The Hills Have Eyes (And They're Sensitive To Obscene Finger Gestures)

The other night, the cable offerings were rather uninspiring, but, as it was after dark, I stopped on the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

The flick wasted little time getting to the carnage, opening with a group of scientists clad in protective gear being torn apart by some savage creature. It was gruesome but hardly shocking.

What has stuck in my head is a scene that came later, after the vacationing family had broken down taking a shortcut through the same remote stretch of desert.

It wasn’t the family dog getting gutted or the patriarch being beaten to a pulp then set aflame. No, it was a scene in which one daughter in the family gave the finger to her sister.

The defiant digit was blurred out.

Pondering the interesting choices in censorship aside, the movie made me miss the horror flicks on which I had grown up in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

I’m not referring to the movies of that time but rather the late-night television fare in a world without cable on our local independent station (usually the only one still on air after midnight).

These were mostly B-movies from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s and often in black and white. Sometimes they were surprisingly eerie, rising above their budgetary limitations, but, often, they were laughably shoddy or dated – bobble-headed alien invaders, puppet creatures and hippie vampires.

It was the latter which held the most entertainment value for me and several friends from the neighborhood when we’d hang out on Saturday nights in the early ‘80s. Not yet old enough for cars, girls, or guns, we’d be sprawled out on bean bag chairs in the dark basement of our friend Willie.

(as it was his basement, he had right of first refusal on the ancient couch)

Saturday night was the night for Nightmare Theater, hosted by the ghoul/zombie Sammy Terry (pictured above), who would add his commentary during commercial breaks or banter with a fake spider named George who “spoke” in squeaks.

For a couple years, ours was a ritual gathering most summer nights on Saturdays – Chris would be wired on Mountain Dew, Kurt would be obsessing over the dollar he’d loaned to Chris for the drink. Sometimes there would be a half dozen of us hanging out in that panel-walled womb.

We’d howl in amusement with every bad pun Sammy would deliver and yell, “George!” in unison the first time that rubber spider would descend into the scene.

By ’83, we had access to cars and had begun the pursuit of girls. There weren’t as many viewings of Sammy, but it was always fun to catch the show on occasion.

Years later, crashing out and watching Nightmare Theater was an incentive to make the trek home from college.

I hadn’t seen the show for twenty years until discovering a trove of clips here.

In 1982, the last year my friends and I regularly tuned into Nightmare Theater, I was still coming to the realization that I quite liked music – to an almost obsessive degree. It was still mostly Top 40, but I was venturing to some album rock, too. Some of the songs I remember from that spring…

Hall & Oates – Did It In A Minute
from Private Eyes

Hall & Oates were such a constant presence on radio and MTV in the ’80s, there are songs of theirs which I really wouldn’t miss if I never heard them again (I Can’t Go For That and Out Of Touch come to mind).

Then, there some of their lesser hits from that time – songs like How Does It Feel To Be Back, Wait For Me, Family Man – which are pleasant surprises when they pop up. The breezy Did It In A Minute is in the under appreciated category.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Crimson And Clover
from I Love Rock N’ Roll

Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N’ Roll was a monster in early 1982 and I imagine she could have belched the alphabet and had a follow-up hit. Instead, she opted for a cover of Tommy James’ Crimson And Clover.

Of course, my schoolmates and I had no idea who Tommy James was. It was one of our “hip” teachers who played the original for us in homeroom one afternoon.

We much preferred Joan.

Van Halen – (Oh) Pretty Woman
from Diver Down

Diver Down might have been Van Halen’s fifth album, but as the first four were released when I had little interest in music, it was my first exposure to Eddie and Diamond Dave.

Their take on the Roy Orbison classic isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t even offer it up as the best cover song on Diver Down (and there are several). Instead, I’d go with their version of Dancing In The Street.

John Cougar – Hurts So Good
from American Fool

American Fool was the album that would make Johnny Hoosier (as my friend Bosco called him) a household name. Growing up in Indiana, Hurts So Good was on every radio station from the moment it was released and the rest of the country soon joined us.

