Vampire Circus

[janradder]

When I was a kid growing up in Connecticut, I used to spend my summers with my grandparents. Aside from enjoying my time with them, one of the perks was that they had cable and, because they had cable, we could watch the independent New York stations like Channels 11 and 9. Now, Channel 11 had the great cartoons and old TV shows during the afternoon but at night, Channel 9 was the one to watch because they used to show a ton of old Hammer horror films.

On one Wednesday night, when I was maybe nine or ten, I was sitting in the living room with my grandparents and we had the TV tuned to Channel 9. At eight, on came a Hammer film I hadn't seen before, which was rare because usually they just showed one of the Dracula series. It was called Vampire Circus. I loved the Hammer films because they were a lot more gruesome and dark than the typical fare shown on television, but they didn't usually frighten me -- not like nightmare-inducing frighten or running-through-the-hall-at-night-because-the-monster-was right-behind-you frighten -- they just kind of creeped me out or gave me the chills. Vampire Circus, for some reason, was different. Right from the beginning there was something horribly sinister about the film, even the idea -- that a circus of traveling vampires comes to town and kills off the villagers -- terrified me. My grandparents weren't usually the type to monitor what I or my sister watch -- we saw plenty of movies that were probably a little too old for us -- but for some reason, this one bothered them and they switched it off. It never did any good to argue with them -- their word was always final and arguing or pleading only made things worse -- so I sat and watched whatever show or movie they put on and just wondered what might be happening in Vampire Circus, wishing I could flip the TV back.

For years, I've searched for that film -- I'd scour the TV listings, look for it at video stores, ask friends if they'd ever seen it -- but I never had any luck. Tonight, though, for whatever reason, I was thinking about Vampire Circus again and it occurred to me that I'd never checked YouTube. Why not? I thought. YouTube always seems to have stuff like that. Lo and behold, a Hammer horror film fan from the UK had kindly posted the entire movie! This is even more exciting than when I finally found the Dr. Strange TV pilot -- I am in Horror Geek Heaven!

Comments

[timalyne.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I'm in the same boat. In fact...I watched Scream to try to get "over it"(stupid of all stupid movies, really and funny in places because I understand the formula for horror and I got the jokes) and I thought...well, that wasn't so bad. And I was fine. For a while. Then, I saw a trailer, after the fact and began having nightmares. Then again, I can watch movies like Silence of the Lambs with less trouble. Something primal about it all, I suppose.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Haddyr is fine if it's a horror movie about people. Monsters, on the other hand, terrify her.

[timalyne.livejournal.com]

The movie that still haunts me from my childhood, the movie I should not have watched (turns out my husband also watched it and was traumatized too) was The Car. I like living on the second floor...

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I loved that movie when I was a kid! I still remember watching it some Saturday night on TV with my family. The movie I remember really scaring me when I was a kid was Prophecy, about the mutated, inside out bears created by pollution that goes on a killing rampage through the woods (or something like that -- the monsters were pretty disgusting). It was one of the movies that I saw with my grandparents and, living in a house surrounded by the woods, I would often think I was going to come across one of those horrible creatures whenever I was out on my own.