Five Movies With Big Time Mommy Issues

Psycho: the classic "go to" movie for mommy issues...and, no, it's not on this list.

I had a film teacher once who used to say that all great directors, as some time or another, return to their childhood via their films. It is a theme that can be seen in all the great directors of cinema history: Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Orson Welles, Pedro Almodóvar, Akira Kurosawa and, of course, the man who practically turned revisiting his childhood into a genre unto itself, Steven Spielberg.

These filmmakers, and many others like them, return to their juvenile past in any number of ways:  through narrative, symbolism, flashbacks, or, most importantly, through some form of cinematic recreation of their memories of their own mothers.

Once you start looking at the maternal images and themes in many of these films, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that these guys must have had some pretty rough childhoods. All great directors had traumatic childhoods, it seems, for which they apparently believe their mothers were responsible.

Examples are all over cinema history. As a pointed out with my post on movie crucifixion scenes, I could run a post a week on the subject and still not cover all the examples out there in cinema history. In this case, I could go on for years.

Keeping that in mind, here are five films that I find to be fascinating instances of movies with Big Time Mommy Issues...




Notorious
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
1946

Legendary British born Hollywood thriller director, Alfred Hitchcock, practically owns the concept of movies with Big Time Mommy Issues. Few directors have had the word "Freudian" connected to them more often than Mr.Hitchcock. This is so largely on account of the fact that it is true.

It might seem like Hitchcock's 1960 slasher horror thriller classic, Psycho, would be the obvious choice when it comes to flushing out the director's cinematic maternal issues. The key wold there is "obvious".  As amazing as Psycho is, there are numerous other and more subtle examples of maternal themes that run throughout Hitch's work.

For instance, there's Cary Grant simultaneously escaping his own domineering mother yet at the same time seeking maternal protection from Eva Marie Saint while on the run in North by Northwest. The theme is even present in Hitch's quasi-apocalyptic thriller, The Birds (not the least of which is central conflict with Mother Nature, herself).  However, one of the most interesting displays of Hitch's mommy issues comes into play in one of Hitchcock's most purely cinematic films, the 1946 thriller, Notorious.

The plot of Notorious involves US government agent Cary Grant attempting to flush out some escaped Nazis in post World War II Brazil. To carry out his mission, he turns to Ingrid Bergman, the American daughter of convicted Nazi spy. While romancing Bergman in some of the most steamy Hollywood love scenes of the era, Grant manages to recruit her. She is to go to Brazil and resume the acquaintanceship of suspected Nazi operative Claude Rains. The somehow totally not suspicious Rains fall in love with Bergman. He asks her to marry him, which, as it turns out, plays nicely into the whole infiltrate the ring of Nazi spies plan.
 


It's the rare thriller director, then or now, who would bring a mother into this kind of a story. With Hitch, of course, such a thing is almost expected.

Despite being a suave elegant middle-aged man and an accomplished Nazi operative, Rains has got this really domineering mother who continues to play a very influential role in her son's life. He reports to her at the end of her bed each day. The story goes that these scenes were lifted from Hitch's real life in which his domineering mother required him to report the activities of his day to her in a similar manner. Some biographers report that this practice continued into Hitch's adult life right up to 1940, the year he relocated to Hollywood to further his film making career.

Whatever the exact particular inspiration, the scenes between Rains and his mother (played by veteran Austrian actress Leopoldine Konstantinare) are some of the most interesting dialogue scenes in Notorious. Rains is constantly facing his mother's continued disapproval, even as he attempts to break free of her influence by asserting his independence and marrying Bergman ( it's all part of the plan, as far as she and Grant are concerned, though). Rains finally figures out that he has, in fact, married an American agent. Before sharing the revelation with anyone else, he goes to his mother. Now Hitchcock's Freudian Mom is totally in her element. Not only is he is able to scold her son over his poor choice of a wife, but she is also able to regain power over his life. She concocts a clever plot to kill Bergman via slow acting poison. She  oversees the plan. She is often seen sitting or lying down; the maternal monster's power is such that she can exact control even from an apparently passive position.


 

Domineering control and manipulation to the point of attempting to murder Hitch,  don't know how to say this but you got a few issues there, buddy.



Alien
Directed by Ridley Scott 
1979

On the surface, perhaps not a movie one might immediately associate with maternal issues. But, then again, there are those alien eggs...

