Christopher Lee in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave — That was my first horror movie and I was then still a child. After watching the film, I was unable to shake off Christopher Lee’s ashen face from my mind. At night, I couldn’t be left alone and had to sleep ahead of everyone so that when it was lights out I’d already be in dreamland. (Mercifully, I never had nightmares with Christopher Lee in it.) This must have gone on for about a month or so. On some days, I’d be okay, but there were nights when images of Christopher Lee as Dracula – cape and all – would recur in my mind and I’d get really scared.
The problem was – being the youngest – I was always an easy target for torment by my siblings and the easiest way for them to make life miserable for me was to remind me of Christopher Lee.
Then one evening a couple of years later, the family was watching an international beauty pageant and one of the judges was Christopher Lee. They called me so that I’d see for myself that Christopher Lee was not a real vampire and in fact looked so distinguished in a tux. Well, the fact that they were able to crown a winner without any of the contestants getting bitten by him convinced me that there was no reason for me to get scared of Christopher Lee.
The twin girls in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – For sure I was no longer a child when I saw this Jack Nicholson movie, but the sight of the twin girls who appear as ghosts in the corridor of a summer resort abandoned during wintertime still gives me goose bumps to this day.
Ghosts coming out of the TV screen in Poltergeist – The theory here is that spirits get their energy from electronic gadgets and in Poltergeist, we see the ghosts coming out of the TV screen. Can you imagine how that affected me when I got home late that evening and saw the TV set in front of my bed? In the middle of the night, I would wake up and peek from my half-closed eyes if there was something coming out of my TV screen. I still do that to this day. So far, nothing of that sort has happened – whew!
A floating coffin scene in Gabi ng Lagim – Gabi ng Lagim was so successful in the ’60s that it had radio, movie and TV versions. Gabi ng Lagim, the movie, I saw only a couple of years ago when it was shown on Cinema One. In the opening we see a wooden coffin floating in the river. But even if the wire pulling the coffin is noticeable (there were no computers to erase those telltale strings back then), I thought that scene was still creepy. Or maybe it helped that the movie was in black and white. Or perhaps they really made better films in the old days.
Judy Ann Santos as a possessed woman in an episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya? – I’ll never forget that. It was Maalaala Mo Kaya’s Halloween episode in 2001. Judy Ann played a character possessed by the evil one and I freaked out in those scenes where she is seen floating outside the upstairs bedroom window.
I knew she was Judy Ann Santos – my sweet and dear Juday and she wouldn’t hurt me. But she was so convincing – her acting, her makeup and the lighting – that I totally freaked out. For several days after that, I wouldn’t dare look out the window for fear of seeing something scary similar to what I saw in that Maalaala Mo Kaya show.
Oyo Sotto in Txt – Alex "Bo" Vicencio’s prosthetics were really magnificent in the movie Txt by Michael Tuviera. (It was graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board.) Like Judy Ann, I also know Oyo personally, but I have to give credit to his facial expression and makeup because I still got scared every time he would come out on screen as a ghost. The most frightening was when he showed himself to Dennis Trillo at the call center office. (That sure was difficult to shake off from my imagination.) Try catching the film while it is still showing and I swear it’s most appropriate viewing this Halloween.