This was supposed to be a list of horror movies appropriate for dates. Unfortunately, I kept coming up with reasons why each movie wasn't a good idea. While my rationale wasn't entirely realistic, it got me thinking about movies that open certain cans of worms. Pregnancy. Momma's boys. Infidelity. These seven flicks have got lots of relationship deal-breakers in them, and can lead to some date-damaging conversation, rather than sexy innuendo and rose petals to the bedroom. They might uncover questionable morals, or even some private kink that you just can't get into. And some will get just a little spoilery, but most of them are classics, so you probably know the gist already.

Either way, you've been warned!


Eraserhead (1977)

Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) is just a simple, nervous printer who thinks his girlfriend, Mary (Charlotte Stewart), has broken up with him -- that is, until he is invited to dinner with her and her family. He finds out that she has had an amazingly brief pregnancy, and has given birth to some sort of strange alien baby. Being the noble boyfriend, he marries her, and is quickly left with this weird, wailing tot when she abandons them. Henry starts to become unhinged, and that just doesn't bode well for baby.

While this may be a short film, Eraserhead is packed full of taboo dating topics. Pregnancy. Marriage. Accepting abnormal babies. Ditching the family when sleep-deprived. Infanticide. One minute, you're watching an eerie David Lynch movie, and the next, you're having discussions about what you'd do with alien babies, whether you'd be noble and marry the mother of your out-of-wedlock kid. Or heck, whether love would keep you with her even if it looks like she got horizontal with some other strange sort of being.

Whatever happened to Saturday night? It's back, as The Rocky Horror Picture Show returns to the Bay Area after a five-year absence. Regularly scheduled midnight showings will begin this month at the Clay Theater in San Francisco and in January at Landmark's Guild Theater in Menlo Park, according to a press release issued by Landmark Theaters.

The live performance group Bawdy Caste will be accompanying screenings at both theaters, combining the theatrical and the cinematical with their on-stage antics.

Made in 1975 by director Jim Sharman, the film is a rock musical about a transsexual from Transylvania (Tim Curry) who sexually awakens two stranded teenage travelers, Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon). Pop star Meat Loaf also appears. The film fit perfectly into the midnight movie phenomenon of the early 1970s, begun by films such as El Topo, The Harder They Come and Pink Flamingos. But Rocky Horror became a phenomenon all its own, inspiring an entire subculture.

The film has not shown in San Francisco in some ten years. Much has changed since then, including the film's release on DVD, the rise of the internet and the official Rocky Horror fan page. Here, viewers can learn all the call-and-response cues at which to shout out one-liners ("Say It!"; "Not Meat Loaf again," etc.) or hurl props (rice, newspapers, paper plates, etc.). But any true fan would warn that the only way to see it is live, in the theater.

I'm already shivering with aniticip... ("SAY IT!!!")... ation.