Showing posts with label Happy Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Happy Halloween. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Hybrid Halloween Moments!!!

 
Happy Halloween! I've got today and tomorrow off and intend to soak up the atmosphere. First, woke up with The Misfits Hybrid Moments in my head! That has to be a boon that this will be a good day.


31 Days of Halloween:

I had a spectacular October 30th last night. Here's what I watched:


Not for everyone, but Cary Grant and Peter Lorre are enough to make me love this classic Halloween comedy. The word "Madcap" got thrown around a lot back in this era, but this one deserves the description - it juggles so many plates that, even if some don't exactly 'land' for me, it's just a pleasure to watch.


Classic late-period Romero. I love this flick, flaws and all, and would take this any day over Schumacher's Falling Down, which, in the "man at the end of his rope" sub genre, definitely gets more love. 


If I love Romero's Bruiser, well then, I guess I have to marry Robert Englund's directorial debut, 976-Evil. I know this is not a 'good movie.' Couldn't care less. I think 976-Evil is the epitome of how great late 80s Horror could be, and it totally nails the Nightmare on Elm Street tone that none of the NoES movies except the original manage to.


1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin
2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"
3) VHS
4) All You Need is Death
5) Slashers (2001)
6) The Beyond/Phenomena
7) The Convent
8) Evil Dead 2
9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe
10) Totally Killer
11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers
12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)
13) Never Hike Alone/Never Hike in the Snow/Never Hike Alone 2
14) Puppetman
15) Creepshow Season 4 Episode 1
16) Return of the Living Dead
17) Don't Look Now
18) When Evil Lurks
19) Barbarian
20) Demons 2/All Hallows Eve
21) May
22) Let's Scare Jessica To Death
23) The Birds/30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 1
24) 30 Coins Ssn 1 Ep 2/The Church
25) Elvira Mistress of the Dark
26) To Kako (Evil)/To Kako: Stin epohi ton iroon
27) Tourist Trap (w/ Joe Bob)/Totally Killer
28) Amusement
29) The Rocky Horror Picture Show/There's Nothing Out There
30) Arsenic and Old Lace/George A. Romero's Bruiser/976-Evil



Read:

In keeping with my annual Halloween traditions, I re-read James O'Barr's The Crow yesterday and began Rick Spears and Rob G's Teenagers From Mars upon waking this morning.


The Crow
never fails to affect me; still the greatest love story I've read and the purest contemplation of grief I know. O'Barr's art and words drip with the Post Punk bands that grew to sway my tastes as a metalhead in High School, my obsession with Joy Division's Substance and Still and The Cure's Pornography following fast on the heels of my introduction to this dark, beautiful angel.


I love this book so much. The characters are, at this point, old friends I love to check back in on every year. 



Playlist:

Type O Negative - Paranoid (single)
Claudio Simonetti and Goblin - Phenomena OST
John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST
John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST
The Cure - Pornography
Night Verses - Every Sound Has A Color In The Valley of Night: Part 1
Wytch Finger - The Dance EP
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)



Card:

A single card from Missi's Raven Tarot for this perfect Halloween morning:


When Every Day is Halloween, October 31st just means we're about to begin another journey around the sun toward the next one. 

Monday, October 31, 2022

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Halloween Theme

 

Reznor and Ross covering John Carpenter's legendary score. Happy Halloween, everybody! Remember to check those candies for razor blades.




31 Days of Halloween:

10/1 - Trick 'r Treat
10/2 - Barbarian
10/3 - Hellraiser ('84)
10/4 - Phenomena
10/5 - Hellraiser (2022)
10/6 - The Dark Backward
10/7 - Sick/The Beyond
10/8 - Werewolf By Night
10/9 - Something in the Dirt
10/10 - Let the Right One In Episode 1/Lux Aeterna
10/11 - My Best Friend's Exorcism/Grimcutty
10/12 - Smile
10/13 - Monstrous/VHS (Amateur Night segment)
10/14 - Halloween Kills
10/15 - Halloween Ends/Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space
10/16 - Spider Baby/101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments/Night's End/Behemoth
10/17 - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/18 - Random Acts of Violence/Two Witches/Let the Right One In Episode 2
10/19 - Footprints on the Moon/976-EVIL
10/20 - Alison's Birthday/Tone Deaf
10/21 - Elviria's Haunted Hills/Popcorn
10/22 - Resolution
10/23 - The Endless
10/24 - VHS 99
10/25 - Tigers Are Not Afraid
10/26 - Bliss
10/27 - Deadstream/Host
10/28 - The Convent
10/29 - Lot 36 (GDT's CoC ep. 1)/George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead 3D/Return of the Living Dead
10/30 - Lords of Salem