Original Alien designs by HR Giger: See what I mean?

Besides some more subtle, underlying maternal themes, sexual imagery abounds in Alien. The alien monster with the big shiny phallushead and vagina dentata mouth, for example. Even the so-called "face hugger" aliens contain subtle phallic and vaginal imagery.

How does sexual imagery fit into discussion of maternal symbolism?  Duh. Aside from adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate and other clever means of sidestepping the course of nature, what's the number one major prerequisite for all moms everywhere?

Along with all the sexual imagery, images and themes of fertility, impregnation and maternity permeate Alien as well. Yet the presence of these images and themes is very much a perverse one.

An egg is often seen as a traditional image of fertility. This may be so but the egg is literally alien as well as  enigmatic, ominous and ultimately deadly. As the humans approach the alien egg for the first time, they shine flashlights through it. Murky fetal shadows appear inside the egg. There is life inside but it is dark and unknown. The egg then suddenly opens with of its own accord with a slowness that is both purposeful and potentially sinister. As the human astronaut approaches it, an alien being springs out. It quickly wraps itself around its victim's face, inserting a tentacle down the victim's throat. More sexual imagery. This time it is of a both invasive and aggressive nature. The alien "face hugger" then both feeds off of and at the same time keeps its host alive. Later, it impregnates it's human victim turned host. Finally, after it has gestated for a sufficient amount of time inside the human, a new alien being violently and bloodily bursts out of  its host's stomach, leaving the host dead. The whole sequence of events is a twisted and horrific vision of fertility, impregnation and childbirth.

In Alien, even the spacecraft itself has maternal overtones. The computer that runs the ship, the Nostromo, is, without much subtlety, named Mother. Mother, the computer, runs the ship when the crew is in cryogenic sleep. Mother also knows things the crew does not. It awakens them and sends them on their mission to investigate an unknown alien transmission.  In fact, Mother is operating on her own hidden agenda that remains unknown to the crew for much of the film. Mother may know best but just what the hell is she up to?

Mother's womb-like main computer access room 

The opening sequence of the film shows the ships crew being awakened from cryogenic sleep. The long sleep is a state that requires the nurturing care of  Mother, the computer. The scene where they crew quietly and delicately awakes from their long slumber is another birth image. Only this one is more positive than other such visual analogies seen in the film.


Even in the midst of all the death and fear that surrounds the crew, Sigourney Weaver's Ripley rarely loses her cool. She remains focused and driven by the vital task at had, get rid of the murderous alien creature. She is even cool and calm as she engages the ship to self destruct, the only truly reliable means of killing the alien creature. However, when Ripley discovers that the alien is blocking her route to the escape shuttle, she attempts to shut the self destruct sequence off. It being too late in the process, Mother will not cooperate. When this happens, Ripley has one of her most outwardly emotional displays seen in the film. In a rare moment of cathartic release, she screams and throws things at the computer, yelling out one simple word: "Mother!".


 





Nixon
Directed by Oliver Stone 
1995

Oliver Stone is quite the director. Often Over-the-top and highly Stylized, Stone's films are built around complex themes and characters that are, even in their complexity, boiled down to their most simplistic elements. And, oh yeah, it is often the case that, in an Oliver Stone picture, everything almost always comes back to the mother's. This is most especially true in his bio-pics.

In Alexander, legendary ancient Greek warrior's thirst for conquest was drilled into him by his mother, mostly through the use of Angelina Jolie's uber-stylized accent along with the off kilter angles with which she was shot. In W., President George W. Bush's, as portrayed by Josh Brolin, political foibles and miscalculations (as Stone's film classifies them to be) were in no small part created by the judgments and disapproval of his dad, James Cromwell,in the role of Bush 41. Though, in subtle shots and cinematic allusions, Stone implies that the George Sr. did so as the screws were being put to him by matriarchal Barbara Bush, as portrayed by Ellen Burstyn.

Nixon, Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic of Richard M. Nixon,  the only US President to resign, throws many thematic and stylistic concepts into he mix. Not the least of those ideas are the influences that Nixon's mom, Hannah Nixon, had on the future president. In real life, Nixon did, in fact, reference his mom in his last day on the job speech as President before leaving the White House forever. So it's not surprising that Stone chose to include her in his pastiche of Nixon's personal and professional life.

