Colleen Kane

The First Cut is the Creepest: Revisiting the Childhood Trauma of the Original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

No single film has affected my life more than a humble made-for-TV movie from 1973 called Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which served as the scary movie deflowering of many impressionable young minds of Generation X. It seemed to run at least one Saturday afternoon every month of the 1980s on WPIX channel 11. Whenever it did, my older brother and I sat transfixed on the basement’s loop pile carpet (in three tones of brown), filled with dread.

Spoiler alert--but if you didn’t watch this movie as a child, it’s already spoiled.

 

Road Trip: Kicked in Deez Nuts by History

I believe it was during a trip to Ireland or Scotland that one of my friends compared it to being kicked in the nuts by history. Perhaps the sentiment could be phrased more eloquently, but the same is true of my road trip through the Southern states back down to Baton Rouge. Only it wasn't just learning about history while visiting the sites. Some of this trip was like actually traveling back in time. Other parts of the trip involved laughing at yahoos other cultures, of course, or just place names such as Bucksnort, Tennessee, but regular readers were probably expecting as much.