I’m pretty sure, given my lifelong love affair for all things Duran Duran, that it’s no secret I grew up in the 1980s. It was a simpler, more fluorescent time then. So many things happened that influenced who Gen Xers are today. I’m not talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Reaganomics, or the development of the modern Internet. I’m talking about the fine selection of horror films being produced for consumption by young, impressionable minds during that time period. Here are some valuable life lessons we all learned from those instructive films:
1. To kill a leprechaun, you must slingshot a four-leaf clover down his gullet. However, don’t expect him to stay dead. He’ll be back, at least five more times, and he wants his gold.
2. Don’t build your home on a Native American burial ground. Also, stuffed clowns are a terrible birthday gift idea. You might as well put out a doormat that reads POLTERGEISTS WELCOME HERE.
3. Speaking of bad birthday gifts, put that Good Guy doll right back on the shelf. You can’t be sure the spirit of a serial killer doesn’t possess that thing. Need a good gift? That puppet master down the road had some cool toys in his window.
4. To kill a bloodthirsty, machete-wielding murderer in a hockey mask, you need to put an axe through his head, kill him with his own machete, chain him to the bottom of the lake where he initially drowned, drag him back to the bottom of the lake again after he escapes, blow him up with a grenade, stab him with a mystical dagger, freeze him in cryonic suspension, or eject him into space. Of course, he’ll still come back. You thought the leprechaun was bad? He was child’s play compared to this guy!
5. Things to avoid: April Fool’s Day, prom night, graduation day, sleepaway camp, trolls, chopping malls, Motel Hell, and critters.
6. Speaking of malls: if there’s a zombie apocalypse happening all around you, do not go to the mall. Also not recommended: living in an underground military bunker where a commander whose mental state is questionable at best is conducting experiments on zombies; living near a cemetery.
7. If your dad is offered a job as caretaker for the winter at a Colorado hotel, try to talk him out of it. If he’s truly taken a shine to the place, maybe you can live with friends for the winter or something. I’m sure Isaac and Malachai have room.
8. To fight vampires, you need stakes, holy water, and two Coreys. Though really, why fight them? If Keifer Sutherland and Jason Patric taught us nothing else, they did prove that vampires are sexy.
9. When buying a home, maybe avoid Elm Street. You thought the hockey mask guy was hard to kill? Ha! The only way to avoid Freddy Krueger is to take hypnocil and move the hell away from Elm Street. What about that nice split-level ranch in Haddonfield?
10. Anything can be used as a murder weapon. Paper clips, horsehead bookends, chalkboard erasers, an eggplant . . . the possibilities are endless.
Kids today have no idea how hard it was to survive an ’80s horror movie. These days, they think if something’s not working for them, they can just reboot it.
Pinheads.
1. To kill a leprechaun, you must slingshot a four-leaf clover down his gullet. However, don’t expect him to stay dead. He’ll be back, at least five more times, and he wants his gold.
2. Don’t build your home on a Native American burial ground. Also, stuffed clowns are a terrible birthday gift idea. You might as well put out a doormat that reads POLTERGEISTS WELCOME HERE.
3. Speaking of bad birthday gifts, put that Good Guy doll right back on the shelf. You can’t be sure the spirit of a serial killer doesn’t possess that thing. Need a good gift? That puppet master down the road had some cool toys in his window.
4. To kill a bloodthirsty, machete-wielding murderer in a hockey mask, you need to put an axe through his head, kill him with his own machete, chain him to the bottom of the lake where he initially drowned, drag him back to the bottom of the lake again after he escapes, blow him up with a grenade, stab him with a mystical dagger, freeze him in cryonic suspension, or eject him into space. Of course, he’ll still come back. You thought the leprechaun was bad? He was child’s play compared to this guy!
5. Things to avoid: April Fool’s Day, prom night, graduation day, sleepaway camp, trolls, chopping malls, Motel Hell, and critters.
6. Speaking of malls: if there’s a zombie apocalypse happening all around you, do not go to the mall. Also not recommended: living in an underground military bunker where a commander whose mental state is questionable at best is conducting experiments on zombies; living near a cemetery.
7. If your dad is offered a job as caretaker for the winter at a Colorado hotel, try to talk him out of it. If he’s truly taken a shine to the place, maybe you can live with friends for the winter or something. I’m sure Isaac and Malachai have room.
8. To fight vampires, you need stakes, holy water, and two Coreys. Though really, why fight them? If Keifer Sutherland and Jason Patric taught us nothing else, they did prove that vampires are sexy.
9. When buying a home, maybe avoid Elm Street. You thought the hockey mask guy was hard to kill? Ha! The only way to avoid Freddy Krueger is to take hypnocil and move the hell away from Elm Street. What about that nice split-level ranch in Haddonfield?
10. Anything can be used as a murder weapon. Paper clips, horsehead bookends, chalkboard erasers, an eggplant . . . the possibilities are endless.
Kids today have no idea how hard it was to survive an ’80s horror movie. These days, they think if something’s not working for them, they can just reboot it.
Pinheads.
There's a reason why this house is so cheap!
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