I was fairly ambivalent about Hurts So Good at the time. I had no idea that its success would, by the time Johnny Hoosier had become John Mellencamp, literally change the course of my life in ways I could have never imagined as a kid in junior high.

Hookers Must Wear Shoes

It was my first trip to the nation’s capitol, a trip undertaken with my friend Tyler to see another friend’s band play. They had played the night before in Philadelphia and we were still sobering up – a condition we quickly set to rectify with a few pre-gig drinks at a bar in Georgetown – when we arrived in D.C.

The fact that our friend’s band had a tab at the club – The Bayou, I believe – necessitated that we continue to drink…and drink. By the end of the evening, Tyler and I were headed for next-day hangovers of at least 7.5 on the Richter scale.

However, my thoughts were only on food as we trekked back to our hotel in the early morning hours. For twenty-odd blocks, Tyler endured me bemoaning that nothing was open.

“How could this be?” I lamented. “How can there be nowhere to get food in our nation’s capitol?”

If logic had not been sent out of the room by alcohol (or, more likely, stormed out in a frustrated huff), I would have connected the dots and realized that it was quite late for most any city regardless of its position in the pecking order of world affairs. But, suddenly, fate flagged me down with an opportunity – we couldn’t quite remember our room number.

“I know it’s on the third floor,” I said. “If I’m wrong, you have to go find me some food.”

“And if I’m right?”

“I’ll go.”

I was wrong.

I did the honorable (and least intelligent) thing possible, wandering off into the night in a city where I had never been, squiffy and in search of food. I picked a direction and went with it, but I soon realized that things were looking progressively dodgy with each block I went.

I considered the idea of turning back when I saw it – a gaudy, neon oasis in the form of a ramshackle liquor/convenience store.

I entered, procured goods – an armload of salty, crunchy things and chocolate, caramel items – and got in line. It was sketchy collection of ne’er-do-wells with darting eyes and, I suspect, concealed weapons.

Feeling a presence, someone else joining the procession to fulfill middle-of-the-night cravings and satisfy end-of-the-night needs, I half-turned and there stood a petite, black woman.

She was slight and willowy, and could have been a tiny dancer on top of a music box except for her attire – nothing more than a black thong under a see-through, thigh-length plastic raincoat.

She introduced herself as Tweety and a friend, wearing red go-go pants, as Simone. Tweety shattered the vacuous stupor of the crowd as a bunch of boggled-eyed men leered through bleary orbs and me, confused and, in an alcohol-induced haze, imagining this Tweety doing some kind of cartoon song and dance with Tweety bird.

She chatted me up as we shuffled along, nearing the counter. Finally, I stood before the register. The gruff, indifferent clerk looked up and over my shoulder. He was staring at Tweety and Simone.

“Uh-uh,” he grunted, shaking his head side to side under a mop of wiry, grey hair. It was obvious that he wasn’t pleased with their presence – competition for dollars, I suppose.

“I told you,” he said firmly. “You can’t be in here…without shoes.”

I looked down and Tweety was, indeed, barefoot.

Somewhere, I have a copy of Tom Waits’ Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, but as I can’t find it and I seem to have no other hooker-themed songs, here’s Patti Smith’s Dancing Barefoot and a trio of cover versions.

Patti Smith – Dancing Barefoot

U2 – Dancing Barefoot

Johnette Napolitano – Dancing Barefoot
While I’d imagine most music fans are familiar with the Patti Smith and/or U2 versions of Dancing Barefoot, the same might not be true for Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano. The track appeared on a mid-’90s compilation, Spirit Of ’73: Rock For Choice, which found alt-rock acts of the period covering songs from the ’70s to benefit a pro-choice organization.

Die Cheerleader – Dancing Barefoot
Even more obscure than Johnette Napolitano’s version would be this take on the song by Die Cheerleader which was included on the soundtrack to the Pamela Anderson flick Barb Wire. A little research on allmusic.com explains that the band recorded only one album on Henry Rollins’ Human Pitbull label in 1995. Oddly enough, Johnette Napolitano also had a song on the Barb Wire soundtrack.