The Ypsilanti Horror

You've seen this movie before, friends.

In the beginning, life only feels slightly unusual. In fact, the winter wonderland outside of the apartment seems to be exactly that--a world rife with magic potential. Snow means Santa and extravagant New Year's resolutions.

Lovely, isn't it?

But then the roads are slick, aren't they? And the car is frozen in place, which means you and your friend--moderately attractive young people--are trapped in the apartment for night after winter night.

You don't mind, though. You have television to watch, and you have a new (to you) Led Zeppelin CD to rip onto your computer. You are sure and cynical. There is nothing that can hurt you lurking in the snow... and certainly nothing in the house, right?

You've seen this movie before, but you still say, "It's nothing," when you hear scratching behind the walls of the apartment. It's late. You're already in bed--vulnerable in the thin fabric of your pajamas. Your shoes are under the bed. The scratching continues. It startles your friend out of sleep, and he also says it's nothing, even though he's seen this movie more times than you have. The scratching grows more desperate, perhaps even vicious. You and your friend move into the next room.

The next day, a hole appears in the ceiling. The hole gasps. The hole makes spitting sounds. It drools brown water.

You are reluctant to call it "nothing" now. You wait for nightfall. You wonder what the scratching will become tonight, when you are trapped in the apartment. You consider sleeping in your shoes. And you wonder how long it will take you and your friend to shove the car out of the ice when It (that which is not "nothing") comes for you...

The Things You Watch When You're a Kid (and Rewatch Every Year)

It's the holidays. You can't avoid it any more. If there's one thing that the cold weather and sea of commercialism on TV do for me, it's make me want to put on a movie and curl up away from both. They're usually nostalgia movies. These are the (mostly '80s) movies I got my dad to rent time and again from our local video store when I was a kid. Or the ones we still have on beat up videocassettes in my parent's house. So, here's my list of cold-weather, dear-god-stop-trying-to-sell-me-stuff movies:

1. Big Business - Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler play two sets of twins. Who are mixed up at birth. It's classic. Lily Tomlin's country bumpkin version hisses and rattles her bracelet as some sort of protest cry. I don't even understand what that's about, but I love it.

2. Ghostbusters 2 - Admit it. You watched the sequel more than the original. I mean, does the original have a walking Lady Liberty powered by love and Jackie Wilson? It does not.

3. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Pure tween fantasy plot? Check. Almost unrelated dance scenes featuring essential '80s fashions? Check. Classic Ken-doll lead with a slight dusting of bad boy? Check. It's a wonder I didn't wear out the tape.

4. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Somehow, this is the Indiana Jones movie I grew up with. I can barely remember the others, but the two bickering Doctors Jones are regulars in my nostalgia marathons.

5. Troop Beverly Hills - They give a fashion show to sell cookies. They 'camp' at a hotel with marshmallows delivered by room service. It's what you always wished Brownies would be, but never was.

6. Adventures in Babysitting - Much in the same vein, there's a vicarious appeal to watching Elizabeth Shue turn babysitting into a survival sport. Plus, there's the chatty-est knife fight ever. Those Chicago gangs, they're Shakespearean.

7. Maxie - It's like the '80s were the pinnicle of the funny ghost movies. In this one, Glenn Close gets taken over by a sassy flapper who tries to trick her husband, Mandy Patinkin, in compromising positions.

8. The Princess Bride - Speaking of Mr. Patinkin, his name is Inigo Montoya.

9. Three Men and a Little Lady - There's a party scene where Tom Selleck changes the music from upbeat dance music to "Rubber Duckie."

10. Who Framed Roger Rabbit - "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

I'm just saying--it got really cold today.