Clifton Horror Movie Nights

I’ve told you several times already about Matt Rusnak and his role in pulling a painfully nerdy Chuck out of the deep recesses of isolationism in the high school filled decade of the 1980’s. We’ve talked about music. We have yet to talk about the ideas of forming a tightly-knit group of friends, teenage male bonding, and the sense of belonging to a group larger than yourself. Those are topics I’d like to hit someday, as they are important aspects to anyone’s adolescent development. But today… I wanna talk about the horror movies of Clifton.

Today, I consider myself a legitimate fan of horror movies. But back then when I met Matt, not so much. They still gave me the heebie-jeebies back then. I remember clearly being nervous sitting in the theater next to my first real girlfriend to watch the Prince of Darkness. And I remember my friend and co-worker on the Burke Lake Maintenance crew telling me about this amazing new movie he saw called "Aliens" and how I really had to check it out. I did. My first R rated movie and horror movie that I ever saw alone. Snuck out without my Mom knowing what I was going to see. Movie scared the CRAP out of me.





I loved it.

One of the things that Matt did best was create an idyllic atmosphere for hanging out. His house was deep in the remote, woods-infested backwater of Clifton, VA. His house was old, maybe even turn of the century old. His parents were around, but not intrusive. His kitchen was warm and his TV room was perfect. Small TV, VCR, and comfortable chairs.

For my senior year of High School, this was my home for Friday nights. Matt's twin brother Ben made homemade pizza and extolled the virtues of his home darkroom and his photography passion. Matt had always gone to Errol's video before my arrival and almost always had a horror movie all picked out and ready to go. Good friends. Good eats. Great environment. The perfect 'safe' setting for male camaraderie at an age when usually the socialization was all about getting your hands on beer or drugs. We had no interest in that. We just wanted to watch a good movie, laugh our butts off, hopefully see some horror-movie boobs, and be together for a few hours. These memories of Clifton and those relationships will always hold up in my memory as the golden ideal.


Of course... there wasn't a girl in sight. And we ALL would've chucked it at the first hint of an actual girlfriend.

The problem with watching horror movies in Clifton on Friday nights, the main problem with being in Clifton at night at all, was the drive home. It was dark, with no street lights, and it was a long ways away from my home in Fairfax, VA.


I remember saying good night to Matt and Ben with smiles and laughter and turning around and letting the smile drop from my face like a ton of bricks when I realized I had to walk out to the car alone. Having just watched some gut wrenching, stress inducing, jump-fest of a horror movie. SURELY there would be some killer waiting for me in the back of my 1977 Vista Cruiser Station Wagon.


The worst of these nights was when Matt told me the Goat Man story for the first time. To my memory, he delivered it perfectly. I had never heard the story before and I'm not about to tell it to you now. I'll need a camp fire and a flashlight hovering under my jaw.

Matt topped off the legend of the Goat Man by telling me that the whole thing happened in Clifton, "some years ago". And that they had never found the killer. So I may have been grinny or I may have been gullible, I don't remember. But I do remember letting my mind race away from me and being TERRIFIED of the Goat Man on that long drive home from Clifton.


You know what's worse than driving home from dark-and-woodsy Clifton, VA late on a Friday night after an evening of entertaining horror? I'll tell you... it's sitting in your driveway back at home afraid to open the door of your nigh-impregnable Vista Cruiser Station Wagon. Absolutely sure that once you DO open that door, either the Goat Man will take you from above and rip you to pieces... or Matt and Ben will jump out from behind a nearby tree to scare you and laugh their butts off on what a frightened mess you are.

I have lots of regrets. I'm sure we all do. If I could, I would go back and re-live my entire college experience just so I could have the chance to actually get it right. BUT... but... those Clifton nights? With Matt and Bill and Jamie and Mike and Eric and Ricky and Mario.... those were perfect. I would go back and re-live those in a second. But not because I want to get it right. Because it was just perfect the first time around.

Thanks,
DCD