After watching Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem for the third time last night, I'm pretty sure I consider it his masterpiece. I'll always love House and Rejects, but Lords is something else entirely. At first pass I didn't much care for it; then, a few years later I rewatched it and realized I was completely applying my frustrations with his other films to this one. I came around, and regularly described it in conversation (where I was often defending it) as, "It's Zombie doing Argento." There's certainly some truth to that, but to leave it there is a disservice to the film. Lords of Salem is the first completely serious, mature, elegant film he's made. Again, not that there aren't other movies by Mr. Zombie that I love (I dig most of them to one degree or another), but he has certain affectations that repeat throughout his oeuvre and sometimes prevent his films from being, first and foremost, Rob Zombie films. Lords of Salem shatters these restraints and becomes something else. The film is extremely visceral and, at times, downright unnerving in a pure psychological way. Its imagery is like nothing I've ever seen - even in Zombie's other films - and the mechanism by which the Horror in his story takes root and unfolds leans on folklore, myth, drawing a damning line between the pathos of modern humanity and our ancestors, proving we're not dissimilar enough to judge the past. 


I'd had the itch to watch this one of late, and I'm glad I waited until Devil's Night to do so. Next up, 31!




Read:

One of the books I picked up within the last two weeks but only just got around to reading 


I had no idea this was even coming out when I saw it on the shelf at Rick's Comic City. A few years ago, Butcher from The Horror Vision let me borrow the old FantaCo Night of the Living Dead prestige series, something I had never read. Now,  American Mythology Comics has joined with Romero's Image Ten to release a series that seems as though it will re-tell and expand on the story from the film we all know and love. Of interesting note, the scene in the FantaCo that really made the series for me was having the tribulations Ben describes as preceding his arrival at the farmhouse actually brought to life. We see that again in this book, so despite being a bit of a repeat if you read those FantaCos, it still signals - to me at least - that we may be in for a fun ride here. We'll see. 




Playlist:

✝✝✝ - Vivian (single)
✝✝✝ - Initiation/Protection
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Here Lies Lucy - Heaven or HLL EP
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch OST
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST




Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.


For every inspiration, multiple, digressive pathways branch out and weaken its fundamental strength. Remain true to the voice of the idea. 

Directly referencing my current project once again. When I look back at previous posts that I made close to the completion of my other books, I notice the cards always begin to speak directly about the project of the moment. It's a good sign, these tools that allow my subconscious to speak directly to my oft-distracted conscious mind, reminding it how best to approach my craft when it nears completion and, thus, release into the world at large.

A final reminder, only a few hours left to back Grimm's Kickstarter for The Art of the Bound Tarot hardcover art book. Back the project HERE.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Happy Halloween 2019!!!



Yes, I post this song every year. I will continue to do so for the rest of my time on Earth. Nothing sets the Autumnal mood for me like this song, and this album (digipak version). My, how I miss Peter Steele and the boys.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC
10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)
10/10: Creepshow Episode 3
10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)
10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena
10/13: AHS 1984 Ep 4/In the Tall Grass
10/14: Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)
10/15: Rabid (2019)
10/16: Wounds
10/17: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/18: Creepshow Episode 4
10/19: Ed Wood/AHS 1984 Ep. 5
10/20: Sinister/Sinister 2
10/21: Uncanny Annie
10/22: Scream
10/23: Simpsons 666: Treehouse of Horror
10/24: Jennifer's Body
10/25: Belzebuth/The Lighthouse/Halloween
10/26: Murder Party
10/27: AHS 1984 Ep. 6/Arsenic and Old Lace/The Fair Haired Child (Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 9)
10/28: May
10/29: The Exorcist (Theatrical Cut)
10/30: Nightmare Cinema

I felt considerably saddened two nights ago when, for the second time in the last ten years, I watched William Friedkin's The Exorcist and felt nothing in the way of the fear that the film used to evoke in me. If you chart my experiences with Friedkin's masterpiece, there was my awareness of it as a kid; I'm certain I saw parts of it as a child, but I don't think I saw the entire film until somewhere in the early to mid-90s. I don't really remember that viewing, other than as an introduction. My critical faculties for film, in general, were burgeoning at the time, but still largely unsophisticated. Then, in the early 00s, I watched it with a friend, stoned out of my mind in a darkened room, and felt a very real fear that bordered on dread. This feeling stayed with me for at least a day afterward and inspired my oft-repeated axiom, "I don't believe in the Devil, except for three days after I watch The Exorcist."

This used to be exactly true.

I watched the film again in 2004 with the same friend and a few other fellows, all stoned, lights out, in the living room of the house some friends and I used to rent in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. I remember that viewing best because I was so freaked out during it I didn't want to get up and go to the restroom, which was about three feet beyond the television.

