If someone asked me what my favourite all-time movie was it wouldn't be the usual reply. While I love great films like Stanley Kubrick's trio of Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, Orson Welles' films, great silent films like Metropolis and Nosferatu, and modern masterpieces like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, Woody Allen's Crimes And Misdemeanors, and Oliver Stone's JFK & Nixon, a part of me is the irredeemable pre-teen and teen, spending summer late nights watching tv downstairs, in the dining room of my Glendale home, while my family slept upstairs. In those times I'd watch great and cheesy sci-fi and horror films from the 30s through 70s.
        Those films always affected me more viscerally than my cinephile's cerebral love for actual art; the same part that's watched soap operas: All My Children and General Hospital, nearly a quarter of a century, and indulged pro. wrestling over three decades. It took me to watch old serials on PBS- Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, The Phantom Empire, Godzilla flicks, silent films on late night's The Joe Franklin Show talk show on Channel 9- WOR, politics & fringe things on Tomorrow, with Tom Snyder and the old David Susskind Show.
        Yet, two late night shows stick most: the first was Creature Feature; a 90-minute show highlighting horror and sci-fi films, emphasizing monster, or creature, films like King Kong, Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Blob, Frankenstein, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, It Came From Beneath The Sea, Robot Monster, Gorgo, or Night Of The Living Dead. It also had lesser known films like Carnival Of Souls, The Last Man On Earth, and Dr. Cyclops. The other, its rival, was Chiller Theater. Whereas Creature Feature was mostly about monsters, Chiller Theater was about anything scary--monsters, sci-fi, occasionally crime films with Jimmy Cagney or John Garfield.
        Chiller Theater had a cool opening where a claymation arm with a 6-fingered hand rose out of a swamp and put out, or took back, clay letters spelling Chiller Theater, as the hand gutturally moaned, 'CHILL-ER!', and weird noises emanated from the swamp. Chiller Theater ran films like The Brain From Planet Arous, Forbidden Planet, Day Of The Triffids, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Day The Earth Stood Still, It Came From Outer Space, This Island Earth, The Last Woman On Earth, Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Unearthly Stranger, Curse Of The Demon, and The Thing From Another World.
        At times, the films actually scared me--usually less conventional monsters like the Monster From The Id in Forbidden Planet, or the crystalline entities from The Monolith Monsters. The films I saw on Chiller Theater always stuck with me--for their seminal imagery. The first was First Spaceship On Venus--an Eastern European film from 1959 about a first trip to the Morning Star. It's original German title was Der Schweigende Stern (The Silent Star) and it made the rounds in the USA in the early 1960s, playing on B film double bills.It boasted an international cast--a black astronaut, and Oriental love interest for the white Alpha Male. The film was adapted from Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem's The Astronauts. Lem got international acclaim after Andre Tarkovsky's film of his novel Solaris- after 2001: A Space Odyssey, noted as the greatest space opera.
        Still, it's not the film dearest to my heart. That's another Venus-based sci fi space opera, Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet--a bowdlerized American version of Russian film Planeta Burg (Planet Of Storms) by low budget Schlockmeister Roger Corman.
        I first saw it at 10 or 11. What made it creepier than its own designs was it had ideas--it wasn't just about the scare. As I watched it, and other films in the dining room, every night in the kitchen I'd hear the scuttle of roaches and waterbugs across the kitchen floor's congoleum. They'd sip water from our cat Freddy's bowl, even make off with dry cat food nuggets. While I'd seen such in the tenements of Bushwick there was something unreal that they existed in our home, but only came out when they thought humans were asleep upstairs. Even more so than my encounters with red-eyed beings, or Men In Black, the idea there was communal alien intelligence in our house, beyond our control, which avoided us, frightened me. Despite my presence, the tv's glow and sound, they thought it safe, or their right, to come out. If I turned on the kitchen light for a drink of water, or snack, they'd scuttle back to the holes between the floor and the cabinets, down the sink's drain, or under the stove or refrigerator. If I were barefoot I'd get creeped out if they crawled over my feet in their panic to escape. Once, engrossed in a film,

* * *         If the films on at night weren't up to the standard of First Spaceship On Venus or Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet I'd watch as Freddy went after the little invaders with vengeance, chasing them to their Hadean realms, watching as a phalanx might reappear on the opposite side of the kitchen, only to bring Freddy's wrath. So, it was with surprise I witnessed an event one weekend evening when Freddy, my sister Christine, and I were left alone for a winter Friday night when I was 12. My parents had someplace to go to, and I was left as babysitter of 8 year old Christine. Mom and dad would be out late. We finished watching The Carol Burnett Show, which ended on Channel 2 (WCBS) at 11pm. It was time to go to sleep.
