There’s an easy way to make any object look special or magic — just make it glow in the dark. As a species, we’re so easily impressed by shiny things that even the most mundane item will fill us with awe if you put a 25-watt bulb inside of it. If a movie tells us that the hero’s buckler is really the Indestructible Crystal Shield of Matthias, we’ll believe it as long as the damn thing is glowing, even though our Count Chocula key chains do the same thing. Because of this willingness to suspend disbelief in the face of luminescence, movies are chock full of powerful or mystical items that glow on command.
• Glowing 1964 Chevy Malibu from Repo Man (1984) — There’s something strange in the trunk of this automobile. “Oh, you don’t want to look in there,” warns unhinged driver J. Frank Parnell (Fox Harris) as a suspicious motorcycle cop investigates and is immediately disintegrated. The blinding light we see coming from the trunk later engulfs the entire vehicle, an effect created by simply painting the car with $600-a-pail luminous paint. Now that it’s glowing, it seems perfectly natural that the car can fly.
• E.T.’s finger from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) — Aww, did poor wittle Elliott prick his finger? Let E.T. fix it with his glowing appendage. All better now!
• The Loc-Nar from Heavy Metal (1981) —This glowing green ball is said to be the sum of all evil. What atrocities is this talking, pulsating orb capable of? Well, in this movie, it serves as a means to tie several unrelated stories together. Kinda.
• Glowing parcel from Kiss Me Deadly (1955) — Tough-guy detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) has his hands full with this dangerous MacGuffin, which emits blinding light and burning radiation if you open it even a little bit.
• Glowing briefcase from Pulp Fiction (1994) — Inspired by the nuclear whatsit from Kiss Me Deadly, this film features a briefcase that illuminates the faces of those who look within. What’s inside? We don’t know, but it seems to impress the heck out of everybody who sees it.
• Glowing “paintings” from I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) — There’s a scene in which the heroine finds an artist’s hidden cache of paintings, and is overwhelmed by their beauty. Rather than actual paintings, we see the various artworks as panes of brilliant white light, this giving the impression of vague magnificence without having to show a specific image.
• Glowing crystal from Superman (1978) — A present from Superman’s Kryptonian parents, this crystal shard is extremely useful. It leads him to an isolated Arctic locale, builds the Fortress of Solitude for him and plays back tapes of his dead parents.
• Glowing Chevy Chase from Modern Problems (1981) — Chevy gets doused with toxic waste, after which he heads home, unaware that he is glowing in the dark. The audience is unsurprised to learn that he develops telekinetic powers shortly thereafter.
• Glowing cabbage from SCTV — During the “Zontar” plotline, the employees of SCTV find themselves possessed by an alien intelligence, which manifests itself as a cabbage leaf emerging from the victim’s collar. First contact is made by security guard Gus (Eugene Levy) who finds an alien head of cabbage. We know it’s a dangerous alien cabbage instead of a nutritious Earth vegetable because it pulsates with light.
• Glowing nunchucks from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (1983) — This Hong Kong comedy climaxes with a truly peculiar fight scene in a spaceship. A private detective dresses up as a woman in order to get abducted by a flying saucer, but the plan works a little too well, and he finds himself strapped to a steel table in an alien vessel. In walks a cheap Hong Kong approximation of Darth Vader, complete with laboured breathing and a lightsaber. (Lightsabers, of course, are the coolest glowing weapons of all time.) Things look grim for our hero, until he finds a lightsaber of his own — only this one has a measly four-inch blade. The fight continues to go badly for our hero, until he finds the switch to turn his weapon into a glowing red nunchaku, at which point he gets all Bruce Lee on Darth Vader’s ass.
• Glowing condoms from Skin Deep (1989) — John Ritter stars in this Blake Edwards-directed comedy, which is famous for one outrageous scene. In a completely darkened room, Ritter approaches one of his many girlfriends, wearing a condom borrowed from her husband’s medicine cabinet. It’s a glow-in-the-dark condom, and it is the only thing visible in the inky blackness. That is, until the husband comes home early, sporting a second day-glo sheath, leading to a surreal confrontation in which we can hear the characters, but can see only their glowing prophylactics.
