The 4:30 p.m. matinee

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:00:00 +0000

The 4:30 movie often terrified me as a child; it seemed that every other day they showed "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," or "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" A friend and I would sit in my den or her den, eating Yodels and feeling a sick, spreading terror as we watched, even though the production values of these movies were poor, and the TV screen was always exceedingly small. (I am amazed, looking back, that we had time to fit in an entire movie after school; today's kids are so riddled with work and busywork that the idea of so much movie-watching seems pretty surreal. On my college applications, in the space for "extra-curricular activities," I could've written: "Bette Davis.") I was relatedly scared by the feeling of being trapped that these movies engendered in me. Trapped in a relationship, trapped in a mansion, trapped in obsessive love — these felt like very adult problems, and it didn't seem all that far-fetched that one day I too might become demented with love or hatred, and would eventually go from being a Yodel-eating suburban girl to an old woman who dressed like a baby. I guess I thought that not only were these movies lurid; maybe adulthood was lurid too.

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The 4:30 p.m. matinee