Thursday

KoKo and I are made from the same mold.

Saturday afternoon, KoKo was watching some of my student made imovies for their Edgar Allan Poe projects. Of course, she wanted to know more, so I told her all about “The Black Cat,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Cask of Amontillado.”

As a horror lover, she was fascinated (remember, her Dolls of Death she created?).

However, when it came time for bed, she was a little unnerved about the stories, especially “The Black Cat.” I suppose I should mention here that I told her all about the excellent Showtime version of the story from their Masters of Horror series. Well, that really freaked her out. Especially the part where the narrator takes an axe to his wife’s head. Oh yeah, KoKo squirmed while I told her about poor Pluto having his eye carved out too.

On Sunday, we busied ourselves with yard work. Yes, I know. I suck at it. But I managed to clean the gutters, rake up the leaves, work up the dead patches of grass (courtesy of our dogs), take out the trash, and a few other things. Of course, I accomplished them all in my own special random-abstracted way (just like KoKo).


However, late in the afternoon it came time to haul the leaves out to my dad’s to later burn. KoKo came with. As a treat, I hooked up my ipod to Casey’s stereo to play her a couple of stories from “The Price of Fear” by Vincent Price.

The first was the classic “Cat’s Cradle” (mentioned in a previous blog article). She had trouble following along because the language is not at her reading level, but she had me translate it for her whenever she had a question. The story happened to finish while I was dumping the leaves – she chose to stay inside and listen to the rest of the tale.

I figured that it was a one-time deal for her. I mean the shows were even before my time, so I didn’t expect her to really get into them.

I was wrong.

“Can we listen to another one?” she eagerly asked as I got in.

That led us into “Waxwork,” a particularly grisly story about a writer who hatches the idea of spending the night in London’s House of Wax Horrors for some inspiration. He happens to know Vincent Prince, and that his how the story happens to be narrated to us, and drags him along. While getting the initial tour, the guide explains some of the infamous waxworks, one being a notorious doctor who slit the throat of his hypnotized patients.

Of course, the writer says that he saw the statue move. Price and guide laugh it off, saying that his imagination is already getting the best of him and that he is in store for all kinds of optical illusions over the course of the evening.

We learn that the doctor in question was a French physician who was captured and sent to the guillotine, but managed to escape. In fact, a few copycat murders have recently taken place in London.

Price bids adieu to his friend and heads back to his hotel. Earlier in the morning, he receives a call from the waxwork museum. It seems something awful has happened (you guessed it, right?).

The writer’s throat, you guessed it, has been slashed. Price finds his friend’s small tape-recorded stashed among the statues.

He listens to it and from there the story of the writer’s night in the museum resumes. Apparently, the doctor’s statue indeed does move. For it is the real killer, not just a wax replica.

The doctor begins to explain to the writer that he was walking down the street when he noticed a policeman eyeballing him. He dashed inside the museum, noted his was facsimile, yanked the fire alarm (nicely foreshadowed earlier in the story), hid the statue and hopped in its place. Even if he did move, no one would believe it, right?

Of course, he ends up hypnotizing the writer who is screaming wildly at the end of the tape.

Price resolves never to return to the museum again.

Nice, eh?

KoKo loved it.

Of course, I had to stay downstairs until she finished showering in the basement that evening – just to make sure nothing leaped out at her. And, of course, I had to go downstairs to turn down the furnace since there was no way KoKo was going to brave it down there alone to do it.

I tried to reassure her that there was nothing down there, but, remembering all too well how I felt after watching some of George Landis’s ingenious “American Werewolf in London” with my brother (I ended up in the kitchen, scare silly, after about 20 minutes, but I couldn’t resist peeking in now and then to see how things were going – and they weren’t going well) or watching a bit of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” on HBO while my family was doing yard work (I was hypnotized until one man, who had been taken over by “The Thing” (which attacks and then perfectly imitates its host) convulses. The doctor attempts to revive him, but as he is applying the shock treatments, the man/thing’s chest opens up into a mouth and bites the doctor’s arms off. By that time I was out the door and dashing to help with the yard work – interesting how thing have kind of come full circle with the yard work, eh?) Maybe ten years from now KoKo will be blogging about her experience sitting in the cab of Casey’s pick up, scared silly, from “Cat’s in the Cradle” just waiting for me to get back in.

Now one of these nights we just have to watch the film version of “The Black Cat.” I also can’t wait for her to see some of the suspense/horror classics: “The Thing,” “North by Northwest,” “Seven,” “Jaws,” “Candyman,” “The Silence of the Lambs” . . .