This week's The Chosen is a less objective and more personal peek into the inner workings of Mangus, your Fear with Beer host. In this week's list, I share titles that rattled my reality cage. I'm not saying these would shake me up now, only that I experienced each at the right time to really mess with my head.
In no particular order, here are my Top Horror and Horrific Movies, Books or Games That Made Me Question My Reality.
The Shout (1978)
This strange movie, staring a young John Hurt, tells the story of a composer and his wife who take in a stranger who eventually reveals he has learned an Aboriginal secret: he can produce a shout that can kill.I still don't know if I would call this a horror movie, but it's an uneasy, unsettling piece with a moody brooding tone. You've got to understand, I saw this a year or so after it came out. I was young, and everything about this movie, from the English settings to the experimental music that Hurt was crafting from sounds (I didn't even know that was a thing back then), was foreign to me. My rural Ohio brain was blown -- plus, I caught it on a late, late movie, so I was crazy tired, making everything feel wonky and surreal.
What was worse, I tried to describe it to friends, and this movie is really hard to describe. Nobody I knew had stayed up that late to see it. Without my trusty IMDB or Internet, I've had to wait until 2016, right now, to share this experience. I'm glad I finally got that off my chest. By the way, this movie also has Tim Curry of Rocky Horror fame and a very, very imposing Alan Bates.
Jacob's Ladder (1991)
This is the second time this movie has made The Chosen, dropping in my picks of Top Tentacles earlier. I'm not kidding -- this one left me reeling for days, maybe weeks. This movie actually made me wonder if perhaps I was dead -- don't laugh -- it was that powerful at the time and with visuals unlike anything I had ever seen before. A true psychic mind stomp.The Magus (novel) by John Fowles
I was in my 20s and going through a difficult time when I read this, and went on a no-sleep reading marathon to finish this large book in one sitting. Published in 1965, this trippy story is a true mindf--k, constantly shifting, turning, dragging you deeper and deeper into darkness and confusion. There was so much with which I could relate on some deeper level -- on the surface, I couldn't relate to anything, and it is a bizarre ride. I'm convinced pushing myself to exhaustion with little sustenance outside of coffee and ramen noodles added to the experience. I won't even attempt to describe this book -- it's best to simply experience it.
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (short - 1964)
This black and white short based on an Ambrose Bierce once appeared on The Twilight Zone, but that wasn't where I first encountered it. An Oscar-winning French production, it tells the tale of Peyton Farquhar, to be hanged off the Owl Creek Bridge by Union soldiers during the American Civil War.
This short was shown to me in middle school. I have no idea why. Maybe we had been studying the Civil War, maybe not. I only remember not getting it and being completely stunned and disoriented when I saw that hanging body. Why did they show it to me? What was I supposed to take away from it? Yup, my reality was never the same after that. And then to go out to recess? Come on, man. You can't have your mind blown and then go play tag.
Undertale (indie game)
I've also written about this mindblower in a previous post, Undertale is the meta king of meta games, not just weaving an intricate story that tackles the concepts of morality and choice, but scooting outside of the boundaries of the computer screen to address you, the player. The thing has layers and layers, all with disarming humor and even silliness, but it stays with you. At least it has for me. I predict this will game, created by Toby Fox, will one day be recognized as a classic bit piece of 21st century art.
The Deadly Dream (Made for TV movie, 1971)
Okay, I was SUPER young when I saw this, even younger than when I saw An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and this completely freaked me out. Starring Lloyd Bridges, a man keeps dreaming he is being persecuted by a conspiracy, one where people, even his trusted wife, are trying to kill him. Nobody can be trusted. He wakes up, lives his other life, goes to sleep, continues where the dream left on, and back and forth, back and forth, so you can't tell which is the dream and which is the reality. That's kind of heavy for a kid.
Here's the interesting thing: I fell asleep before the end -- like I said, I was a really little kid. It wasn't until last year that I finally saw this movie, the first time since 1971, Man, it was bad. As a young, young kid, though, the idea of not knowing if a dream was actually the reality was enough to make me not want to sleep.
