Halcyon Days
The earliest start of my illustrious cinephile journey, the very genesis, if you will, was watching classic adventure movies, on Sunday afternoon, while visiting grandma. Back then I wasn’t The Crazy Dutchman yet. Hell, I wasn’t even a Dutchman. I was just a Dutch boy, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, the crazy still years away. We would sit on the floor, my brothers and nieces beside me, crisps and soda at hand, and we’d watch Zorro, Ivanhoe, swashbuckler pirate-movies… dubbed in German, but we didn’t care. We sat there, eyes wide, learning for the first time there were entire worlds out there.
It was in this spirit, wide-eyed and wondrous, that I first saw Tarantula. Not at my grandmother’s house, mind you, but alone, at home, eight years old. Shimmering eerily in black and white, glowing from that big old cathode ray tube TV and me, all alone in my parents’ living room, watching a movie about a mad scientist who breeds giant hamsters in his lab in the deserts of Arizona. For the good of mankind, you know. Lots of ham-burgers. And a spider, too, for some reason. And then that spider escapes.
Was I scared? Hell, no! I was a big little boy; I wasn’t afraid of scary movies anymore! But yeah, I was. A little bit. I remember one particular scene, vividly, and just thinking about it gives me goosebumps again… In it, the female lead, beautiful Miss Clayton, is sitting in her bedroom on the first floor of her house, in front of her dressing table. The spider, by now as big as the house itself, is standing right next to it, peering through the window… BUT… she has no idea! She’s just sitting there, brushing her hair, completely oblivious… Then the camera gives us a view from inside the room: we see her, and we’re looking out past her through the window, as it were… and that window is completely filled by those giant spider eyes! Scary, yes… but fun-scary, you know? Thrilling-scary… Awesome!
And those special effects of the ’50’s… Today, they might seem quaint, almost laughable—but back then, to my eight-year-old eyes, they were nothing short of miraculous! There were no computers, no CGI, no green screens. Just clever models, clever camera angles, and a lot of ingenuity. That giant tarantula wasn’t really standing there, next to that house, that was a cool trick, and I knew it was a trick, somewhere in the back of my still very young mind, but still, even though I sort of knew that, it was terrifying!
In short, it was the very first time I experienced the magic of movies: true enchantment.
I have seen bigger monsters since. Real-life ones, too. I’ve even become one myself, once or twice. But back then everything was still… pure. Good. Simple. Halcyon days, indeed.
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