My First Horror Scream: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives!
There are many moments in your young life that you will always remember. Your first days at school for example, maybe even your first kiss (it wasn’t very good) and one memory I will never forget; the first time a film genuinely frightened me.
There are many moments in your young life that you will always remember. Your first days at school for example, maybe even your first kiss (it wasnt very good) and one memory I will never forget; the first time a film genuinely frightened me. The nostalgia of reliving that memory in your head is one of cinematic glory. Much like the time you realise cinema can effectively tug at your heartstrings and drown your face in a hail of tears. As you get older the images in front of you go from real (believing theyre happening in front of you), to the realisation of the cinematic machine (a reproduction of artificial images), until eventually you decide to lose yourself into that same machine that once fooled you. As they say the proof is in the pudding, we need only look back at the seminal Lumiere Brothers Arrival of a Train At A Station. A short film with the Ronseal mantra, showed a train arriving at a station, however such was the inexperience of film in 1895 many of the crowd ran to the back of the cinema screaming. That is the power of cinema, and that is a power which has always been played upon by horrors finest, a belief in images which allows us to feel fear. As a child this belief extends further. Were naive, raw and most of us cinematically unproven. So at the tender age of 9, I was invited round to a friends house for a sleepover, which involved a lot of friends, girls I was frightened of and the promise of two horror films that I too would be frightened of. Considering the closest Id been to a horror film at this point was a pre-Jaws viewing of a shark documentary of TV, its safe to say I was quite wary. I had heard about Freddy Krueger and refused to watch it, I preferred to dream about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Biker Mice from Mars. Not a man who could kill me in my dreams, that never appealed to a 9 year old me. So when I was informed that one of the films we would be watching would be about a psycho killer in a hockey mask called Jason and the other about slimy balls of cabbage that turn into little demons who play pranks, I wasnt exactly excited but luckily I was past the wet myself stage. It was common knowledge between the group that the VHSs had been provided by my friends kooky and slightly neurotic mother, Im pretty sure she was a self styled hippy who didnt believe in censorship of any kind, the perfect kind of parent to help select films for 9 year old kids. She didnt really seem to get on with the other parents and my mum insisted that she was not all there, but in the belief that we would be watching a little known film called Space Jam she okd it. So I packed a bag, chucked some popcorn in, a duvet and some Haribo Starmix (Tangfastics werent around back in the day) and off I went.... two doors up the road to my friends house. When I got there I found out we were going to all be sleeping in the attic room. Brilliant, my first horror film night in a room with one window, up a staircase which made Norman Bates look like the Von Trapps. I settled my bag down and we all got down to doing stupid things like pillow fights, farting and throwing popcorn at each other. Everything was calm and I liked it that way, until the suggestion to put a film on came up. My stomach flipped. Everybody climbed into this one bed and I was stuck between the girl with the pickled onion breath and the one who clearly looked like she could cry at any moment. I wasnt prepared. All the lights were off, nobody was speaking and I could just hear the chewing of popcorn from the one kid who just did not seem bothered by this at all. I later found out that his brother was a big gore fan and apparently showed his younger brother Cannibal Holocaust the week before. I havent seen this guy in many, many years but I imagine it might of left him a little scarred. The VHS was then placed in by my friend who then proceeded to rush back into the bed as if the TV could of come alive and swallowed him (perhaps hed seen Poltergeist). The film of choice Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. 
Looking back now it is laughable that I ever really got scared of it, it is a terrible sequel to a franchise that peaked from the off. But yet as a 9 year old, with all the lights off, a TV which was moons away from the 48 inch plasmas of the world today and a group full of equally as frightened kids (minus Cannibal guy) I was scared. So when the opening scene came up, a church, a graveyard and a storm brewing in the sky I was not prepared for what was about to happen. With the franchises kind-of lead character Tommy heading to the graveyard to seemingly avenge the many deaths Jason has previously committed, it started off quite ominously. Jason is dead and buried so the smart thing to do would be to leave his decrepit body alone. With my naivety came the lack of foresight into horror clichés, so I spent a lot of the film questioning every decision. Instead he finds the grave of Jason with his friend and begins to dig it up. Looking around me, pretty much everyone in the room had the applicable hands over the eyes and peering through stance to the film. You could cut the tension in the room with a machete. With the body now dug up the obviously emotionally traumatised Tommy grabs a long spiked pole from a fence and heads towards the body. What happened next can only happen in freak circumstances, but it happened. As Tommy plunges the spike into the body and walks away a lightning bolt strikes. The television turned off. Everybody screamed and I just wanted to go home, it was only two doors away after all. Nobody wanted to leave the room. Nobody wanted to even move, underneath the duvet suddenly became a crowded place. And then the screen came on again Jason was alive and standing, everybody stopped. Then he ripped a heart out, everybody screamed, apart from Cannibal boy who was relishing in it. For the next hour and a bit, I witnessed everything from body contortion kills to a post-sex head being inexplicably pushed into the side of an RV. Id been introduced to horror legend Jason Voorhees and I did not like it. For the next few years I never wanted to go camping, or be in a forest, or for that matter ever play hockey. I never found out why the TV switched off, I suspected it was his teenage brother playing a prank, but the whole encounter highlighted the importance of horror as an experience. It is one of the few genres where your viewing environment is essential. It brings purpose to the darkness of the cinema and gives reason to turn off the lights for viewing. For example watch The Descent with the lights on or during the day and it loses its essence. Now, I love the affect Horror gives to my body, I love sweating in anticipation of a kill and my stomach flipping over. I am fully aware now that these images are not real, but I am also willing to give my body over to the screen and except the affects. My naivety may not be there anymore but sometimes I want it back. That same night I watched Gremlins for the first time as well. It didnt have the same affect but I did believe that they lived under my bed in a laboratory via a secret compartment. This with the presence of Jason ingrained in my mind, stopped me sleeping or looking under my bed for a few weeks. These days I have to hoover under there. Here is an unofficial trailer for the film; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6nRbkPwQo What's your first horror scream? The first moment that terrified you in cinema. We'd love to hear...