Fast forward to somewhere around 2009-2010. Living in Los Angeles now, I invited a few friends over to watch the Director's Cut of The Exorcist, the version I had never seen that contained the freaky and much-hyped Spider-walk sequence. After having talked it up for quite some time to everyone present, this was the first viewing where the film really did not affect me almost at all, certainly not the way it had in the past. That brooding, sustained fear is what I look for in 'scary movies.' I chalked this up to the Director's Cut potentially having different pacing.

After my viewing of the Theatrical Cut again two nights ago, I now find that it's not the film, it's me.

Most Horror films use jump scares, because they're fun and easy. Some use gore or disturbing premises and images to achieve their desired effect. FEW can create the air of menace I'm talking about here. The Exorcist - which although it appears no longer affects me I still consider the scariest movie ever made - definitely does it the best. The original Blair Witch Project also does this and has the advantage of real human fear being captured on film in places (no, I am not suggesting the marketing that the film was real is true. But BWP was partially shot with the three actors operating under false pretenses, and long before the hype of that film began, I read an article that talked about how the directors followed the actors through the woods for several days, employing a magnet to disrupt their compass and actually preying on them by making the strange noises in the middle of the night and, at one point, actually running up and attacking the tent while the actors were inside freaking out). More recently, during its original theatrical run, I was surprised to find James Wan's Insidious had some genuinely scary scenes - the baby monitor and the ghost that walks through the wall, in particular. In fact, several of Wan's franchise films have great moments of sustained fear - think of the two sisters reacting to the dark corner or the handclaps in The Conjuring - but the films usually also take a misstep along the way that neutralizes the overall effect. This year, as part of 31 Days of Horror, I was pleasantly surprised to find Hell House, LLC has some very real fear-inducing moments, and nary a misstep afterward. But off the top of my head, that's all I can think of (always looking for suggestions). They say familiarity breeds contempt, but I've never agreed with that. However, perhaps at this point, I've had the maximum number of viewings one can have with a legitimately fear-producing film before it loses its power. Not to mention, if you add all the lampooning of key scenes from The Exorcist in comedy sketches and pop culture, I'm afraid I may lay this one to rest.

**

Playlist from the last few days:

Type O Negative - Dead Again
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
The Obsessed - Lunar Womb
Boy Harsher - Careful
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Deth Crux - Pears of Anguish  EP
Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Ministry - Psalm 69
Black Pumas - Eponymous
The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow
The Misfits - American Psycho

Card of the Day:



Is this banging my head against the wall or the edict I should move beyond my frustrations and continue to work toward my goal? Number two, always. 

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

2018: October 31st - Happy Halloween!!!



I figured this would be appropriate.

31 Days of Horror's penultimate evening yielded two movies. The first, Trick r' Treat, which is always a viewing standard for the season. I almost passed it over last night, lured by ideas of exploring something new on VOD. After about three minutes though, I was all in. LOVE this film. My favorite segments would be the Bus in the Quarry and little Red Riding Hood. An autumnal cinematic institution I will never doubt again.

The second movie was 1931's Dracula, directed by Tod Browning and starring the inimitable Bela Lugosi. Had to get in at least one Universal Monster.

"I never drink....... wine."



Classic. The sets on the old Universal monster flicks are indelibly seared into my soul from watching them so much as a kid. It wasn't until K and I got together and she revived my love of those original horror franchises that I revisited them. Last year we did Frankenstein (still my fav) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, this year Dracula.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween
10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground
10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder
10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)
10/28) Suspiria (1977)
10/29) Beetlejuice/Pyewacket
10/30) Trick r' Treat/Dracula (1931)

You know how sometime in the 00s someone put out a DVD with logs burning in a fireplace, a kind of background mood-setter for Christmas? Well, Shudder has the Halloween equivalent: The Ghoul Log, one hour and three minutes of this:


So awesome! They added in night sounds (owls hooting and wind and stuff), and it's real-time, that is to say the camera is rolling, capture every flicker of the candle's flame. Once again, kudos Shudder!

Big plans for tonight, as I am off work tomorrow.  If it's foggy again like it's been the last few nights, I might just go for a midnight stroll in costume.

Playlist from 10/30:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)
Siouxsie and the Banshees - 
Fantômas - Director's Cut
Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Windhand - Eternal Return
Ritual Howls - Their Body
Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Card of the day:


Success from hard work. Good to hear. I've been reinvigorated of late in streamlining Shadow Play Book #1: Kim & Jessie. Things felt a little strained yesterday, but I kind of squandered my inspiration, applying it later in the day than I should have. I won't make that mistake today.

One last video, my favorite Halloween song, which I probably post every year. It's worth the reiteration:



Happy Halloween everyone!!!