Karen Black; Mean Pranks; Death and Other Jokes

Karen Black in House of 1000 Corpses

Veteran genre actor Karen Black has passed away at 74 after a long battle with cancer and that makes Uncle P very sad. Ms. Black's career spanned 6 decades and included films such as Easy Rider;  Five Easy Pieces; Airport 75 and The Day of the Locust. But she's probably better known for her genre films which include The Pyx (1973); Burnt Offerings (1976); Invaders from Mars (1986) and House of 1000 Corpses (2003). 

Among those of us who grew up in the era of disco and only one HBO channel, Karen Black is best remembered for an ABC TV Movie of The Week called Trilogy of Terror. As I am sure you've figured out, it was an anthology of three scary stories. No one I know (including myself) remembers anything about the first two stories. Because it was the third story that freaked out everyone who saw it. It was the third story that all my friends were talking about the next Monday at school. And it was the third story that made my sister almost lose her mind (a lot more on that in a bit...). 

As of this writing, she has three films yet to be released. Black, with her wonky eye and unconventional beauty, came to stardom during the Indie Film Renaissance of the 70's (sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age') and managed to maintain a very interesting and viable career long after many of her contemporaries didn't. Karen Black was truly One-of-a-Kind.

And so I don't leave on quite a dark note, I'll segue into two real-life events, memories of which were triggered by the news about Ms Black.

My Dad, despite his many faults, was pretty funny and I'm not ashamed to admit that a big part of my sense of humor is directly related to his. He knew a million jokes and he told them well. He often used fairly accurate accents when telling them, which led to my ear for it (which has proven very useful both on and off stage). He loved nonsense and dark humor, and took great joy in pranking my sister and mother. Here are two examples:

When my sister was very young, she would get scared and sneak into my parents' room in the middle of the night. When they started locking their door, she took to coming up into my room, which was basically a loft with no door. I woke up many mornings to find her in my bed.  Trilogy of Terror originally aired on a Friday night. I don't need to tell what Sis did. That Saturday morning, our father got up and started to make breakfast. She heard him rattling around and called out -- "Hello?" Dad snuck out to the living room and made sounds like the Zuni Doll in that clip. Needless to say, Sis crawled back into bed and didn't move or make a sound until I woke up, some time later. Poor kid!

Which led me to this memory of a Halloween in the mid-to late 70's. Trick or Treating was pretty much over for Uncle P for good, but I still went out with Sis and we had some fun times. Of course, in those days we were out for hours (especially on weekends) and would fill pillowcases two or three times. It was safe and there were hundreds of kids and parents out. This particular night, Dad hid a monster mask in the bathroom. I was upstairs, Sis was in her room and Mom was in the kitchen, which is where kids knocked for candy in almost every house in our area, about to go to bed. Dad snuck into the bathroom and put on the mask and a trenchcoat (and nothing else). He snuck out the front door, crept around to the kitchen door and knocked.

Poor Mom, thinking it was last-minute Trick-or-Treater, opened the door. Dad yelled "Trick 'r Treat!" and flashed her, thinking she would recognize him and laugh. Instead, Mom screamed for Dad and slammed the door! Sis and I both came running, only to hear Dad braying like a hyena outside while Mom came to the realization of what had just happened.

Is it any wonder I am the way I am?

Here are some trailers for my favorite Karen Black Horror movies:

More, anon.

Prospero

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Forgotten Gems: "Bad Ronald."

My buddy Pax Romano reviewed a 2008 horror movie called The Ceremony over at Billy Loves Stu. At some point, he likened the movie to an ABC Movie of the Week from the 70's. Pax is a contemporary of Uncle P's, though I suspect he is a few years younger. We both grew up in the greater Philadelphia area and are mutual state switchers. Uncle P was born in NJ and now lives in PA, while Pax was born in PA and now lives in NJ. We both adore horror movies and share very similar political ideals. We read each other's blogs and are friends on facebook.

Anyway... Pax's ABC MOW reference brought back a flood of memories of some the best of them. And at the top of the list was 1974's "Bad Ronald." Starring Scott Jacoby (where is he now?); Auntie Mame's Pippa Scott and Dabney Coleman, Based on a novel by John Holbrook Vance, "Bad Ronald "tells the story of socially awkward teenager Ronald (Jacoby) who accidentally kills one his tormentors. His over-protective mother (Kim Hunter) literally hides him in the walls of the house, where Ronald retreats into a fantasy world of his own creation.

When Ronald's mother passes away, the house is sold to a family who have no idea they have a "guest." Almost completely off his rocker, Ronald incorporates the family into his fantasy until this happens. There are lots of creepy peepholes, mysteriously disappearing food and other strange events that don't disturb the parents (Scott & Coleman) enough to cancel their plans for a weekend away, leaving their three daughters alone with a potentially dangerous lunatic living in the walls.

Eventually, Ronald is captured and presumably taken to an asylum of some kind. The body count is very low (this was TV in 1974, afterall) but the creepiness factor was off the charts. It was all my classmates and I talked about for days... Looking back, it's most certainly because the lead character was our age (more or less) and many of us (Uncle P especially) identified with Ronald. There isn't much scarier in life than puberty, except maybe going through puberty while insane. 

