Small town chase

I miss renting a video on a Saturday night. I miss bookshops. I miss late night TV shows like Sledge Hammer, Tales From the Dark Side, Prisoner Cell Block H, Nightmare Cafe and Eurotrash. I miss the A-Team and the Golden Girls. The Incredible Hulk. He-Man. Knight Rider and Airwolf. Terrahawks… I miss getting a free toy inside boxes of my favourite cereal. I miss the funfair. I miss the old days. I miss the ‘80s.

We peaked back then. We didn’t need to go any further. We shoulda stayed where we were. Microwave ovens and colour TV sets. Top loader video recorders, Amstrad computers, hi fi systems with two cassette decks… What more did we need?

I remember going into a bookshop and finding a book on ghosts. It was £1. I took it home and there was a whole section on the Amityville House.

As soon as I seen it I was terrified and hooked. I became slightly obsessed with it, drawing the house in my schoolbooks or wherever I could. I went to the library and got the book, ‘The Amityville Horror’. On the front of the book it said ‘now a motion picture’.

So they made a movie about it! I had to see the film. But this was the 1980s and I lived in a small town. I searched all the video shops but nowhere had it. Weeks went by without me seeing this film. Then I seen it listed in the TV Times. It was showing that weekend on Sky TV. But our house didn’t have Sky TV.

So I bugged my friend about it, who did have Sky TV, and for the fee of £1.50, he agreed to tape it for me if I provided the blank tape. I did. I waited all weekend to see him again and when Monday came and he handed me the tape I couldn’t wait to get home to take out the video, put it into the machine, rewind it, press play, draw the curtains and watch it.

I miss THAT.