I was nine years old in the summer of 1980, and after Star Wars hit the scene I was hugely interested in pretty much everything Sci-Fi related. I remember this commercial and being terribly excited by what seemed like a new entry into a rapidly growing genre, fresh with new blood from grand moff Lucas.

I begged and cajoled my father to take me to see this fantastic-looking film and eventually he caved and said we'd go on the weekend. I remember piling into the car's passenger seat, with three of my cousins in the back bench ready for adventure.

We went to the drive-in, those decaying remnants today were still flourishing in the late seventies and early eighties. I remember the darkness was filled with the smells and sounds of cars, people and freshly popped corn. My cousins were giggling in the back seat, and I was prepared for another onslaught of space-oriented fiction.

The trailers rolled, and I was settled, snacks and beverage at hand. The film began, a darkened evening in a picturesque setting - trees full of leaves around a beatiful lake. That was my first clue something was amiss.

In the first five minutes there was harrowing music and two people were rapidly dispatched by a demon bent upon murder.

I remember being terrified, yet unable to stop myself from peeking between splayed fingers, aghast at what I saw on the screen throughout what had to have been the longest hour and a half of my young life. I also remember my cousins giggling like mad; they were a little older than me by a couple of years and were more than prepared for the experience.

The fact that my father lied to me has never been forgotten, and I've since seen the film displayed that night several times on cable television, even renting it during my reliving-my-youth days of the early nineties.

The film that night wasn't The Black Hole. It was a movie that cashed in on several sequels, spilling into several genres as it did and spawning no end of remakes and copycats.

The movie he'd taken us to see was Friday the 13th.

I checked under my bed for a few months after that, making sure noone was underneath with an arrow waiting to dispatch me as they did poor Kevin Bacon.

I eventually saw the movie I wanted to see, and although I didn't appreciate it at first, as it was rather dark and forboding in its own right, it grew on me. I'll always have a soft spot for Jason Vorhees, as well. I just wish they hadn't tricked me into that drive-in.

Object lesson here, folks: don't lie to your kids and then laugh about their insecurity because they nearly peed their pants from the horror displayed before them.