There has been talk of a big screen remake of "Bad Ronald" as late as last year, but until it's announced, I won't hold my breath. I have mixed feelings about a remake. It has been many years since I've seen the original "Bad Ronald." My memory may be tainted and or influenced by any number of things, including my own confusing, 13 year-old hormonal insanity. A great script, amazing cast and the right director would tear this story up and scare the hell out of a new generation of pubescent persons. The wrong director would turn Ronald into a mutant or monster of some kind, slashing his way through beautiful teens who have sex out of wedlock. 

If You've never seen "Bad Ronald," I highly recommend it. While the body count is rather low for a horror movie, the suspense is through the roof. "Bad Ronald" may be a bit dated but good suspense is timeless, as seen in the ultimate "bad child" movie The Bad Seed:

Man, do I love that movie! 

Of course, not to be confused with "Bad Ronald" is Andy Samberg's "Shy Ronnnie."

More, anon.
Prospero

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ABC Horror Movie of the Week

From the late 60's through most of the 70's, the ABC Network's Movie of the Week dominated Monday nights. These usually inexpensive made-for-TV movies were sometimes quite good, though more often really dreadful. And let's not forget that they provided the jumping ground for the most successful film director of all time.

The first ABC Movie of the Week aired in September of 1969 and was called Seven in Darkness. It involved a group of blind passengers on a plane that crash lands in a remote wilderness. I really don't know if I saw this movie or not. The first Movie of the Week I can remember seeing was Dr. Cook's Garden, starring that lovable child-abuser Bing Crosby as a kindly small-town doctor who kills people he thinks are immoral., though I don't remember much about it. The one's I really remember are the Horror Movies of the Week. The first that really grabbed my attention was Steven Speilberg's directorial debut, Duel; starring Dennis Weaver as man caught in a deadly game of Cat-and-Mouse with a never-seen trucker. Written by Richard Matheson (Psycho), it was a huge hit for ABC:

The following year, ABC gave us The Night Stalker, about a schleppy reporter working for a Los Vegas tabloid who stumbles across a series of murders which appear to be the work of a real vampire. Starring Darren McGavin (A Christmas Story) as the reporter, Karl Kolchak (a role he'd repeat in both a sequel and a short-lived series); Carol Lynley (The Poseidon Adventure) and Simon Oakland as the crotchety editor, The Night Stalker garnered the highest ratings ever for a made-for-TV movie:

January of 1973 saw two Horror movies, two nights in a row. First, a ridiculous thriller starring Shelley Winters; Belinda J. Montgomery, Robert Foxworth and Barnabas Collins himself, Jonathan Frid. The Devil's Daughter was lurid and weird and actually not very good.

The very next night, we were treated to The Night Strangler, the lesser sequel to The Night Stalker. Kolchak and company have now moved to Seattle where Kolchak finds another apparently immortal killer, this time an endocrinologist who lives in the old, underground Seattle and uses human glands to prolong his life. Match-Game regular JoAnn Pflug starred as 'belly-dancer.' It also featured a cameo by Horror's B-List Top-Dog, John Carradine:

In October of 1973, two days after my sister's birthday, ABC aired one of their most infamously disturbing Movies of the Week, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Kim Darby (Better Off Dead) and the late Jim Hutton ("Ellery Queen") starred as a young couple who move into the house Darby has inherited. The only problem -- tiny demons who live in the bricked-up fireplace in the basement:

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is scheduled for a theatrical remake in 2011, according to IMDb.

And now is as a good a time as ever for this story... Don't Be Afraid of the Dark really freaked out my sister. As with any good older brother with a mind toward torturing his younger sister (whom he adored and would have killed anyone else for doing the same things to her), I locked the information away for later use. A long time later (perhaps as much as two years), I took advantage of said info. She was in the bathroom and I took my trusty cassette recorder, pre-wound a tape by a good ten minutes, and then recorded myself whispering "Barbara... we want you... we want you, Barbara... We want you! We want you! We want you!" about a dozen times. I rewound the tape, hid the player under her bed and pressed 'Play.' She came out of the bathroom and went into her bedroom, closing the door. Ten minutes later, I was rewarded with her bursting from her room screaming in terror as I laughed my ass off. And I must take this opportunity to officially apologize to her. I know she forgave me a long time ago, but still...

Anyway, there were two other great Horror Movies of the Week.

1974's Bad Ronald starring Scott Jacoby as a delusional boy living the walls of a house:

And perhaps most infamous of all, 1975's Trilogy of Terror, starring Karen Black as three different characters in three short horror stories from Matheson. And the one everyone remembers (another MOTW that scared the hell out of my sister) concerns a certain 'Zuni Fetish Warrior Doll' that comes to life and terrorizes Black in her apartment. Oh, so creepy:

I never understood why she just didn't get out of that apartment, instead of opening the stupid oven door.

I have vague memories about a few others that were at least a little scary. How about you? Do you have a favorite ABC Movie of the Week Horror movie?

Samhaim draws nigh... More terrors, anon.
Prospero

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