South Lake Tahoe, 1989. We were 17, invincible, and way too stoned to be making decisions. That high-altitude air hits differently when you’re six bowls deep. My two buddies and I were lurking around the “Y” Shopping Center, weaving through shadows and headlights, crossing Highway 50 like a pack of degenerates on a late-night pilgrimage. Tony’s barely moving, shuffling across the road while some pissed-off driver lays on his horn, screaming out curses as we stumble to the other side. Paul’s cackling so hard he’s wheezing, and we’re not even close to the theater yet.
We know this place; it’s our old haunt. A small-town joint, no frills, just a marquee with plain letters: Uncle Buck. No picture of John Candy, no hint of what was coming, just words glowing in that gritty Tahoe night. We grab our tickets, stumbling through the lobby, and Tony, being Tony, insists on getting Jujubes. The guy can barely hold his own hands steady, so you can imagine how that went.
By the time we hit the back row, that creeper weed is finally sinking in, twisting every shadow and making everything ten times funnier. We’re stoned out of our skulls, laughing at everything and nothing, coming up with insane backstories for this “Uncle Buck” character. A psychotic relative with a twisted sense of family values, maybe a chainsaw stashed in the trunk, possibly a man on the run. Every line we threw out was filthier and funnier than the last, and it just kept building, one punchline after another.
The previews come and go, but we’re barely paying attention. We’re riffing on what Buck might do to his poor, unsuspecting family when—BAM! The screen cuts to black, and then it hits us: a blood-curdling scream rips through the theater. We all jump, and Tony’s Jujubes go flying, scattering across the sticky floor like spilled teeth. The first victim of the night, right there.
And that’s when it starts. The movie rolls, but this isn’t the Uncle Buck anyone else remembers. This Buck’s got an edge. He’s lurking in doorways, a shadow of something sinister, and Candy’s laugh—it’s low, twisted, dripping with some kind of sick thrill. We’re glued to the screen, each of us feeling like we’re the next ones in line, just waiting for him to burst through and get us. This was supposed to be a comedy, but what we’re seeing is closer to a bloodbath, a dark carnival of laughs gone wrong, with Buck as the executioner.
At one point, I swear, he looks right through the screen, eyes locked onto ours, like he can see us sitting there in the back row, terrified and mesmerized. And then the floor—the damn floor—starts oozing blood. Pools of it, creeping toward us, and we’re losing our minds, frozen as this lumbering madman fills the screen, laughing with that demonic, guttural sound that echoes in our skulls.
There’s this scene—no way I’ll ever forget it—he’s holding a giant stack of pancakes, but it’s not syrup dripping down. It’s blood, thick and dark, pooling on the floor as he shoves it toward some terrified kid. And Tony’s whispering, “he’s fucking feeding them… brains man” and we’re half laughing, half horrified like we’ve stepped into some twisted nightmare that’s way too real.
The next thing I know, someone’s grabbing my shoulder, shaking me awake. I open my eyes, and there’s Tony, mumbling, “Come on, man, wake up. We gotta go.” Turns out, I’d passed out two minutes in. Slept through the whole damn thing while my friends pieced together some Frankenstein monster of a movie in their own heads.
But that night, that Tahoe theater, John Candy’s face plastered in my mind like some haunted specter… it sticks with you. And every now and then, when the smoke hits just right, I can still hear that laugh echoing through the years as it sends shivers up my spine.
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