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BS: Man-eating Plants
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Subject: Man-eating Plants From: RangerSteve Date: 30 Jul 01 - 08:46 PM Okay, it's not really about man-eating plants, but I got your attention, didn't I? ( I majored in advertising in college, but then I got some morals). When I was a kid, I saw the movie "The Day of the Trifyds" (spelling?). I'm 51 yrs old now and still have a deep dislike and distrust of ugly flora. There's a vine that grows in the woods here (west-central NJ) thats about the thickness of a fire hose and looks like a giant centipede growing up the trees. It gives me the willies. My brother blames the movie "Tarantula" for his fear of spiders. He's 54. Anyone else have unreasonable fears from childhood that they can't shake? I'd like to know that I'm not alone. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jul 01 - 08:58 PM Yeah. I read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (classics comic version) at a very young age, and was terrified for years by it. I still get nervous sometimes at night in the country, and I do not like really large and aggressive dogs one bit. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: CarolC Date: 30 Jul 01 - 08:58 PM The thing that lives under the bed. You never know about the underneaths of beds. Except when you need to hide under them. But you have to check carefully first. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:26 PM Yeah, like the time flattop had to hide under...(Oh, Geez! I wasn't supposed to mention that. Damn!) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: CarolC Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:32 PM Good one LH. flattop didn't have any underneaths of his beds, remember? He understood about those things. He had a really big front hall closet that was good to hide in, though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:39 PM Yeah, the hall closet's a beauty, eh? That's where I was hiding the time I snapped the incriminating photos of him and Joan Rivers... Ooops! Did it again. Oh well, no harm done at this late date....hell, that was back in the 80's sometime, and it's old hat by now. :-D - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: CarolC Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:43 PM ha ha ha ha HA ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: SINSULL Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:47 PM "Day Of The Triffids" is one of my all time favorites. I have two copies of it on VHS AND a hard cover copy of the book. I loved horror movies as a child and they never frightened me. However...my brothers convinced me when I was about two that there were alligators in the sewer system. Boys were OK because they stand up to pee and can see the 'gator coming. Little girls can't and are small enough to be pulled down the pipes. To this day, I look before I sit. An episode of the X-Files had a gill man hiding in a porta-potty. Brought it all back. Gives me the shivers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Clinton Hammond Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:49 PM I have a wonderful 4.5 foot thistle growing beside the front steps that just started to 'flower'... I think it's beautiful! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Jul 01 - 09:53 PM I should think the very last place a gill man would want to hide would be in a porta-potty. Well, no, the VERY last place would be one of those old time country outhouses, actually...no blue disinfectant stuff in those suckers! Whooo---eeee! What a stench! A guy here in Ontario fell into one while trying to retrieve his wallet, which he had inadvertently dropped through the hole. He had to be rescued by a scout troop! With a rope. Talk about your horror stories... Did you know that young sewer alligators are terrorized by similar stories about girls? The bigger gators can't fit in the pipes, you see.... :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Liz the Squeak Date: 30 Jul 01 - 11:30 PM 'Carry On Screaming' did it for me... had nightmares about that hairy OddJob character for ages. Then I saw Thunderball, fell in love with Sean Connerys' hairy chest (aaaaaahhh nurse, the screens!!), and looked at the hairy monster a different way. No I don't fancy the hairy monster, but that chest........ LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 31 Jul 01 - 12:05 AM Punch and Judy. I still fear getting whacked when the lights go out. Scariest of all is a real one, the flesh-eating disease..... Almost makes you want to live in a sanitized space suit. Ranger Steve, don't tell me the Kudzu vine has moved as far north as New Jersey? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Sorcha Date: 31 Jul 01 - 12:10 AM ROF here...I can't deal with horror books/movies at all. Not even grossness of any kind--but the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread title was---- KUDZU VINE............