For one night, this guy...

...was scarier than this guy.

I was staying with my dad for the summer when I was 12 years old, and one of our favorite things to do (of course) was to either go to or rent movies.

We loved to have movie marathons, and this was the first and most notable of my life. It started with the first evening showing of Burton's "Batman" (on it's opening night!) in June '89, and we stopped at the video store at 10th St. and Emerson Ave. (it's a furniture store, now, I believe), rented three movies, watched them all by morning and went back and rented three more, and so on.

I had my first exposure to some classic films that weekend, from Hitchcock's "Psycho" to the first "Lethal Weapon," and the aforementioned blockbuster starring the Caped Crusader. But none affected me so deeply as a low-budget horror flick called "Pumpkinhead."

When we rented scary movies, as I'm sure many others did, we could watch them only at night and with all the lights turned out. We started "Pumpkinhead" at about 9:30, and of course the lights were out. About half way through it, my dad announced he was going to bed. He locked the door, said good night, and headed back. I was still glued to the TV, but had put off the urge to visit the bathroom for far too long (and we'd been noshing popcorn and guzzling soda all day), and I couldn't take it any longer.

As I stood dancing into the middle of the living room, wanting to see the end of the scene but not wanting to pee my pants, directly behind me, the front door burst open, and a large figure (was it Pumpkinhead?) leapt screaming into the room. I yelled my pre-pubescent male heart out, and felt myself flying into the kitchen. My feet hit the ground and looked back. It wasn't Pumpkinhead, it was my dad. He didn't lock the door when he went to bed, he unlocked it, and snuck out the back door and around the house.

And there I stood in the kitchen, a good 10 feet from where I was standing, and he was laughing like he was being tortured by Mr. Tickle. How I managed to hold my bladder I don't know.

We ended up watching 15 movies that weekend from Friday at 7:00 p.m. through Sunday evening. It's still a personal record.

What's your favorite movie memory? I don't mean a great scene or an amazing special effect. I mean a moment that links you to another person or place or is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear a movie title or see a character from the film.

A slight aside...just now, as I finished typing my last line and started entering the tags for this post, I heard a little voice say "Dad!" I turned around, and there is my son, wearing a rubber Batman mask, a black cape, a pair of white socks...and nothing else.