by Dekker Dreyer

I noticed that I’ve been writing a lot of posts in the blog section starting with “when I was a kid”, so I’ve decided to continue the trend in our first full-length editorial article.

When I was a kid I was exposed to a lot of science fiction and fantasy. This was a blessing and a curse. As much as a love all things fantastic I’m man enough to admit that exposure to the genre forged crippling life-long phobias for me. I wonder how many of our viewers have actually manifested real phobias based around movies seen during childhood. I think the genre writers of the seventies and eighties owe me a big fat check for the therapy everyone tells me I need.

For your enjoyment I’m going to make public an actual list of my fears and the probable catalyst for them.

Thanatophobia: Fear of death. I think the first thing to scare the living snot out of me was Never Ending Story.. more specifically, “The Nothing”. The concept of being erased from existence didn’t sit well with me. I’m not sure when I grasped the idea of my own mortality, but it very well might have been when I saw this movie. Up to that point I had never known anyone who had died. I never had a pet that died. I had no point of reference for someone “not being alive”. Ever since then I’ve been haunted by the specter of my inevitable doom.

Ommetaphobia: Fear of eyes. Two words… Dark Crystal. It must have been around 1984 when I saw the Jim Henson fantasy epic and life was never the same after that. Olgra could remove her eye (or eyes, it’s never made very clear) and replace them with alternate oculars, each with unique powers. My father took it upon himself to use giant “masher” marbles to recreate this disturbing ability for the better part of a month.

Pediophobia: Fear of dolls. Ah, Poltergeist… you turned me off of humanoid play-things for quite a while. The pseudo-science of Poltergeist made it all the scarier for me. I wasn’t really spooked by the other “ghosts”, just that wretched clown doll. The problem was that it shouldn’t have been a bad guy. Hell! If this kid’s clown could come to life and drag him under the bed ANY of my toys could do the same thing! I wasn’t going to have that.

(As I was copying this clip every hair on my body pricked up)

Thalassophobia: Fear of the ocean. I blame this one squarely on Disney’s Island at the Top of the World. In retrospect , the scene is kind of funny. Our heroes are trying to cross the bay on an ice flow and get attacked by a pod of orca. Compound this with my first trip to Sea World, which happened around the same time, and you have the makings of my living hell. I tell my friends that I’m convinced that I’m going to be killed by wild orca and they laugh at me. They say things like, “If you’re so scared stop going on Zodiac boats in to orca country”. I suppose it’s a little bit of face your fear on my part. Just for “I told you so” credit… if I do die in the freezing northern Pacific in the mouth of a killer whale… well… I told ya so.

Unknown: Fear of alien abduction: This fear began around 1990 when “Sightings” started showing on local television. I had previously gotten a chill from several Time-Life book commercials, but Sightings was a concentrated dose of alien abduction paranoia. It drilled those images of “actual” abductions straight in to brain and kept them there. I lived in constant terror of gray aliens visiting me at night. This state of panic was perpetuated by the movies “Communion” and ‘Fire in the Sky”. There were also a few made for TV movies on the subject as I recall. It was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it. I still almost wet myself when I see those bug-eyed emotionless humanoid forms. Give me a good old fashioned vampire any day!

Scoleciphobia: Fear of worms. Dune. The birthing scene ruined my life. In seventh grade science class I had a minor-league freak session over our worm dissection. There was something about those freakish sandtrout. I couldn’t put my finger on it then and I can’t put my finger on it now. I just can’t deal with worms.

Bogyphobia: Fear of goblins. This is a common fear. I was granted this fear from the movie Cat’s Eye. I remember setting up goblin traps in my room to catch these little trans-dimensional nasties. I never did get one. But now I sleep easy with a couple of cats in the house.

To a new generation: you WILL be ruined for life in some fairly serious ways by genre fiction, but remember that the benefits outweigh the negatives… so goodnight to all as I get ready for bed with my harpoon in one hand and two cats by my side.

.