My Experience with the 1986 Film “TerrorVision”

Introduction

Throughout all of my childhood and teenage years, and much of my adult life, I have been plagued by a strange and vague memory of one particularly haunting scene from a movie. I do not remember watching this movie as a kid, and I did not know the name of it. I had no knowledge of the plot or the characters. Yet, this one scene stuck like glue in my mind and would simply not leave the inner workings of my brain.

In this scene, a supremely mucousy tentacle-monster hides under the blankets of a bed, and, sticking out from the top of the blankets are 3 severed heads. The monster then puppets all three of these heads to appear as if they are sleeping together and totally not fully removed from their bodies.

That’s it. That’s all I could remember, but boy did it scare the bejeesus out of me. This memory would pop up every now and again, and as I grew older, I became more and more obsessed with it. I had to find this movie! It had to exist somewhere! Unfortunately, I was never able to articulate my memory enough to describe it to my family and friends. No one knew what I was going on about. I was a rambling madman talking about tentacles and severed heads. Everyone looked at me like was just making shit up. Even when the Internet became a thing, I STILL could not find this movie. I mean, how do you search for “slimy tentacle-monster puppets decapitated heads”. Search engines just did not know what to make of it. It was useless. I eventually gave up the search and convinced myself it was nothing more than a phantom memory concocted from the twisted mind of a scaredy-cat child. And I was completely satisfied with this conclusion.

Fast Forward a Decade

It’s October, my favorite month for obvious reasons, and I am subjecting myself to another b-movie marathon. October is great for all of those old, cheesy 80’s flicks. There’s something fun and lighthearted about bad movies, and they are an excellent source of ambiance if you just want to dick around the apartment or whatever.

Anyway, I see this film called “TerrorVision”.

courtesy of IMDb.com

Just looking at the cover art, I knew this was going to be a winner. 80’s movies always had great art. Look at those colors! Look at that Cyclops staring back at you from an alien satellite dish. Oh, I was excited. So I put it on and settled down on my sofa.

TerrorVision

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the film, it revolves around an excruciatingly slimy alien creature that teleports through TV waves and ends up in the home of a couple of rich yuppies and their cartoonishly punk-rock teenage kids. It is actually a really cool film, full of death, gore, and very, very bad jokes.

Wow, I think, this is awesome! I can’t believe I have never seen this before!

But after about 45 minutes or so, I notice something — this alien kills three of the adults, and…. Hides under the blankets of a bed, with all three severed heads situated on the pillows.

Boom!

I was shocked! My head reeled. I was quite literally watching the scene that had gripped me as a child. Something I had convinced myself was a phantom memory. It was fucking real!

Suddenly, time seemed to stop. I had the most powerful sense of nostalgia ever. I felt like I was living in two different eras simultaneously. I was little Brandon, watching this movie in my childhood home. But I was also adult Brandon, watching this scene again FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.

My gut sank, and my hands trembled. I began to get dizzy.

And then time resumed, and I was jolted back to the present, watching the movie that I have been trying to locate for my entire life. It was fucking exhilarating. Energized by this strange experience, I was glued to my T.V. I finished the movie and felt very satisfied that I had faced a long-standing nightmare, and could sleep soundly once again.

Conclusion

It’s been years since I have seen “TerrorVision”. In fact, I might never see it again. I have visited the far reaches of space and time and somehow, through some act of bi-location or astral projection, connected with my younger self. I have no need to experience it again. But, if memory serves me correctly, it is a super fun movie and you should absolutely see it if you are into old 80s b-movies. But watch out for that goddamn head-puppet scene, or you just might get cursed like I was. Until next we meet.