Friday, April 09, 2010

Unsolved Mystery freak-outs

Matt at X-Entertainment, my online retro god, has a fabulous list of seven moments from "Unsolved Mysteries" that scared the crap out of him.

I remember this show! In the days before there were entire channels devoted to true-crime, it was novel and pretty eerie. Can't say I remember any of the cases Matt recounts, but they're spooky and he provides updates where he can. Not a lot of these cases were ever moved from the Unsolved Mysteries drawer to the Solved one, it seems.

4 comments:

lefawn said...

'Unsolved Mysteries' was the culmination of the "freaking myself out over serial killers/satanists/ghosts/aliens" phase. I was fine with scary stuff-- until 1988. Then some sadistic babysitter let me watch 'The Amnityville Horror'. I was 10 and I probably would have been fine except for the bad paint job in the formal dining room of our new house. The paint had run during the initial painting job and, if the sun was low in the sky, it looked like the walls were bleeding -- just like they were bleeding in that creepy movie!!!
For the next 5 years I devoured all scary movies, tv shows, and books. 'Unsolved Mysteries' was the creepiest of the creepiest. My parents were always out during the show and, because I was a good and responsible young kid (surrouned by neighbors!) I was allowed to say home alone. Robert Stack gave me nightmares (for some reason I was convinced that he hunted ghosts for the FBI -- pre-google world) & I was convinced everything he said was the absolute truth. I was constantly scared serial killers were going to abduct me. Or I'd be haunted by benevolent spirits. Or abducted by aliens. Yes, there were neighbors sitting on there front porches -- I still knew I was going to die everytime I watched an episode.
Still kind of creeped myself out tonight, 20 years later.

NYCGirl said...

U.M. was my favorite show as a pre-teen.

JAM said...

My dad traveled a good bit when I was in college, and whenever he was gone and I was home from school at the same time, Mom and I would watch U.M. in the dark to make fun of the terrible acting int he reenactments, and freak ourselves out instead.

E. Will said...

I used to watch Unsolved Mysteries a lot when I was very young - I couldn't have been older than five. It scared me so much that I couldn't sleep facing the wall, for YEARS - well into my teens. I always had to be able to see the bedroom door. The episode in particular that sticks out in my mind is the one where a hotel bartender goes into the bar late at night, well after closing time, and discovers a boy sitting at the bar spinning a glass. When the boy turns around and reveals his face, he's actually a ghostly figure with a ghoulish face. AAAAGGHH!!!! I couldn't sleep for months after seeing that.