A few years ago, a local museum staged a cut-down exhibition called 'Invaders from Space'- a collection of SF film memorabilia and fan artwork. I'm a sucker for this stuff and it was great fun, but one room had as its centrepiece, a fully-grown Alien from the film series- and something about it was so horrible, I couldn't bear to approach it for a closer look. Other visitors were wandering around with their children and had no problem showing off the fake beasty to their kids. Me, I hung back. It was strange. This was just a costume from a film-set, but I'm a usually-functioning-adult-male with an over-active imagination. There was nobody in there, but it was too close, too real. Why did it have that effect? I've just discovered How.
