Paranormal. Supernatural. Horror. In television and film these are uniting genres. They bridge the gap between fandoms and unite nerd and non-nerd alike. They give us sweaty palms, goosebumps, and raise our heart-rate almost as much as watching Emilia Clarke in the first season of Game of Thrones. And they’re often filled with enough pseudo-science to satisfy us science geeks that at least the filmmakers tried. And don’t even get me started on the gratuitous nudity. It’s almost the defining characteristic of any scary movie – your pants-shitting fear is softened just a bit by the promise of seeing some young woman’s firm tits bouncing out of her sweater before she receives the inevitable icy hand of supernatural death. What boy didn’t get his first stirrings of both sexual desire and the dread of inevitable mortality from watching horror films?
Me.
Growing up in the 80’s was great. We had just enough technology that we could play video games, but not enough that we were so constantly distracted by phones (of all things) that we didn’t know how to be bored anymore. Growing up in New England, however, with parents who were obsessed religious fundamentalists, and during the height of the Satanic Panic scare, I ended up missing out on quite a bit of classic 80’s movies and television. For this article I’m going to steer clear of obvious titles (like A Nightmare on Elm Street) that even part-time Christians might be uncomfortable with letting their kids watch, and I’ll also stick to the paranormal/supernatural theme pretty religiously (seewhatididthere) so my He-Man and Smurfs stories will have to wait for another blog post. So here it is, the top 5 banned paranormal movies from my childhood.
#5 – POLTERGEIST
WHY IT WAS BANNED
OK, so I struggled with putting this one in here because it does have a reputation for being a particularly scary movie with a pretty demonic bent to it, but it’s a Steven Spielberg film so I think I’m justified. Having already made movies that my entire family adored, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T., Steven Spielberg penned Poltergeist and it seemed a bit of a stretch to me that we were banned from watching it just because this particular movie was about ghosts. We never got an exact reason for it, but I assume it was a combination of two reasons. One: the word poltergeist. Close your eyes and say it in your head. It’s a much scarier word than, say, “ghost,” or “spirit,” or even “apparition.” It comes from the German words poltern, meaning to “cause a disturbance,” and geist, meaning “ghost.” Poltergeist. Yeah, it’s a ball-shrivellingly scary word. Leave it to the fucking Germans. The second reason I suspect for its bannination from my childhood home was that it cast a shadow over a sacred institution. The movie’s gaze fell upon a something that was cherished and holy, pointed its ephemeral finger and denounced the one thing that was hallowed in our house above all. The television set. My dad was an insatiable TV junkie and anything that cast an accusatory pall over something so sacrosanct must not be allowed.
HAVING SEEN IT AS AN ADULT
Classic Spielberg storytelling and movie making. There’s a reason this man is the GOAT. He did more in the 80’s with a shoestring budget than anyone else nowadays (including himself) can do with unlimited funds and CGI. He also tells a very relatable and human story. As a father of 4 daughters, I am all in watching a movie about a dad who will jump into hell to save his little girl.
And the absolute mad lad even used real fucking skeletons in the pool scene.
#4 – CHILD’S PLAY
WHY IT WAS BANNED
I can already hear you. “But Tim, so far it looks like your parents just didn’t want you to watch scary movies. This isn’t necessarily because of religion.” Please, allow me to offer some evidence to the contrary – in 1986, at the tender age of barely 10, my dad took me to see the movie Aliens. A terrifying movie by any standard, but one that adds not a drop of paranormal phenomenon to explain its boogeymen. That movie, although far more frightening for a young child, was acceptable because it didn’t contain any of what my parents would have called “occult imagery.” Oh, and, incidentally, I still have Alien nightmares about once a month to this day. Not that that’s a bad thing, I sort of enjoy them.
Child’s Play tells the story about a demon-possessed doll that kills people. At least, I assume that’s what happens. That’s what my parents assumed and that’s why I wasn’t allowed anywhere near that movie.
HAVING SEEN IT AS AN ADULT
It’s been on my list for a while now, but I haven’t yet got around to watching it. I might watch the Mark Hammill remake though.
