Classic Horrors Club

When it was released in 1984, Terror in the Aisles was ravaged by the critics. Gene Siskel wrote:

Scary movie scenes work best when they’re set up by some expository foreplay, which is why this compilation of horrors doesn’t really work.

Vincent Canby wrote:

Because Terror in the Aisles is composed entirely of climaxes, it has none of its own.

And ‘Variety’ wrote:

Applying the rapid editing and juxtaposition techniques to a feature-length project results in simply ruining many classic movie sequences rather than preserving them.

The movie was either ahead of its time or misunderstood. Today, it’s not only a fun look at some classic scenes of “terror” movies (the term “horror film” is never mentioned), but it’s an introductory class on one of my favorite subjects: why we subject ourselves to being frightened… and love the experience.

The early parts of the film include clips from a variety of scary movies as one of its hosts, Donald Pleasence, ponders the question:

Maybe deep down we need to be scared. There’s something delicious about fear… especially somebody else’s.

Accompanying this thought are clips from Jaws (1975), Poltergeist (1982), and Carrie (1976), among others. Pleasence’s co-host, Nancy Allen, adds:

In real life, nobody cares to think about violence and pain, blood, and death. But project these experiences on a screen, and people form lines in the street. That’s because a terror film is a lot like a roller-coaster ride… only you’re sitting in a theater, which is ’relatively’ safe.

Pleasance and Allen are sitting in a fun movie theater watching the clips and commenting on them and the nature of terror films. Some of the interactions with audience members are goofy. However, I couldn’t help but laugh heartily when, during a scene from Halloween (1978), in which Pleasence starred, the actor shouts, “Get him!”

The scenes from Halloween are plentiful and, as much as I love that film, I was afraid it would steal screen time from others. That turned out not to be the case. There are at least (as I count from the list in the credits) 62 films represented. Universal films are the most prevalent with an appropriate 13 films, I suspect because Universal released Terror in the Aisles.

While most clips are from “modern” genre films from the 1970s and 1980s, there are mentions of, and scenes from, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Psycho (1960), and The Wolf Man (1941.) Footage of Alfred Hitchcock from Alfred Hitchcock: Men Who Made the Movies is also used to discuss suspense in film.

There are also clips from movies we don’t usually consider, “horror films,” but certainly belong included as “terror films.” Interestingly (or sadly), I have not seen some of them and Terror in the Aisles has caused me to put them on my Watch List: Midnight Express (1978), The Silent Partner (1978), and Klute (1971.)

I don’t think Terror in the Aisles was made to connect into a single narrative that is itself a terror film. Therefore, its criticisms are unfounded. 40 years later, it’s a terrific companion piece to the genre… a greatest hits of terror, if you will. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will watch it again, perhaps soon, to further digest what it reveals about myself.