I can’t remember how long ago it was, but I think it was probably almost 10 years ago, because I think we were living in Princeton at the time (1995-1998), and I think it was in our first apartment (1995-1997). We had company, I think our friend Shawn from Allegheny, staying with us for a few days, and we were trying to figure out what movie we should rent.
![[Screen shot of Colwyn holding Glave]](/files/krull-colwyn-glave-320x240.jpg)
My suggestion: . I remembered it being a Science Fiction classic, a battle between good and evil, a scary monster, a very cool weapon (see picture). It was shaped something like a starfish with each left had a blade on it, and it would come back to him, boomerang-style (no explanation as to how he learned to catch it without losing fingers).
I remembered movie, I had spent hours of my youth playing the , and I was excited to see it again. Neither Tracey nor Shawn had seen it, so I was going to get to share this really cool movie with them.
Except that it wasn’t cool.
At all.
In fact, it was incredibly… what’s the word?…. Oh yeah, “bad.” It would be insufficient to say it was “campy,” it was just bad… I distinctly remember looking at the box and seeing that it came out in 1983 and defending myself by saying “I was only 10 when this came out!!!”
The only good thing that came out of the experience was that we coined a new word:
- Krulled (verb)
- A movie, or other experience, which one remembers as being highly enjoyable, but, when actually, truthfully reviewed, turns out to be a huge disappointment. (See also: high school/adolescence.)
Usage: “Wow, riding that roller coaster totalled Krulled my memory of how scary it was.” or “I thought she was really attractive, but going to the reunion really Krulled that.”
[Update: several years later, is now a recognized word in the .]
It was interesting to see that others put Krull on their top-movie lists, such as the author of this . Someone at IMDB called it “A guilty pleasure if ever there was one” to which I just have to say that I wish I could consider it a guilty pleasure. Instead it was an embarassing disappointment.
Oh well.
Anyone else have a similar “Gee, this seemed better the first time I saw it?” movie or other experience?