Nixon is portrayed by the unlikely Anthony Hopkins. His mother is portrayed, with just the appropriate amount coldness and distance, by Mary Steenburgen. Hopkins, though, never actually appears on screen with Steenbergen. In those scenes, Nixon is played by actors portraying the younger versions of Nixon. In one scene memorable scene, 12 year old Nixon (as played by Corey Carrier, the 10 year old Indy from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) is caught with a cigarette. Shot in that classic dark moody black and white cinematography that often constitutes a flashback in a Stone film, the scene depicts Steenburgen attempting to get a confession out the young Nixon. Hanna Nixon was a Quaker so, in the film, the maternal Nixon uses the pronoun "thee" towards her son. Just that, in of itself, suggests a constant sense of both emotional distance and judgement. Nixon finally confesses to possessing the cigarette but his mother promises not to tell his stern father about the incident. She states that it is "our little secret".

Hmmm...I wonder which part of Nixon's later life Stone is implying that story from his childhood may have informed.





Historically accurate or not, the intent of the scene is pretty clear.

Nixon's mom turns up in various other flashbacks throughout the film and, in all instances, displays a powerful sense of emotional distance coupled with a domineering demeanor towards her son.

Joan Allen plays Pat, Nixon's wife. Stone very strong suggests, both visually and textually, that Pat is Nixon's maternal substitute. Many of Allen and Hopkins's scenes involve Nixon crying on his wife's shoulder and/or confiding in her in a way in which, the film suggests, Nixon was never able to do with his mother.

The most powerful of the dark maternal images in Nixon turn up when the film supposedly recreates an interview conducted with Hannah Nixon shortly before her death in 1967. An aged version of Steenbergen appears once again in black and white, though this time it is much more grainy than in previous scenes, while sitting in a nursing home. The interviewer asks what Mrs. Nixon thinks of the fact that her son may well run for President in the next year. On the surface, her answers are all positive and supportive of her son. She even flashes the occasional smile when referring to him. However, to the great credit of her performance, Steenbergen delivers the seemingly nice answers with a subtle yet strong sense of cold emotional dissonance that lurks behind even her smiles.



It's hard not to draw the conclusion that, as far as Oliver Stone is concerned, all of the Nixon's characters flaws and his ultimate political fate all go right back to his mother.

Seriously? The carpet bombing of Hanoi? US backed regime change in Chile? Watergate? You wanna put all that on the guy's mother?


Braindead
Directed by Peter Jackson 
1992

Before The Lovely Bones, King Kong, Lord of the Rings, The Frighteners and Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson made a some pretty fucked up movies. Very entertaining....but fucked up.

Bad Taste, his first feature made back in 1987, is about aliens that come to earth in order to turn people into food. It is very much what they like to call now a "splatter" movie. In 1989, he made Meet The Feebles, a darkly twisted satirical movie about a group of Muppet-like puppets. Of this period of Jackson's work, 1992's Braindead takes the proverbial gory cake.

Known as Dead Alive in its North American release, Braindead, in addition to its absurdly extreme amount of gore, contains some of the most over-the-top Mommy issues ever put on film. On account of a Sumatran Rat Monkey (pretty sure that's fictional) that ends up in a New Zealand zoo, there is an outbreak of zombieism in Wellington. Long story short, the films's protagonist, Lionel Cosgrove (played by Timothy Balme) must fight off a most of his recently zombiefied neighbourhood.  To add the tension, his mom, played by Elizabeth Moody, also succumbs to the zombie epidemic. Even before she was infected, though, Lionel's mom was not exactly portrayed as a saint. Often shot from close, unflattering angles, she is yet another mom that is domineering and unlikable. She even goes so far as to make disparaging remarks regarding Lionel's Italian girlfriend.



In what is already a pretty damned ramped up film to begin with, Braindead ends with some of the biggest mother issues ever put on film...literally.

Before we get to that point, though, there is a lot of incredibly gory dismembering, disturbingly relentless attacks by a zombie baby, a kung fu fighting priest, and a scene  involving a lawnmower and room full of zombies that features one of the greatest slayfests this side of the Evil Dead movies.

After all that, Lionel's mom re-appears. She has now become the biggest-assed zombie ever (seriously -check out the scene). Proclaiming that she will keep and protect her son forever, giant zombie mom grabs Lionel and literally  sticks Lionel "back" into her gigantic womb. Our hero then must cut himself out in an absurdly over-the-top Freudian celebration of gore and rebirth.