#3 – THRILLER
WHY IT WAS BANNED
Thriller was never explicitly banned in my house growing up, but it didn’t need to be because the medium it was broadcast on was already banned – MTV. MTV just might have been an even bigger threat to my Christian faith than pornography, Dungeons and Dragons, Satan Worshippers, AND supernatural movies put together. Under no circumstances was MTV, or even the playing of secular radio stations, allowed. There was an incident when I had a friend, we’ll call him “Mark,” at my house to spend the night and he wanted to watch MTV. Imagine my absolute shock that the lad wanted to watch MTV as casually as if it were a mere Saturday morning cartoon. Not in MY house! The very presence of Music Television could, and likely would, be enough to send me and my sisters straight to the burning depths of Hell. My parents were not at home at the time, so I fought him off as valiantly as possible, but Mark was a full head taller than me. Realizing I could never win on strength alone, I did what any sane, god-fearing boy in my situation would have done. I went to the basement, and I cut the power to the entire house. I had saved my immortal soul.
TL;DR I cut the power off to the entire fucking house so my friend couldn’t turn on MTV because I literally thought the words of Satan would come out of the TV and damn me for all eternity.
HAVING SEEN IT AS AN ADULT
Aside from the weirdness of seeing MJ act like he’s interested in a girl, Thriller is fun, campy, and, well, definitely for younger audiences. On the Scare-O-Meter it ranks just under pit bull puppies in terms of poop inducing fear. And the puppies only edge it out because there’s a part of you that knows those things are going to grow up to crave the flesh of human children. It’s an inexorable fate. What Michael Jackson actually turned into in real life is infinitely more scary than the werewolf in Thriller.
#2 – GREMLINS
WHY IT WAS BANNED
This is an easy one. Gremlins are demons.
OK, I’ll elaborate a smidge. When someone believes that demons are real and demonic influence is all around us, and real demons are in a spiritual war for the souls of children, they can’t afford to let their children become entranced by the cute-ish little demons in a movie. Actual demons use the movies like Gremlins to convince children that demons are harmless and almost fun. That’s when children open their minds up to demonic possession and lose their soul to Satan.
Sounds fucked up, right? It is. And no, I didn’t make any of that up.
HAVING SEEN IT AS AN ADULT
#1 – GHOSTBUSTERS
WHY IT WAS BANNED
My parents were at the apex of their Satanic panic in the mid-to-late 80’s. My father was also a Baptist minister and he and my mom believed that the best way to get a child to love Jesus is to scare Jesus into them. When Ghostbusters came out, the projectionist at the local movie theater was a member of the church. My parents told us stories about demons in the theater during showings of Ghostbusters. The demons would throw food around, levitate people out of their seats, and cause all other kinds of chaos and havoc. As an impressionable 8 year old, who had no reason not to believe everything his parents told him, I was scared shitless of the movie. I hated hearing the theme song (which would play on the bus to school with no way for me to shut off the power to save myself). Ghostbusters became, in my mind, the epitome of demonic subterfuge in the battle for my immortal soul. It was movie where mere humans have the hubris to play god by assuming the power of the Lord for themselves to cast demons into Hell.
4 years later, on Saturday mornings when my parents slept in or were otherwise busy with grown-up things, I would sneak in the occasional episode of Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters. I felt guilt, and a bit of shame, but by the end of 1988 my parents had begun the slow process of eroding their faith that would culminate in my father becoming a Wiccan priest, albeit for a very short time. But again, that’s a story for another blog post.
HAVING SEEN IT AS AN ADULT
Jesus Christ. It’s a Bill Murray movie.
CONCLUSION
I don’t want anyone out there in the Nerdyverse to think I’m bashing religion. I’m not. I like religion. I’ve tried to start several of my own. All I’m doing here is offering up my own truth for your entertainment. Are you not entertained?
Were you forbidden from watching any classic 80’s movies or TV shows? Vent about it in the comments and let us know!`
