Evening star., 1962-09-28
,TEEN-AGE sPooKkIKs
A New Horror Horrifies Them
BY Fiji GORSKA
Editor Of TEEN

No spoofing here's group of teen-agers who want
to put the spook back in the spooky
You may think it's hokum, but they want some good
od-fashioned horror Of the Lon Chaney, ST., vintage
They're so serious about the supernatural that
they've formed national club to promote horror movies
and science fiction It's called Ragnarok
Twenty Of these disciples of the horrible are right
here Washington members of the founding chapter
Coolidge High senior Randall Harris is the president
And look out This 17-year-od hasn't been scared by
movie since he and saw abbott and Costello Meet
the Invisible Man. In fact he makes 1t point to turn
all the lights out in the house when he watches scary
movie teleyision And this horror buff kept an sxl0
photo Of Bella Lugo inside his school locker last year.
This year. he says he's going to feature the wolf man
Lon Clancy r. What scares Randy and his followers
is the current state of horror.
The straw that broke the bats back for Randy was
the teen-age horror movie Of the II Was Teenage
Frankenstein" and "I Was Teen-age Werewolf sort.
So Randy put an ad in 9 monster magazine in April
and formed his club It's for those who fed with
seeing upper down monsters back, wires holding up
flying saucers tiny flashlights used ray guns and
growing crayfish superimposed on film
Roland Lilley the drum major at Coolidge and Alan
Hahn also of Coolidge, joined Randy right off. They
were science fiction fans Of long standing But now
that the club has some so members in Canada and
Great Britain, Randy feels they've got ghost Of
chance of forestang the movie industrys day Of DOOM
The group feels that's where the movie business Is
headed unless it starts making better movies in the
horror line. That's why the boys chose the name
Ragnarok for name It's the day of doom for the gods
In Morse legend.
Fantasy movies don't scare US" Randy says, speak
ing for his club members tits means Of escape and
stimulates the Imagination We don't go for the blood
in them but for the art And If the films bad, we laugh
Even though the old Dracula movies rate high
on the clubs "favotes" list the teen-agers still have
found couple of flaws. "once Dracula showed up in
a mirror" says Randy. And vampires aren't supposed
to reflect"
The club members are fast-becoming experts in
their horror hobby They have to- because to join the
club there's stiff entrance that only serious
fans, over IS, can join
The Ragnarok entrance test asks such questions as:
what are the real names Of Boris Karloff Bella
Lugosi Lon CLANCY and William Caste?"
Name the story or book on which the following
films based and their authors The Creeping Un-
known The Fly 'Cosrnic Monsters and The Thing
Besides telling your favorte horror or science fiction
film and why there's literature test. You have 70
name books and stories by Edgar Allan Poe, H. g. Wells
(rated best by the club Ray Bradbury Van Vogt
and others.
If you still think you know your horror, let's twist
the knife little and If you can give the title
and author Of the books in which these characters
appear: DR.. Van Helsing Erik, Lucy Western, Baron
Meinster and Roderlck Usher.
Randy mails out monthly publications to members.
He reviews movies and has section called Best From
the Vaults" where he digs up old and great films He's
got round-robin contest going in which each member
writes chapter of fantasy and passes it on for an
other member to write the next chapter.
Club members consider War of the Worlds" by H.
G. Wells the best science fiction movie Eight months
spent just special effects OF that one Randy