While there is very strong sense of wry humour, satire and slapstick in Braindead, I still can't help but think, "What in the hell did Peter Jackson's mom do to him?".

In case you haven't already, Take a look. (the clip is in German but more than likely you will get the gist of it)

See what I mean? That scene puts the Big in Big Time Mommy Issues...




The Mummy
Directed by Karl Freund 
1932

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Happy Mother's Day!

Five Movie Scenes That Scared the Hell Out of Me

I am a big fan of a good well-made suspenseful horror film. Yet I have not been scared watching a movie in something like 30 years. Sure, there have been many films in the genre that I have found tense, disturbing, suspenseful and just plain creepy. As far as reacting with actual real fear to something that I've seen on screen, though...nope...nothing....not for a long time.

However, in my younger days (much younger, in some cases) , I was pretty frakin' terrified by some movies. Most especially, the ones I used to watch alone on TV, late at night, after everyone else in my house had gone to sleep. That intense movie-watching induced fear phenomenon has rarely repeated itself since then.

I suppose my lack of recent cinematic fear could be a function of age. Or could be that I went on to acquire so much knowledge regarding the techniques of film-making that it became hard for me (at least on some level) not be to conscious of  the all the cinematic techniques that are generally employed by any given film maker when they are attempting to scare the living shit out of you.

Back in the day, I was a sucker for many a good horror movie and even some movies (I hesitate to confess) that were not even really in the horror genre. Those movies, and more particularly particular certain scenes in them, have stayed with me. I can still remember and relive the fear they induced. Today, I understand why those scenes managed to get to me way back when but that does lessen my sense memory of the whole affair.

So now I'm about to induce that sense memory once again as I present my Top Five Movies Scenes That Scared the Hell out of me.




5.The Birds (1963)
D: Alfred Hitchcock

Scene: Immediately after the birds' first big attack.


Given the era that I grew up in, Alfred Hitchcock just had to make this list. For my money, The Birds is Hitch's scariest film. No. Not Psycho. The Birds.

Yes, I know that Psycho is the movie that for, better or worse, gave us the entire horror slasher genre. Janet Leigh getting stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife while taking a shower is pretty disturbing, to be sure. However, I was much older by the time I finally saw Psycho. More importantly, though, I think the idea of being attacked by a psychotic transvestite while washing oneself never really connected with me. Now, when it came to the idea of these flying animals that I'd seen in large numbers up in the trees all my life just suddenly, and for no apparent reason, aggressively turning on the human race, well, that's a fear that I connected with quite a bit. I'd experienced first hand seagulls trying to steal french fries from the lone helpless kid on the beach. The knife wielding psychotic transvestites didn't really try that one so much.

I was 11 or 12 when I first saw The Birds. It would be several years before I'd take an entire university course on Hitchcock and would come to know the guy's work inside out. Back then, all by myself, watching the late late show (that's what they used to call midnight TV airings of movies in the pre-Craig Ferguson era), I was fair game for Mr.Hitchcock's masterful fright techniques. About all I knew about the celebrated suspense director at the time was the parody version of him I'd seen on The Flintstones.

The particular scene that really freaked me out did not involve an avian attack. It involved its after math. Right after the 1960's version of Angry Birds launched the film's first action attack set piece, Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, the stars of the film, find a ten year old Veronica Cartwright on the balcony of her house. In the scene, the young Cartwright has just discovered the dead body of  her teacher played by Suzanne Pleshette (as a longtime fan of The Bob Newhart Show, that in of itself was already disturbing enough). In the scene, Cartwright is wailing her eyes out. There is something about her cries over a death that we did not even witness that was particularly chilling. In addition, the matter-of-fact way that Hitchcock shot the scene made it emotionally disturbing. It managed to induce a fear of the birds after the fact. The avian aggression is nowhere near as scary the deep psychological scars it leaves behind.

You've got to hand it to Hitch for, among other things, having a perfect eye for casting. If you've seen Veronica Cartwright in any of her many characters roles in films ranging from Alien to The Right Stuff to The Witches of Eastwick, you know that totally nailing hysterical crying scenes is one of Ms.Cartwright's amazing gifts as an actor.

4. Fantastic Voyage (1966)
D: Richard Fleischer

Scene: White blood cells attack the miniaturized submarine.