(sorry) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: DonMeixner Date: 31 Jul 01 - 12:54 AM SinSull, I just finished The Day of the Triffids for the umpteenth time. A great book and INMHO a poor movie. but I watch it when ever its on. Wyndham wrote two others that I have read and enjoyed equally. The Chrysallids and The Kracken Awakes. I have never read The Midwhich Cuckoos but the other three were pips. Phobias, when I was very young my brother and a neighbor chased me into a culvert and caved the snow banks in on me trapping me inside for an hour. I'm now 50 and I have been afraid of the dark and tight places ever since. The only horror film I can't watch is The Haunting of Hill house, the first version with Claire Bloom and Julie Harris. Don |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Lin in Kansas Date: 31 Jul 01 - 01:24 AM For years I refused absolutely to eat any flavor of Jello. My two older brothers had gleefully told me the entire plot of "The Blob" (with additions about it hunting little girls). Gahhhhhhhh! They also convinced me that there was an awful, hunchbacked creature that lived out at the town dump, hid in garbage and wanted to catch little girls and pen them up in one of the caves out there. Dad couldn't understand why suddenly I wouldn't go near the trash can. And we won't even get into their description of "The Bad Seed"... Sigh. Sometimes loving your siblings is an uphill job. Lin (who still won't watch spooky movies and read scary books) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Sorcha Date: 31 Jul 01 - 01:37 AM worms, slugs and other shell-less things......snails are OK because they have a shell. Don't know why....slime, I guess. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Metchosin Date: 31 Jul 01 - 02:48 AM Hob Goblins! Don't know if it was just something perverse perpetrated by my father when I was small, or some sort of ethnic tradition, but on Hallowe'en we were visited by a goblin at the window. Usually a horrible face that popped up through the darkened pane when you were least suspecting it.
The first one I vividly recall was just a ghostly tea towel over his head at a second story window, but as a child of four it was terrifying. I also remember a devil's head and even though I found the offending mask in the bottom of a closet later, the damage was already done.
I couldn't go into a room at night by myself that had opened curtains or blinds. It took years to get over that one. Hob goblins were way scarier than the things under the bed that would grab your feet if you weren't quick getting in or out. I also wonder how the little trick or treaters who came to our door on Hallowe'en, when I was small, fared at night after being greeted by a roar and fangs of a huge bearskin? At least he never flashed that in the window, probably too hard to drag up the ladder. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Dharmabum Date: 31 Jul 01 - 07:26 AM We called them "Monkey Vines" when I was a kid,because they were great for swinging on. I don't know what they're really called. I guess it was the Boogie Man that terrified me as a kid. He lived under the basement stairs & his menu consisted mostly of little children.
Hey Steve,Where in NJ? I'm in Flemington. Ron. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 31 Jul 01 - 07:28 AM Wyndham's books were excellent, marred only (for me) by his insistence on unnecessarily inserting cold war propaganda into the stories... Readers in another era would find his snide attacks on the Russians puzzling, and out of sinc with the rest of the tale. This was a mistake that I think H.G. Wells did not make in his stories, which were seamless. Of course, in Well's stories everything always happened in, or emanated from England...just as virtually everything in Hollywood movies happens in or depends upon...the USA. Human egocentricity? Or just pleasing the local audience? Or both? Triffids was probably a great movie, if you hadn't read the book first...I thought as movies go it was not bad. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: RangerSteve Date: 31 Jul 01 - 08:13 AM Dicha - no, they aren't kudzu. They haven't been able to scrape up the toll money to get across the Delaware River. These vines seem to be leafless. They're covered with thousands of inch long "feet" that they use to hold on to the host tree. Like hairy grape vines. Dharmabum - me too. Actually, I'm in Readington, but my postal address is Flemington. I'll never understand how the postal system in NJ works. I'm on County Rte 523, right next to the buffalo ranch. I'm home if there's a red Jeep Wrangler in the driveway. And thanks to the folks that mentioned author of Day of the Triffids. I'll have to check the book out. It may be a great way to confront my fears. Or I could go on "Fear Factor" and make a complete buffoon out of myself. Reading the book seems easier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Grab Date: 31 Jul 01 - 08:46 AM The dark, after hearing a Dracula radio play at age 5-ish. Try being a ways out at sea, swimming by the boat with your snorkel mask on, and looking down. And down. And down. And everything just vanishes into this kind of endless black pit... The only time I ever had a real panic attack... Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: RichM Date: 31 Jul 01 - 08:53 AM Triffids are great, cooked or raw. Use them in place of broccoli. Great in a stir fry... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: MMario Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:03 AM just remember to remove the poison gland from the base of the whip. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Hollowfox Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:17 AM RangerSteve, that plant sounds like very old and established poison ivy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: GUEST,Celtic Soul Date: 31 Jul 01 - 01:57 PM I have an unnatural fear of some insects. I don't blame movies however. I blame my sister in part ;) but for the most part, it's because of a normal kidhood experience gone awry. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: MMario Date: 31 Jul 01 - 02:26 PM or a very old and well established virginia creeper... with the "hairy legs" it is NOT a grape vine... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: SharonA Date: 31 Jul 01 - 04:29 PM Oh, man, now I can't think of the name of the movie I'm thinking of! It's the 1950s or '60s black-and-white flick with people being replaced by doubles who were actually plant-people grown in big pods... One of the supporting actresses was Carolyn Jones (who played Morticia on "The Addams Family")... A classic! Anybody remember the title??? Then there are Man-eating Men: I always got a kick out of "Night of the Living Dead", filmed near Harrisburg, PA, the state capital. (No wonder the state government acts so slowly: they've all been turned into zombies!!!) But what really scared me (besides the PA legislature) — I mean, as a young child — happened one night as my family vacationed at a cabin belonging to friends of theirs. The friends had been doing some interior renovations, and the rooms were divided by canvas tarps where the walls were to be erected. In the middle of the night, the windows were open, the breeze was blowing, and I woke up to find the shadowy "walls" of my room undulating and billowing... EEEEEEK! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: GUEST,Don Meixner Date: 31 Jul 01 - 04:45 PM Sharon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Kevin Mc Carthy, Dana Wynter and others, remade in the 70's/80's Jeff Goldblum, Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams(?) Veronica Cartwright(?) Great movies, The first much better than the second but both good. Don |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Kim C Date: 31 Jul 01 - 05:42 PM I'll echo Carol C (no relation)about the Thing Under the Bed. There's also the Thing that Hides Behind the Shower Curtain. But the Bed one is worse. Right now, though, I have a platform bed, so nothing can get under it except the cat and he doesn't try anymore. Even into my teenage years, I had this trick of shutting the door, turning off the bedroom light, and literally flying into bed as if I were stealing 3rd base. And storms. I am still afraid of storms. Not the nice soft summer kind, but the big roaring kind that shear your trees off. Very scary. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Joe Offer Date: 31 Jul 01 - 06:41 PM How could this thread get to 29 messages withough mentioning Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors? I think I like the original better, but the Musical is good, too. Say, did anybody mention "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"? -Joe Offer, who loves funny horror movies- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: SINSULL Date: 31 Jul 01 - 07:15 PM OOHHH "The Haunting Of Hill House". I used to dread having something touch me in the dark after that one. "Something is finally happening to you..." I think of it every time I see stone lions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:34 PM I thought of "Little Shop" but agree that it was funny, not like wormy corpses that walk or serial killers who are waiting around the corner for ME with a well-sharpened knife. