paul is dead

Every time I take a road trip, I think of this movie I saw when I was a kid. I have no idea what the movie was and, based on the only part I remember, I'm pretty sure that I should not have been watching it at such a young age.

The part I remember is of this family in a car and they're stuck in a traffic jam. At night. Of course it's at night. Anyway, there are two or three little girls sitting in the backseat and the one sitting in the middle is asleep. The other little girl(s) are all giggly and play a prank on the sleeping girl by tying her shoelaces together.

Well, then they get in a terrible car accident and the sleeping girl (whose name might have been Jennifer, now that I think about it) can't get out of the car in time (because of her shoelaces being tied together) and the car like explodes and she dies, and the other little girl feels guilty forever the end.

See? Traumatic, right? To this day, I don't take my shoes off in the car (unless they're flip flops) because what if we get in a horrible car accident and I can't leave the car because I don't have shoes on? This makes no sense, I know, because duh, Jennie, get out of the car barefoot but WHAT IF IT'S WINTER? My feet will fall off.

Other movies I saw as a child that traumatized me forever:

Gremlins: For years I was convinced that Gremlins lived under my bed but only at night. If I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I'd stand in the middle of my bed and jump as far into the room as I could because I imagined if I put my feet on the ground right by the bed, little Gremlin claws would grab my ankles and pull me under.

Cat's Eye: In which a young Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a gremlin in her sleep. Um. Yeah. So, Drew Barrymore gets a cat and her mom hates cats because I guess her mom is a giant bitch who doesn't like fun because have you ever seen a cat chase its tail? Comedy gold. Anyway, so she doesn't want Drew to have a cat because cats steal your breath when you're asleep. Drew's mom is crazy. Drew isn't allowed to have the cat in her bedroom at night because OBVIOUSLY the cat will steal her breath while she's sleeping OH OF COURSE YOU CRAZY MOTHER. But wait! Guess what happens? This little gremlin burrows into her room each night. He has tiny armor and a tiny sword because...sure, of course. And guess what he does? HE STEALS DREW'S BREATH WHILE SHE'S ASLEEP. Well, the cat won't stand for that so he breaks into the room and fights the gremlin. All I remember is that the gremlin had scary teeth and poked the cat with his sword and hurt that cat and I was like, "oh hell no, I'm out."

Twilight Zone THERE'S SOMETHING ON THE WING OF THE PLANE!: When I saw this, I had never been on a plane. I was terrified to get on a plane and TO THIS DAY, the first thing I think when I fly anywhere is, "I hope there's not a weird gremlin thing that effs up our plane." Which I think is totally valid even without having seen this Twilight Zone.

The Gate: You guys. This is the scariest movie I ever saw as a child. It might be the scariest movie I've ever seen EVER only I don't remember because I haven't seen it since I was like 8. WHO LET ME WATCH THIS? What happens is, these kids are allowed to stay home alone while their parents are on vacation. That never ends well. So of course, they play records backwards to see if they can hear Satan and they also dig a big hole in the backyard...for a pool or something. They put a gate over the hole (OK?) but it's too late! The combination of the backwards-record and the hole to hell (Hellmouth?) makes all these scary gremlin-demons come out and they are so creepy. They're little, but there's a lot of them, so they can totally eff you up. Also, there's this part where one of the kids has an eye growing in the middle of the palm of his hand and he stabs it with a piece of glass. Again, I ask, WHO LET ME WATCH THIS?

Apparently gremlins were as terrifying to me as a child as zombies are to me now. Good to know.