Was it 1982? (ii)

Tied with my memories of E.T. are, of all things, my memories of Conan the Barbarian. In grade 4, they were my yin and yang.

Now remember, this predates the mainstream awareness of movie pirating by a good spell, but I had a friend who had E.T. on VHS (or perhaps Beta?) within weeks of it appearing in theatres. I thought it was a miracle of sorts. The tape was crappy, much too dark (a sin for a movie as underlit as E.T.) and likely shot by a hand-held camera (the big boxy early-80’s kind.) On the same tape was a pirated copy of Conan the Barbarian, also still in theatres.

Here’s the rub. To visit this friend and maybe, just maybe, catch some of that E.T. action (which was seldom) I sat through at least a dozen basement screenings of Conan. I’m not sure I ever really saw the beginning. The movie was always in progress when I arrived, and I remember it mostly out of sequence; it was years later before I could put the scenes in any kind of order. Most importantly, I hated it. I hated everything about it. I was a relatively sheltered 9-year old and had been exposed to very little violence in the movie theatre, much less sword play and giant spikes skewering folks. Nudity was not a familiar concept for me. Gore was something that I would grow into years later. Conan had all of these things and most of them in abundance. It turned my stomach. I remember walking home in the afternoons, shell-shocked by the carnage.

Perhaps it was like throwing a child on a roller coaster too early in life (another experience I can share, I’m afraid) but it was at that time that I recoiled against Conan and violent movies in general. It would be years before I could get the nuts to sit through any movie with unnecessary violence or gore. [Note: the distaste translated into a backlash later in life, where I chewed up as much violence and gore as I could get my hands on, channeling obscene amounts of Nightmare on Elm Street and Schwarzenneger movies in my parents’ basement. Making up for lost time.] Much, much later I would grow to love Conan and respect it as a piece of balls-out, fantasy storytelling. Even later still, I would watch it (sound off, of course) while I was putting my newborn daughter to sleep. Blood, guts and baby bottles, if you can imagine it. Full circle, sort of. Or not.

But no matter where I am, I can still smell the basement when I watch it.