Yeah. I know. Even the description of the scene sounds silly. And Fantastic Voyage is not, strictly speaking, even a horror movie. To be fair, I was 6. In retrospect, I might of been a bit too young to be watching this movie. I wish I'd of shown better judgement back in those days. Between that and the glue eating, my life was a mess back then.

Right off the bat, the very idea of the people inside a submarine being shrunken down small enough to be injected into a human body was kinda wigging me out to begin with. The only time in my life I have ever had surgery was when I was six years old. The memories were no doubt still very fresh at the time. I would not have put it together then but anything medical, let alone anything so fantastically intensely medical,  had the power to really get to me on deep level.

Again, what was I doing watching this movie?

Fallout from the evil white blood cell attack.

The scene that really got me in this case was the one that happens when the effects of the shrink ray (or whatever the device was - I don't really recall) start to wear off and the microscopic submarine slowly starts growing larger. The sub and the scientists inside become large enough to get the attention of the body's immune systems. The science behind the whole premise of the scene (and the entire movie) is impeccable, I'm sure.

Anyway, white blood cells start attacking the submarine. So suddenly these flying white bubble-ish things start hurling themselves at the sub. The visual effects were a tad cheesy even by 1966 standards. However, it is still a very tense moment in the film,  especially if you've been sucked in by that point....and if you're six years old.

Yes on both counts. Totally. The nightmares later that night did a nice a job of embellishing the fears that scene unearthed in me.

I did not see Fantastic Voyage again until many years later on video. Only this time around, being in my early 20's, I found myself focusing, for some strange reason, on Raquel Welsh and her exploitatively tight wet suit. From there on in, I had a decidedly different reaction to the movie.

That's one way to conquer a childhood fear.

3.War of the Worlds(1956)
D: Byron Haskin

Scene: The first on-screen appearance of the Martians.

The 1956 version of War of the Worlds has some very dated visual effects. We're not talking about the more sophisticated terror of the 2005 Steven Spielberg remake here. And I wasn't exactly 6 when I saw it. I think I was like twice that age. I guess War of the Worlds  (as the title song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show tells us) was just one of "some terrible chills" that producer George Pal promised to show his bride.

The '56 War of the Worlds was only loosely based on HG Wells' landmark alien invasion novel of the same name. The scene that really scared me in this movie was loosely based on a scene in the book (and was more faithfully recreated in Spielberg's 2005 remake).

Our two heroes, Gene Barry and Anne Robinson, are holed up in an old farm house in the midst of one of the many Martian  attacks on Southern California (yep, aliens were still from Mars back in the 50's). The Martian spaceships (a very cool design, BTW) can be seen hovering over the farm.

Our heroes look out the window at one point and see a Martian, out of its ship,scurrying by outside. The creature is only seen for a fraction of a second. At this point in the movie, we've seen their ships but not the Martians themselves. That brief glimpse was freaky in its own right.

Barry, being the man in a 1950's SF/Horror movie, runs outside to investigate. Knowing the conventions of the genre very well, he leaves Ms.Robinson alone to fend for herself. Then, while Robinson is looking elsewhere, we see a three-long-fingered hand reach for her shoulder. It makes contact and she screams and turns around. Then we see the three-eyed Martian full-on for the first time. For it's time, it was a very well made monster. It did not look at all like the classic 50's obviously-a-guy-in-a-suit  monster (more likely it was puppet). The Martian was very slimy and creepy looking. Looking back at the stills from the '56 War of the Worlds now, well, honestly, it's actually almost laughable.

I don't remember laughing at it.



2. Alien (1979)
D: Ridley Scott

Scene: The alien egg opens.

Alien has, among other things, the distinction of being the last movie that ever really frightened me. I remember finally catching up with it during its initial theatrical release while visiting Toronto in the summer of '79. I was 15 at the time.

Alien was playing in a big old movie palace kinda theatre (The University, if I recall the name correctly). I went to a weekday matinee showing so, naturally, it being Toronto, nobody was there. So there I was, completely alone one the balcony of this old massive ornate movie theatre. The balcony alone must have had the capacity for about 150 people.

What was it with me and watching these movies alone?

You'd think the many terrifying factors of Alien would have been enough to scare me under those circumstances. Not so much. The intimidating psycho-sexual creature, the face hugging alien and the chest bursting scene were all definitely disturbing, gross and tense. In terms of actual fear, there was, as you might expect, only scene that really got to me.

