Cheesy Movie creates horrible childhood memories
April 23, 2021 10:10 AM Subscribe
When I was a yoof (somewhere around 1988, give or take a few years) I was staying at my Gramma's house for the summer. One afternoon while flipping through TV, and had my first ever exposure to a 'sex scene' in video - a scene which ended in a bizarre Rube-Goldbergian accidental electrocution death for both participants. What in the heck was this movie/show? (specific details inside)
This was something on TV, possibly on a cable channel like HBO but just as possibly some risque TV show on a standard channel. Era is 1988-ish, but could have wiggle room of a year or two. The scene itself - a couple is having sex (male prone, female 'cowboy' position) in a bed. The activity is vigorous enough to cause the headboard to bang the wall and nearby nightstand, which knocks over a beer bottle, spilling beer over an exposed cord for a lamp. The man's arm falls into the electrified beer and both people are ZAPPPPED to death. There's a fade to black (don't think it was a commercial break) and the next scene is a number of detectives/medics milling about the room trying to figure out what happens.. including a shot of the dead man's arm which is now charred and blackened.
That's about the time my childbrain went into overload with new terrifying inputs and shut the tv off. Putting aside whatever profound first-contact impact this had on WeeDagon, what show was this even?
This was something on TV, possibly on a cable channel like HBO but just as possibly some risque TV show on a standard channel. Era is 1988-ish, but could have wiggle room of a year or two. The scene itself - a couple is having sex (male prone, female 'cowboy' position) in a bed. The activity is vigorous enough to cause the headboard to bang the wall and nearby nightstand, which knocks over a beer bottle, spilling beer over an exposed cord for a lamp. The man's arm falls into the electrified beer and both people are ZAPPPPED to death. There's a fade to black (don't think it was a commercial break) and the next scene is a number of detectives/medics milling about the room trying to figure out what happens.. including a shot of the dead man's arm which is now charred and blackened.
That's about the time my childbrain went into overload with new terrifying inputs and shut the tv off. Putting aside whatever profound first-contact impact this had on WeeDagon, what show was this even?
My only contribution to this will be that "prone" means lying face down; "supine" is lying face up.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Sunburnt at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2021 [10 favorites]
This sounds a lot like a Tales from the Crypt episode.
posted by homodachi at 10:49 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by homodachi at 10:49 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If you want to check out the death from Slaughter High, I think the one adekllny references shows up in this compilation video (you might want to mute it, though, since it just has metal music, no film soundtrack), starting at about 07:50: https://youtu.be/6qOYZ_KnFAM?t=470
It's not the same position you mentioned (this one is missionary), and the electrocution isn't from a beer falling on a lamp cord; the metal bed frame is purposely electrified. But the bedframe does bang back and forth, and there's a closeup of the woman's arms having gone black.
posted by theatro at 12:21 PM on April 23, 2021
It's not the same position you mentioned (this one is missionary), and the electrocution isn't from a beer falling on a lamp cord; the metal bed frame is purposely electrified. But the bedframe does bang back and forth, and there's a closeup of the woman's arms having gone black.
posted by theatro at 12:21 PM on April 23, 2021
Response by poster: That clip of Slaughter High is *very* close to what I remember... I'd have to see what comes right after that shot but the bottle of booze on the endtable with the lamp is exactly correct, along with the blackened limbs. That's got to be it! Thanks for tracking down a mystery that has floated to the top of my memory about once a decade for the last thirty years!
posted by FatherDagon at 9:27 PM on April 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 9:27 PM on April 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
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Slaughter High is a 1986 slasher film written and directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten. An international co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom, the film stars Caroline Munro, Simon Scudamore, Carmine Iannaconne, Donna Yeager, and Sally Cross. The film's plot follows a group of adults, responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day, who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school, where a masked killer awaits inside.
... Stella and Frank are electrocuted while having sex...
posted by adekllny at 10:27 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]