chiller blog

Posted Mar 13, 09 06:19 PM

R

Innocently enough, it began.

Mom’s suspiciously timed stroll through the Eckroth Music showroom. The Eckroth Music delivery truck parked at the second point of a three-point turn on our lawn.

Then… that disgusting word: “lessons”.

The only musical ability I’ve ever remotely aspired to was the ability to put my lips to a flute and send a few unfortunate enemies plummeting off of a stone bridge.

But there I was, stuck for two hours at Mrs. White’s. Her son, Ross, wasn’t the sharing type when it came to the remote control. So at age eleven, I discovered McCall’s on a coffee table stack.

Fanning passed all of the lipstick and Weight Watchers ads, there was actually a pretty good column – Lynn Minton’s Movie Guide for Puzzled Parents. Part critic, part really cool mom, LM broke down films by age appropriate categories: All Ages, 13 & Up, Older Adolescents, For No One, et al. She’d even non-prudishly spell out reasons why films merited their classification ratings long before the MPAA spelled out the details in those tiny rectangles under the letter grade. On a Friday the 13th knock-off, Lynn probably had to switch out ink cartridges on her printer.

And so, “R” had an aura. “R” was taboo. “R” became endlessly fascinating.

After all of the misplayed B-sharps, I’d get home and beeline for the dictionary. Ohhh, so that’s what Lynn meant by “garroting” and “disembowelment.”

Mom, a good soul who more than once bemused aloud where she went wrong with me, was adamantly opposed to anything more potent than a PG-13. Buying a ticket to an R-rated movie was “a vote for that stuff”. I still remember the pre-Bronze Age Catholic Film Council guides circulating – but A-IV or C (for “condemned”) didn’t exactly pack the same school marm thrill.

Growing up, Mom was in league with other Moms to be responsible Moms. (Darn it!) Especially on overnights at Brian Zeiszler’s or Ken Clouston’s – grade school friends whose parents were HBO subscribers. “Kenny, what rating is that movie?” Gail Clouston would call downstairs, on so much as sensing the Sylvania’s decibel or flicker. But usually, the curious types were safe to explore after 1:30 a.m. And we never lasted that long.

Good parents – and I was fortunate with Mom – work hard to safeguard their children’s’ innocence before the elusive, the inevitable. My first sneak into an R-rated film finally came on a summer evening with fellow actor friends at the now defunct Plaza III Theaters in Bismarck. Want the drum roll? It was A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.

I hadn’t even seen the original. But the show hall was packed, I splurged on popcorn and Sprite, and the air was tense (at least my air, from my conscience). For one of the first times, I was “doing something wrong” – with a couple hundred other ticket buyers.

I remember very little of the film – eh, maybe a few gory effects. And now it’s up on the mantel in a curious place of honor.

But a year or so later, I purged and had “the conversation” with Mom about seeing it. Along came the opportunity to review films for the hometown newspaper, and that mandated my seeing a lot of movies – some of them with stronger classification ratings.

She understood. She understood it all.

Mom was about being responsible for the images that we put out into the world. Absolutely.

The most successful movies – regardless of their genre – are about truth, from sweeping social changes to truth in behavior in a singular, life-defining circumstance – no matter how fantastic.

Sometimes, filmmakers require darker palates with which to paint – and darker tracks from which to design adrenaline-induced visual rollercoasters. I can’t imagine the metaphorical gallons of blood not pouring out of the elevator doors in The Shining. Or the uneasiness of an emotionally unraveling Glenn Close holding Michael Douglas to the repercussions of his extra-marital tryst in Fatal Attraction. Or Linda Blair – with Mercedes McCambridge’s voice – not espousing unfathomable demonic profanities in The Exorcist, underscoring a reality of such unbreakable, arrogant evil that one longs for spiritual victory. And with a weary some, even spiritual existence.

“Form follows function,” A. Reuben Lackman, my creative writing teacher, once wrote. Forever noted.

Now to check the Chiller schedule for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2…