        I told Christine to put Freddy downstairs for the night. She was scared because the cellar was dark. I, too, gained some irrational fears. It wasn't long after my, and other nabe kids', shared dreams of red-eyed Hoods, as well still-fresh tales of haunted houses from the lips of the O'Dougal boys. The door to the cellar was kept shut, on Christine's request. As we argued in the dining room over who should open it and put Freddy down we heard footsteps coming up the cellar stairs to the door, which connected them to the dining room. Was it a burglar, murderer, ghost? Christine held Freddy. We heard a rapping on the cellar door from the inside. I thought, this ain't a burglar because burglars don't knock. The rapping turned to banging, and got louder. I noticed the cellar door wasn't locked; the old iron key was still in it. I rushed to the door as I saw the handle start to turn, held it shut, locked the lock, and removed the key.
        Christine was crying and sitting in the corner of the dining room across from the cellar door. She held Freddy tightly--even he seemed perturbed. The look on his face convinced me I wasn't dreaming, nor hallucinating with Christine. I ran next door to see if Mr. & Mrs. Kerner were home--they weren't. Neither were the Steiners on the other side. All the nearest neighbours were either out or didn't answer their doors, all the houses on the block, save ours, were blackened. It was as if, in the middle of New York, my sister and I were totally alone. There was also a silence, reminiscent of the giant overturned goblet effect I sensed when I first encountered the millkillers in Ridgewood, years earlier.
        I returned to the house, and headed to where Christine was. The noise had stopped, then we heard the footsteps coming up the stairs again. Then rapping, banging, and a low guttural baritone--almost animal--growl, with muffled obscenities. I took a flashlight, looked outside and shone the light into our cellar windows from the outside alley we shared with the Kerners. Who or what was it? I saw nothing. Inside, I thought the door might be broken down, as the thing on the other side said it was gonna get Christine and me. I grabbed Freddy, as he was frightened, from Christine. His back claws dug into my stomach. This had to be real--how could Freddy share our delusion? It was like the alleycat Friend's reaction to the mill-killers, confirming the 'reality' of the event to me.
        I told Christine to run upstairs to the second floor, so we had a floor between us and it. She was scared the thing would grab our feet and pull us through the upstairs stairs directly above the cellar stairs. It took a few minutes, but finally I convinced her. We rushed upstairs with Freddy, and the three of us slept in my bed until our parents got home. We still heard the 'cellarknocker'--as I dubbed it--threatening us as we relented to sleep's grip.
        Upon return, finding us all in my bed, mom and dad ascribed it to a nightmare, yet let Christine sleep with Freddy in her room that night for 'protection'. I had my trusty aluminium bat by my side. Mom used tincture of merthiolate on the scratches on my and Christine's bellies, left by Freddy's back claws.
        Even stranger was the next few days 'Fearless Fred' arched his back and fur Halloween Cat style whenever he went near the cellar landing, hissing and spitting at unseen things. For the next week whenever we put Freddy down for the night the 25 lb. cat would put up a violent struggle, rush to his shelf, and assume an attack position towards the stairwell. Eventually, things returned to 'normal'. Christine's never talked of the incident with me. It seems a classic poltergeist case--a shared delusion where people project their fears into something. Disembodied voices, claims of telekinesis, are often reported, as well rapping or knocking sounds.
