the groundhog day project

Some notes before we continue with Adventures in Babysitting : "The Hook" According to Jan Harold Brunvand (1981), the classic maniac with a hook for a hand story "seem to have emerged in the last 1950s." But, a lot of people probably learned it, he says, from when the following version appeared in Dear Abby, 8 November 1960: DEAR ABBY: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me:  A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite "lovers' lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The us it was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the book took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw--a h...

It did surprise me that I didn't have more to say about Innerspace . Or anything to say about it, really. It was like I could tell why I thought it was entertaining back in the day, and it was still fun, but there just wasn't much substance to it. Or I wasn't in the mood for the substance it had. And, so tonight, jump out of order to watch first Rent ( 621 622 623 ) and now back to 1987 for a little Adventures in Babysitting ... Both directed by Chris Columbus. Both co-starring Anthony Rapp. And not just a coincidence. I mentioned that Rapp was in the movie I'd be watching later to my daughter and the conversation turned to Rent and the poor adaptation that Columbus did, and yada yada yada Adventures in Babysitting is on now. And, while it has been years since I've seen this one, too, I feel like there will be things to talk about. Like Chris (Elisabeth Shue as the titular babysitter, not the director, who is clearly more at home directing this (his d...

Halloween is only tangentially connected to the classic urban legend about the babysitter and the man upstairs. But common elements to them both are important in the film. This is before the final girl was more defined, keep in mind. Laurie's status as babysitter was less a hallmark to separate her from her friends--remember, Annie is also a babysitter, and Lynda is definitely familiar with Wallace house (though she may have just come by while Annie or Laurie was babysitting before)--but to normalize her. These are everyday, regular teenage girls. They call one another, they call their boyfriends, they call boys for on one another's behalf. Regarding that urban legend about the babysitter, Folklorist Sue Samuelson, who examined hundreds of unpublished "Man Upstairs" stories filed in American folklore archives, concluded that the telephone is the most important and emotionally-loaded item in the plot: the assailant is harassing his victim through the device that is ...

A babysitter receives a phone call. The man on the line asks about the children she’s babysitting. After several calls, she calls the police and they trace the next call—it’s coming from a second line inside the house. The version of this story that I know best comes not from someone telling the story around a campfire or wherever but from When a Stranger Calls . Interpretation of this story can go a lot of directions. The babysitter not doing her job thoroughly may stem from fear of such in an age when young women were claiming more independence and, like Jess in Black Christmas rejecting motherhood and other “womanly” ideals. Like the notion (somewhat via Clover (1992)) that female sexuality is being punished in the slasher film, the urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs deals in feminine independence (not necessarily or exclusively sexuality) being punished by a man positioned literally and figuratively above her. It’s arguably about patriarchy, paternalism, the punis...