4. Nightbreed (1990)

Only In Amityville

Episode 4 of Season 3!

Nightbreed (1990)

A Brush With Death

I remember my youth well. Summers by the Gwäfzštūfvên River, Autumns at the lake house in Dïngdłēdøü. And the winters, the brutal winters... My father was a difficult man - anyone from the village would have told you so, perhaps not in words so kind. He owned a sausage factory just outside of Håültærtōp. It brought great prosperity to our village, and those living in it were thankful for this, but they could not help but resent it for allowing my father to rule with an iron fist. The sausage factory was so successful, so lucrative, that it all but replaced the local government. Sausage factory employees were paving roads, shoveling snow, saving defenseless children from packs of Ice Wolves. In the final years, they were the sole sponsor of the Pöpßpłot Midwinter Feast - not a cheap undertaking. The sausage factory was the village. The village was the sausage factory. There had never before in the history of the village been such decadent feasts. The sausages... such variety, and the rich flavor... when I close my eyes, I can still taste them... The villagers marveled at the indulgence afforded by the factory, grew drunk on it, at times, but soon... they sobered up, and looked up at the factory up there on its hill with hate. My father forced the villagers to work thirty-six hour workdays in order to satisfy the gargantuan demand for his sausages. He paid them only what they needed to survive - and sometimes not even that. Many villagers went home still performing the motions involved with manufacturing sausage, and would fall asleep, still miming the act of making sausage.

Early on in my life, my father took to beating me. I had a bad habit of dropping large jars of salsa on the kitchen floor when unpacking the groceries. He would cite these incidents as justification for his beatings, but he hardly needed an excuse to descend upon me. He would thrash my legs with my dear departed mother's old ski poles - he said they didn't leave bruises, but I don't know where he got that idea, because they always did leave bruises. "Papa," I would cry, "please! No more beatings! My legs are broken!"

"SHUT UP SWINE!" he would howl. I walked with crutches until I was thirteen.

One year, as a result of my father's decision to cut costs by loosening safety protocols, a fat five-year-old named Gustav fell into the Sausage Machine, and was turned into a five-year-old-boy-sized sausage. The village was in uproar. The villagers walked out on their shifts, and my father took it upon himself to operate the factory - alone. With my crutches, there wasn't much I could do besides watch him. There was a commotion outside, then the villager burst into the factory, many of them drunk. They grabbed hold of my father, chanting: "Gustav, Gustav..." He hardly had time to shriek before they threw him into the Sausage machine. There was a blood-curdling rip-grind from the machine. It seemed to go on forever. The villagers set fire to the factory and as two kind-souled villagers helped me out unscathed, I saw my father - or perhaps it would be more apt to say I saw a sausage - come out of the other end of the Machine with a sickening, "ding!" The doors closed, and I never saw him again.

So, knowing this, perhaps you can see how a man as scarred as me could become so sick and twisted. Perhaps... after hearing my tale, you may find yourself looking at your reflection in your rear-view mirror as you drive toward a retirement home at eighty miles per hour. And maybe - just maybe - you'll find yourself feeling a little Sick and Twisted...

-Matt