Creatures of the Id

 Woodsy's Manta post reminded me of stuff that gave me chills as a child. I had a large book of animals and one of the pages showed life in the deep ocean. Covering most of the page was a huge black shark, evilly eying up a Torpedo Ray and a Manta, all depicted in inky black. It was the only time I have seen a shark painted as black and it stuck in my childhood mind as a terrible, scary image. Just so, the Icthyosaur exhibit in Liverpool Museums dinosaur section, was very dimly lit and covered by a thin gauze, so that in the half light, you could touch the covering and imagine that there was nothing solid between you and those toothy jaws! Equally, at the entrance to the museum foyer was a massive japanese Spider Crab in a glass case, at least twice as long as I was tall, when I was about 6 and it worried me intensely that things could grow to this size. I recently emailed the museum to see if these exhibits still existed and they kindly sent me these photographs of the models, which were until recently, still on display.

My mother was a big Hammer film fan and would on occasion let me stay up past 10.30 for the Appointment with Fear film showings on ITV. I sat and watched The Quatermass Xperiment one night, so utterly terrified I couldn't move from the sofa. The creature defied all natural laws of nature and I could not accept that it was only a model. Even today, the effects still unnerve me.

Many years later, I came upon Quatermass and the Pit and seeing the inimical looking insectoid martians emerge from there crystalline cocoon, took another few years off my life!

When I was about 7 or 8, I was given a full album of gum cards, half filled with war cards and half with the entire series of Outer Limits. Once more, my subconcious took a beating and certain cards could only be viewed in the safety of sunny daytimes, when there were no shadows for fiends to hide in.

The Glob, Zanti Misfits, TV Terror and Chromite actually had to be removed from the album and hidden away, as they terrified me so much. Decades later, as an adult, I found a dvd set of the series and was so disappointed with the actual creatures, especially as they were all in black and white!

The Trollenberg Terror was another film I could not bear to watch, yet I loved my little rubber Teachers Pet model of it, a series I collected vigourously from Woolworths every week.

You can see the Crawling Eye proudly positioned on my 7 year old head here!

Octupi and squids were firm favourites too, although not quite as terrifying thanks to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Mysterious Island.

The yellow one above was bought from Chester Zoo and for some inexplicable reason I decided one day to get my own back on the creepy crawlies and bit its head, almost severing it in half!

Even today, these childhood terrors can still rear their gelatinous heads in my darkest nightmares, especially after a particularly spicy curry!