We all have our TV moments. By this I mean moments in our lives when TV makes a huge impact in our lives, usually something unforgettable that affects us for the rest of our lives. And if we are to be honest with ourselves, these moments are not always positive. In fact most unforgettable things in our lives tend to be of the negative sort.

The distinct TV moment for me came when I as about 10 years old. In those days there was not much choice on TV on a Saturday night, where I used to live then. On this particular Saturdays as most, I settled in with anticipation to watch the Weekend movie for the day, "Dracula," they had announced, it would be, without giving too much details. They talked about some murders though and I suspected that it might be a good detective story. The sort that I had already started developing a taste for.

Dracula. As a 10 year old then, I had never heard of the man and I had no idea what it was going to be all about. What I was worried most about was that it would end up being some old boring classic movie. This particular TV station had developed a reputation for some pretty boring classics in previous months prior to that fateful night. I was not yet at the age of starting to appreciate "Singing in the rain."

Mostly I would watch TV with my two brothers and sister, all younger than I was. But for some strange reason I do not quite remember, they were all very tired that night and went off to bed one by one, leaving me all alone in the imposing living room to watch the movie, that I hoped would be exciting with plenty of action.

After the endless ads, finally, the movie started. The music score sounded okay for the sort of TV movie that I was expecting and it gave me some hope that it would be a good movie. I sat up expectantly waiting for my dose of Saturday night TV excitement. It was never to be.

Four scenes into the TV movie, and my heart had started pounding very violently and hard against my chest.

It is all still so vivid and my mind, like it happened just the other day and not several decades ago. The first scene started with some girl walking towards some dark alley, she disappears into the dark and what follows is a blood curdling scream. The next scene shifts to some hospital somewhere where the team of doctors wonder why the body has been sucked clean of any blood and decide to keep the hole thing secret until they can get more details.

It just got worse and worse.

In retrospect this was excellent movie-making. Keep the audience in suspense, do not show them too much. Instead show them just enough and leave the rest to their imaginations which are bound to conjure up something much more real and frightening. They just showed you little bits of the Dracula. Bits that mattered like the fangs sinking into the juicy white neck and so on.

About 10 minutes into this TV movie, I did what I had never done before on a Saturday night. I switched off the Television and fled to my bedroom where I remained shaking like a leaf in fear and with my heart still pounding violently against my chest.

It did not matter that there were several other people in the house at that time. The TV movie had made it clear that Dracula got you when he wanted to and nothing could stop him. I was convinced that nobody in the house would save me from Dracula if he was after me and somehow I was convinced that he was shortly after watching just a small part of that TV movie.

That nightmare remained with me for a long time and nightmares with Dracula continued for many years after that. On countless nights I would wake, dreaming that I had been running and with my heart pounding. My parents never thought to ask me hat was causing me the nightmares and I did not dare volunteer the information. I did not want to even talk about it. It was too scary.

Just goes to show you the sort of impact that one little TV movie can have on a young life.
It seems that many other people have had a similar experience in their lives, especially with horror movies on the tube when they were young. The other day my son described a very similar experience he had when he was about 9 years old. He had never talked about it until now, hen he was 15 years old.

Oh yeah, TV moments can be quite something.