Spooky Stuff

I'm afraid wingnuts have ruined my enjoyment of Screamin' Jay doing his schtick with this song, but I have to say that Marilyn Manson is a fine replacement:

Halloween, over

Finally, around 9:00 it seemed that the trick-or-treaters had stopped ringing the doorbell. I checked up and down my street and most porch lights were off, things were quiet. So I blew out the candle in the jok-o-lantern and turned off my lights too. We had a pretty good turn out though I think not as many as last year, in spite of great weather and a full moon. I have a fair amount of candy left over which, unfortunately, won't last long! So now I'm going to fix myself a glass of wine and curl up on the couch to watch a little bit of late night horror shows and try to calm down my traumatized cats.

And, speaking of Halloween films, Dennis Hartley over at Hullabaloo has a great post up, the second half of which is called Creepy Lodgers and Seedy Inns: The 10 Worst Places to Check In at the Movies.

Halloween, The Day

Happy Halloween, everyone! Here's hoping that all the ghosties and goblins that visit you tonight are placated enough to leave you alone - I find that plenty of chocolate usually works. But here in cyberland, well who knows....

Thought you'd enjoy seeing a picture of this year's "jok"-o-lantern that will be scaring the poop out of all the little ghoulies in my neighborhood:


I'm sure their parents will appreciate that. To accompany, here's spooky music from Pink Floyd, along with really cheesy visuals:



Happy Haunting, all!

UPDATE: Wow - this makes Halloween almost like Christmas: Capmconnundrum has started a blog! Go check out all the great Halloween goodies to be found there...

Halloween, Day 5

Ohboyohboyohboy, getting closer! Today we are going to follow-up Screamin' Jay Hawkins Day with a slightly more esoteric pursuit, an examination of the most famous work by fauvist* Edvard Munch, The Scream:


And I can't recommend strongly enough a viewing of this wonderful documentary about the artist himself. The database entry has "TV" after the title, but I recall seeing it in the theater (and apparently I was one of a select few) sometime in the mid-seventies, and it has always stayed with me.

*At least I'VE always thought of him as a fauvist. So far, a brief Google research effort has not supported this contention, as most refer to him as a "Norwegian expressionist". I may have to investigate further.

Sick Scream

Still Screamin'

Screamin' J

Halloween, Day 4

I hereby declare today Screamin' Jay Day! Now, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, as you may know, was a bit eccentric. And for his most famous song, I Put A Spell on You, he used to dress up in full witch doctor regalia which would be most appropriate for our theme this week. But given the recent unpleasantness concerning witch doctors, bones in noses and whatnot, I felt somewhat uncomfortable going in that direction on my blog. But there's plenty of Screamin' Jay that fits the bill for our purposes. Here's a start:

Tree Brains!

No Halloween Week would be complete without a visit to The Sneeze, and this year we are rewarded with The Saga of the Tree Brains:


You are encouraged - strongly - to browse around the site which entails following all the links provided and who knows where you will end up and what kind of trouble you will get yourself into, but what else is Halloween for, right?

Halloween, Day 3

Let's start off the day with The Creepiest Doll Ever (and, frankly, the kids in this commercial are pretty creepy too):



H/T The Bloggess

Charles Addams

My mother swears this is true: The first time anyone ever heard me laugh was when my older brother sneaked up on my crib, peeked over and scared the wits out of me by yelling "Boo!" Clearly, I was born with a twisted sense of humor, a truth which is borne out by my early fascination with the cartoons of Charles Addams. Addams' work appeared regularly in The New Yorker, a weekly magazine I grew up reading (Mom's cousin worked at their office in NYC so we received gift subscriptions every year for Christmas - I don't think my parents, staunch Republicans, would have bought it otherwise) first of course for the cartoons, then later for the fiction and film reviews, and much later for the political articles. So, Lord knows how old I was when I saw my first Charles Addams cartoon - all I know is that it was love at first sight for work such as this:

And this:

Addams, whose biography can be read here, is better known for his cartoons depicting the Addams Family, characters later developed for television and movies:

But to me, those venues, while fun, never did justice to the wit and intelligence of their creator.

Halloween Week, Day 2

I don't think I'd trust THIS guy with a taser....

A Capital Ghost Story

Freewheel has written his best one yet! Made me cry...

Halloween Week begins!

Let's start off with a visit to Extreme Pumpkins and take a look at one of the winners in this year's Pumpkin Carving Contest, "The Swine Flu Pumpkin":

Not just movies

I love a good thriller in either book or movie form. I think at the top of my list of favorite thriller books would have to be The Bottoms by Texas writer extraordinaire, Joe Lansdale. Set in deep East Texas along the banks of the Sabine River in the 1930's, it's the story of a boy's coming-of-age as he tries to help his father, a small town constable, solve the mystery of a series of grisly murders. It's evocative of that other favorite classic, "To Kill A Mockingbird" in that it's told from the point of view of the children (the boy and his sister), has a sub-plot involving the town bogeyman which in this case is called "the Goat Man", and it deals with the rampant racism that characterize both the region and the period. Lansdale has a wonderful narrative style and is particularly skilled at depicting strong female characters. I met him once at the Texas Book Fair in Austin and told him that I liked this about his work saying something like, "Your women characters are so strong!" to which he responded, "Well of course - they're Texan!"

Two other good scary books that come to mind are "The Exorcist" and "The Shining" - do you have any that you would recommend?

UPDATE: Sandy Underpants, witmeister, has some more recommendations that sound really good, though not of the thriller variety.

Grab the popcorn and douse the lights!

Tonight on Turner Classic Movies, one of capmconnundrum's (and my) Halloween favorites is playing at 7 p.m. CST, "The Night of the Hunter":



There is much of interest to note about this little gem, such as Lillian Gish's wonderful performance as the matron of a safe haven, and the fact that this was Charles Laughton's only directorial attempt. Apparently he was so discouraged by the film's poor showing at the box office that he never tried it again, which is a darn shame.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Don't know about where you are but last night we had thunderstorms. So my son and I turned out all the lights and watched one of my favorite thrillers of all time:



I saw this one in the theater when it came out when I was about 15 or 16 and it was, to put it mildly, a memorable experience! Sandy commented that Alan Arkin's character here ranks at the top of his list of scary bad men in films (along with Jack Torrence from "The Shining", among others), so I always enjoyed how Arkin spoke about playing this character in interviews like this one:



The biggest drawback of the film is the dickhead character of Sam, the husband. But that's so typical of the genre: The audience's experience of the victim's isolation is enhanced by the cluelessness, emotional and/or physical distance, or just plain absence of his/her support system. Still, many (including me) felt that Sam's reaction to Suzy's plight at the end of the film was a bit, er, odd to say the least.

So, getting ready for Halloween? Who's on your list of Top Badasses in scary movies?

UPDATE: I knew I had posted about "Wait Until Dark" before, so I decided to look it up and, sure enough, it was on Halloween last year! I even posted the same interview with Alan Arkin. Lord, am I predictable or what.