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: GUEST,rangeroger Date: 31 Jul 01 - 09:54 PM Grab, your comment about snorkling at sea reminded me of an incident when I was in the Navy. We were steaming toward Subic Bay in the Phillipines and were going to be early for our arrival so the Captain called swim call.The ship was stopped,boats were put in the water with armed personnel to watch for sharks, and alot of us climbed down a rope ladder to go swimming.The water was absolutely crystal clear and you could see the entre hull of the ship (440 feet long) under water.As I climbed back up the ladder and reached the deck I asked one of the quartermasters what the depth was.When he said 12,000 feet,one of the guys waiting to go down the ladder asked him to repeat the depth.He then said about 2쳌 1/2 miles, the guyturned white and said no way he was getting in the deep of water. The biggest problem I had was treating the stings from the giant Portugese Man-O-Wars that collected on the windward hull of the ship while we swam on the leeward side.Their tentacles stretched 75 to 100 feet on the other side of the ship. rr |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Crazy Eddie Date: 01 Aug 01 - 01:12 AM I've always wanted to watch a movie mentioned by Lister in "RED DWARF" - Revenge of the Killer Bikini Vampire Girls . Will someone please tell me, if they ever make it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Steve Parkes Date: 01 Aug 01 - 05:42 AM John Wyndham's very last bok before he died s called "Web"; it's about a mutant variety of spider that hunts in packs. They sit in trees, hundreds or thousands at a time, and drop on your head as you pass beneath ... In parts of Birmingham, England (and other places as well) there really are sewer rats that, when times are hard, will come up the bog and bite you on the bum. Or any other handy dangling bit. It's true, it was in the papers. Whenever I feel it necessary to pull the covers up over my head in bed (which is not all tha often, really) I always have this very strong feeling that something is going to sneak up and snatch the duvet away before ... well, I never get as far as thinking about what comes next. Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Date: 01 Aug 01 - 05:54 AM What a calumny from young Steve! Rats in Birmingham indeed! It may have been true in Stonall, but even when we had an outside khazi in Nechells, I never got my bum bitten (by rats at any rate) and never heard of anyone else who did. If it was in the papers though (which are never wrong!)... RtS (or was it my singing-no lock on the door- that kept them away?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: GUEST Date: 01 Aug 01 - 08:53 AM Talking Apes scare the bejeezuz out of me . AHHHHHHHHHHHHH there back!!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Bill D Date: 01 Aug 01 - 09:25 AM All of a sudden the big nastursiums, Rose in the night from the oceans bed. Rested awhile in the light of the morning, Turning the sand dunes tiger-red.
They covered the statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Big nastursiums in the High Sierras,
Over the fields and over the forests, Robert Beverly Hale (I've thought for 20 years someone should put a tune to this) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: LR Mole Date: 01 Aug 01 - 10:14 AM I don't care for the dark, or the outside of window frames, or the other sides of door jams with doors open,,but it's a matter of what's GOING to pop its head around, or up, or too close. I think it's a matter of having been a nearsighted kid who could never see as much as I wanted to. Strange things, fears. We can mostly handle what REALLY happens...and on the other hand, I love thunderstorms: real flashing, rainy boomers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Naemanson Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:16 PM Crazy Eddie, I haven't heard of Lister's "Revenge of the Killer Bikini Vampire Girls" but I too would like to see it. How about the movie they found on the other ship, "Die Screaming With Sharp Things In Your Head!"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: LR Mole Date: 01 Aug 01 - 12:40 PM Oh, yeah--SINSULL, if the movie of "The Haunting of Hill House" scared you, the book (by Shirley Jackson, who wrote "The Lottery") is, as I recall it, VERY scary. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: John MacKenzie Date: 01 Aug 01 - 04:28 PM The only movie that really frightened me was an old B&W called "The Monkey's Paw", mind you I was only a little person when I saw it. Jock |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Steve Parkes Date: 02 Aug 01 - 03:15 AM ANd "Quatermass and the pit" frightened the wits out of me when I was seven (I never got 'em all back!) and I still get nervous on the Tube. Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: Little Hawk Date: 02 Aug 01 - 04:36 PM God knows, I've seen pits that frightened me... - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Man-eating Plants From: SINSULL Date: 02 Aug 01 - 08:18 PM Thanks Mole. The Haunting Of Hill House is selling on ebay for $40+. Think I will check out the library. I remember reading The Exorcist long before the movie came out and having to put it away. Couldn't read it alone in the house or after dark. |