A lot of times its the anticipation that is the most frightening thing in horror movies. This is especially true when there is a master director like Ridley Scott at the helm. Case in point, the seemingly 20 minute scene with Harry Dean Stanton looking for the lost cat in and amongst all that monster friendly darkness and enclosed spaces. While that scene was was unnerving, it's not the one in question.

Remember the scene where John Hurt and his fellow astronauts discover the massive amounts of alien eggs on the crashed alien spaceship on some unknown planet? That's the part that got me. One sequence in there in particular, actually.

One of the eggs suddenly, slowly and quietly opens up. That's creepy enough. Then stupid John Hurt decides he wants a closer look. When it comes to characters in horror movies, apparently these people have no fear...or common sense. At this point, Scott in masterstroke of suspenseful direction, slowly moves his camera in towards the egg, then over it top of  it and then right down into the pulsating ooziness of the center of the thing.  It's a brilliant shot; one of the best in the film. The viewer just  knows that something bad is in that egg. The egg is creepy and dangerous yet the audience is forced to look right down into it.

That camera movement, more than anything in the movie, filled me with dread. At the time I knew very little about the film so I didn't know about the face hugging alien or anything like that. I just knew something really bad was coming. The shot was just plain scary on a totally visceral level.

Despite a bit of a gross out factor, turns out nothing happens in that shot. Then, after all the tension has been released, and Hurt and the rest of the audience have relaxed, the face-hugger, suddenly and without any build-up of tension, comes leaping out of the egg. In rapid motion, it wraps itself around Hurt's helmet as he falls out of frame. It all happens so fast that the eye can hardly even process the action.

I think I jumped about a foot when that thing sprang out of the egg. Luckily, no one was around to see it.

1. The Fly (1958)
D: Kurt Neumann

Scene: "Help me! Help me!"

In 1986, David Cronenberg made an incredible remake of the classic 1958 horror movie, The Fly.  The film is intense, unsettling, gory and ultimately almost metaphysically disturbing. Classic Cronenberg in other words.

And, pound for pound, it's a much more effective thriller than the original Vincent Price version. The '58 Fly is a tad staid and stiff. The giant fly head looks pretty silly, even next to Goldblum's now 25 year old creature make up in the remake. Also, vintage horror movies like The Fly and The Last Man on Earth where Price doesn't play the villain never really worked for me (check out Theatre of Blood or the Dr.Phibes movies for a couple of amazing villain performances by Price).

All that aside, the end of original Fly has one of the most chillingly frightening scenes ever put on film. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea star David Hedison (though he's credited as Al Hedison) plays a scientist that, like Goldbum, is attempting to develop a matter transport device. Due to, literally, a fly in the works, Hedison ends up with a Fly's head and the fly ends up with Hedison's head.

Long story short, the film ends with the Hedison-headed fly getting caught in a spider's web. The spider starts wrapping the fly up in with its web, effectively paralyzing the insect with the human head. The head remains uncovered and, squirming like hell, the human headed fly yells in a tiny high pitched voice, "Help me! Help me!" as the spider gets ready to eat him alive.

Yikes.

Finally, Price (who plays Hedison's brother) looking down on the tiny horror, picks up a rock and throws it on the spider web, mercifully killing both victim and killer instantly.

That tiny cry for help is probably the scariest thing I have ever heard. It's wickedly unsettling on a primordial level. I saw the scene for the first time by itself, out of context,  in a documentary on great horror movies. That can only speak to it's incredible power. Those helpless words from that terrified lilliputian voice have stayed with me to this day.

It was quite some time before I watched the movie as whole. Watching 90% of the film for the first time, I found myself grimly anticipating the "Help me! Help me!" scene. When the film finally reached its conclusion, the scene had not lost one bit of its disturbing emotional impact. 

While Cronenberg's remake is a great horror film, interestingly, it never hits a moment as viscerally unsettling as the cries of "Help me! Help me!". Oddly, the line is not the in '86 version at all. It only turned up on some of the posters. It was probably put there by an artist that was once as freaked by that scene as I was.

I think this Halloween, I'll put all of these scenes on around midnight and watch them all alone and see if I can recapture some old fearful magic.

Happy Halloween everybody!