsolved Mysteries, which was a show I enjoyed watching as a kid.
Looking back, there's nothing scary at all about this episode of Tales from the Darkside. It's corny, it's stupid, the acting is terrible, and I can't even really relate to the main character other than the fact that it was a little kid, and I was also a little kid. The monster that leaps from the closet looks really goofy. It was even worse that he jumped out of the closet and exclaims, "HAH!" Yeah, it was really ridiculous over-the-top kind of acting. As a kid, though, things always appear much different when you have a more active imagination. Anyways, the part in this episode that scared me, that traumatized me for many years afterwards, was about midway through the episode. There's a saw that starts cutting through the floor, octopus/monster tentacles that appear from under the bed, and a monster that jumps out of the closet. I immediately turned the TV off, unable to watch even one more second of this show, and ran into my bedroom, hoping to forget the horrific sites I just witnessed.
I couldn't sleep... most of that night, in fact. I may have gotten a few minutes here and there, but nothing substantial. I was wide awake, I could only imagine a tentacle monster under my bed and a saw slicing through my floor to cut me into pieces. At some point in the nighttime hours, probably in the 3 AM to 5 AM span, with the crazy thoughts going in my head, I heard a saw start up. It was most likely someone's crappy car in the neighborhood starting up as they got ready for work, but I was so paranoid that every little sound was a creature out to get me, and I immediately sprung out of my bed and screamed at the top of my lungs. I leapt and jumped as quickly as I could (scared of the saw and tentacles) to my bedroom door and burst into the hallway, where my mom was already awake, dazed and confused, asking me what was wrong.
Of course, I couldn't tell my mom that I had snuck out to the livingroom to watch TV late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Instead, I lied and told her that I had a really bad dream. From that point until my pre-teen years, I couldn't sleep without a nightlight, and the door had to be cracked opened so I had an easy escape route. This behavior continued until I was roughly 12 years old, although I still slept with a nightlight until I was in high school.
Through the magic of the internet, I have finally been able to watch the entire episode of Tales from the Darkside that had given me so many issues during my childhood. I faced my fear and defeated it, and in the process, realized just how silly it was all along. If I would've finished watching the episode, and saw Seth Green defeat the monsters by stomping around and yelling "I ain't afraid of no ghosts," I might not have spent so many nights being paranoid about leaving my closet opened. However, it might have traumatized me even further and scared me into believing there could be witches in my bathroom. Watching it all again, with Seth Green making a smug little face at the end when he's sent to his room... after telling his mother that his asshole stepdad had died because the stepdad was the one that was scared all along, makes the whole episode absolutely hilarious.
The only other piece of fiction that ever frightened me was the first part of the movie, Signs. I saw it opening weekend when it first came out... I was 18 years old. Pretty ridiculous that I would end up being creeped out by Signs... at 18. Well, I was only creeped out by the first half of Signs, the suspense and the brief glimpses of the aliens were pretty terrifying.
I couldn't sleep for two nights after seeing that movie... not because of the final reveal of the ridiculous looking aliens and the absolutely stupefying "swing away" conclusion, I was just paranoid... I literally laid in bed staring at my window all night. I knew the movie itself was just that, a stupid movie, but I couldn't stop my mind from racing at night about creepy sounds and aliens walking around outside. Anyways, it feels good to defeat my fears, and realize that there was no reason to be scared of this stuff at all.
Next week, you'll hear the story about how I defeated my fear of static electricity and was able to assemble a computer!! Nah... maybe not... instead here's the awesome original theme song to Unsolved Mysteries!
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