The Horror of … Pat Boone?

Pat Boone? The singer with the straight-lace reputation? Indeed.  Boone has long been one to let his hair down and get somewhat goofily-gory.  Perhaps his best known movie was the one he never wanted to make -

1959. Dell Comics.

Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Boone was recently (2 October 211) reminiscing on the George Noory Coast to Coast AM show about the movie.  He hated the idea.  His idol – like many signers – was Bing Crosby.  He wanted to do a beach movie, or some musical like State Fair.  20th Century Fox laid out the red carpet for him and twisted his agent’s arm even offering up to 20% of the profit to get him.  He said no, since he figured there would be no profit – Hollywood bookkeeping at the time did not allow for profit – and they finally said he could sing a few songs.  He relented, and had a number of near-misses of disaster on the set.

Pat Boone and Alice Cooper pal around at a golf tournament.

In one scene, they had to do rok climbing, and so they shuttled out to Needles, CA.  It was supposed to be an arctic scene compete with heavy wool coats and full packs.  Yet it was past 110 F (43 C) and the cast nearly succumbed.  (The director used blue filters to make it look cold.)  Next it was off to Carlsbad Caverns to film subterranean scenes.  Between scenes, Boone was tired and laid prostrate to catch some rest.  He found a rock overhang, snuggled under it, and started to doze off.  In a dream state he felt something nibbling at his ear, and he awoke with a start  bumping his head on the stone overhang.  Coming to his senses, he discovered that what had been eating him was a giant albino cave rat!  Shades of Lovecraft’s Rats in the Walls !

In recent years, Boone’s No More Mr. Nice Guy (1997 ) was an attempt to restart his career with a little camp, and a little seriousness with Boone covering some heavy metal songs.

Boone is well known, and frequently lampooned, for his deep spiritual convictions that he learned as a child.  Yet, his ground-breaking career worked neatly around and within those beliefs, and proof that whether one has any type of spiritual feelings (or none), horror fiction and horror fantasy can fit into that life.

There is no better time to explore horror – jump in and check out Miskatonic’s books-for-sale, or read more about horror’s antiquarian roots on the Misky blog.

Here is a campy tune of horror from Pat Boone.