        It is the will to believe in bogeymen or spirits that allows such instinctual and irrational fears to take over. Still, Freddy's reaction speaks powerfully that something occurred, although he may have sensed the fear of two children. This may also be why my old cat pal Friend took off and never returned as we hid from the mill-killers. Christine always had a superstitious bent--never visiting dad's grave for over 7 years after his death, later turning to Roman Catholicism's bugaboos. The irrational isn't the only thing that can dominate 'the will to believe'. Often, it can be mere philosophy.

* * *         A year or so after the cellarknocker incident I was in my science class at JHS 119. For two of the three years I had this cool science teacher, Ronald Wallenfels--born in England, but no accent to speak of. He had thin, pointy facial features, John Lennon eyeglasses, and a curly blond afro. He was the best teacher at 119, one of the most popular. The other year I had David Geffner--a troubled, bearded, brown-haired man suspended a few times for being physically abusive. Both were 'children of the 60s'--Geffner known for drug use. He'd been a regular buyer at nearby Atlas Terminal. In the late 80s or early 90s I found out he died of AIDS. Mr. Wallenfels was different--an impassioned man of science, loved teaching, and opening up young minds.
         When Charon, the moon of planet Pluto, was discovered, all we talked about was astronomy, the planets, how stars formed, whether there was other life in the universe, etc. Mr. Wallenfels didn't stick to outdated curricula--New York City textbooks in the late 1970s were 15-20 years old. Consequently, he'd often base lessons on the latest article on science from Time or Newsweek. He'd rather we experience science as a vibrant, current thing--not some odd curio placed on a shelf called The Mysterium. He was an unknown Carl Sagan. Not that he limited himself to the stars. He was a natural explicator, who drafted you along for a ride. He'd marvel at new discoveries, make you feel you could know as much or more than he did. Many times he'd ask a kid what they knew about science, what things interested them, and we'd spend the whole period--sometimes days--talking about whatever that was. The curiosity of his class drove where we explored.
        Mr. Wallenfels seemed to know everything about current science and loved it, making us love it by his infectious will to learn. Mr. Wallenfels introduced me to the idea that dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded, and may have gone extinct due to a comet or meteor impact. This discussion was after I suggested talking about dinosaurs, and showed off the knowledge I gleaned from my science books--especially my How, Why, And Wonder book on dinosaurs. But, those texts were out of date. Names like Robert Bakker and Jack Horner, great palaeontologists, came to my life via Mr. Wallenfels.
        He introduced us to black holes, relativity, and things deemed too difficult for Junior High Schoolers by the Board of Education. Textbooks were dull grey, minted in the 50s, and filled with stale information. Mr. Wallenfels had none of that. He resented the politicisation of science and teaching. He dismissed anti-evolutionists, and vividly recreated the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. Only a few years after Roe vs. Wade and we had a heated classroom discussion over abortion.
         The next week he split the class into

* * *         I, too, smile years after Mr. Wallenfels, the cellarknocker, old sci-fi films, scudding over my beliefs, the will to power them, to believe in them. To do so is far easier than demand proofs. Recently, I had a dream I was back in my favourite teacher's classroom. I often dream of past schools and classes, mixing in classmates with people from other dominions of my existence. I was walking through the crowded halls of JHS 119 and spied a man with a large blond afro. It was Mr. Wallenfels. As I got nearer he looked at me. It wasn't Mr. Wallenfels--not as I recalled him. His face was different--not older, not fatter--just off in those ways only dream can distort. What we conversed of I don't recall. Then, he walked away, and the hall was no longer the hall. It was the Venusian plank wound around a generator in First Spaceship On Venus, where the black ooze crept after the trapped heroes. But there is no ooze, only my teacher descending into a place that never was. I turn around in my old kitchen, I wipe my foot smeared with waterbug death with a paper towel. I toss its remnants into the garbage can in my Texas kitchen, and wake. Next to me is Jessica, and my sleeping cats. I'm the only conscious soul in the room, yet know somewhere--even if only from within--Mr. Wallenfels is watching, impelling me to be better. I will write of him soon. I drift off. I turn off the tv in my dining room.
        At 13 years old the darkness of a Glendale summer is total. Yet, much remains in the dark that I see and those I do not.