The Oak Street Cinema is currently playing a double bill of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I don’t care so much about Labyrinth, but it’s mandatory that I go see The Dark Crystal. My parents took me to see it at the theater in 1982, and I remember being worried beforehand that I would be frightened by it. And I totally was, in spite of the fact that Dad and I had long talks about how the same guy who made Yoda made the characters in the movie. I’ve seen it on several occasions since, and the Skeksis and Aughra still got to me the last time, which was about ten years ago. I want to see it again, regardless, especially in a theater. I like the story, and I like the memories of going to movies with my parents, which we only did when I was very small.

Thinking back, it’s sort of remarkable how traumatized I managed to get by some movies. Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn was one of the most memorable incidents. It came out the same year as The Dark Crystal, so I would have been six. That means that I had been deaf for around three years then, which was plenty of time to become ear-obsessed, what with the hearing-aid and the audiology tests and the implantation of tubes (twice). Things that went in ears were bothersome at best and painful at worst, and I felt that quite enough had been done to mine. So of course the scenes in which alien worms were implanted in people’s ears sent me totally over the edge. I remember having to be taken out of the Cinema 150 (probably because I threw up, as was my charming habit when very upset), and then waiting on the interior theater steps for it to be over, occasionally glancing back over my shoulder at the screen. When we got home I demanded that my parents buy me a set of ear plugs, and I slept in them for quite some time so that nothing could possibly crawl in my ears while I was asleep.

The snakes in Superman II also affected my sleeping arrangements. This seems silly in retrospect, since that snake scene was so minor compared to the snake pit in Raiders of the Lost Ark. (I’m certain I saw the last one first, because I saw it in the theater and Superman on cable, which we didn’t get until later.) But still, I began to worry about snakes in the night, and my solution was to sleep in my Strawberry Shortcake knee socks to protect my feet from any maurauding snakes that might venture into my bed. I must have looked like such a tiny little wierdo, all ready for bed in knee socks (even in the summer), nightie, and ear plugs.

I was also a tiny wierdo who hated to go into bathrooms with windows, thanks to having seen one of the early 80s mummy movies. This particular one, watched on newly-acquired HBO at my dad’s best friend’s house, featured a mummy who had to retrive five amulets in order to gain eternal rest, or something to that effect. The amulets had been dispersed around the world, and one of them belonged to a nubile young thing who was apparently in the habit of wearing it and nothing else in the shower. There was a small window in the bathroom, and, in the required shower scene, the mummy smashed his arm through the window and snatched the amulet from her neck. From then on I was uneasy in bathrooms with windows, especially at night. This worked out fine in my parents’ house, where the bathrooms were windowless, but was more a problem at my grandmother’s where I spent every weekend and where all the bathrooms had windows. I only really got over this particular phobia in my 20s.

At a certain point in my teens, I toughened up a bit regarding regular movies and instituted a ban on scary movies. Every so often I test it, and find out that I’m still a wuss. An active imagination is a blessing for a writer, but it’s a pain in the ass in real life because I tend to believe things in spite of myself. I watch monster movies and then can’t take the dogs out at night because of what might be in the shadows around the corner of the house. After seeing Signs a few years back, I had to be walked to my bedroom for fear of aliens. Needless to say, I have never seen The Ring and I won’t be seeing Dark Water. But I will go see The Dark Crystal, which surely I can handle at this advanced age.

Still, I’ll probably do my best to con Mister Boyfriend into going along for protection. There could totally be Skeksis in the Oak Street parking garage.