Dead Man's Party

Are you throwing a Halloween party? Are you inviting scads of ghouls over to your crypt to make this Halloween a night to dismember? Are you just planning on sitting pathetically alone with a cat and a gallon of cookies n' cream? Well, do I have the movie list for you!

Here are some of my favorites, arranged categorically (special thanks to Wikipedia):

Vampires: Bram Stoker's Dracula (Gary Oldman's finest hour), Dracula (the original 1931 version with Bela Lugosi), The Lost Boys (campy, but low-budget eighties-tastic), From Dusk Till Dawn (Quentin Tarantino does the fanged undead in a cheap whorehouse; fun for all ages!), Nosferatu (silent but intensely creepy classic that features "real" vampyre Max Schreck; for more info but less creep, check out Willem Dafoe's Shadow of the Vampire), Fright Night (this one features Roddy McDowall as a washed up horror film actor, if you can imagine!).

Werewolves: Silver Bullet (based on a pleasantly brief graphic novel by some weird dude from Maine), The Wolf Man (watch Lon Chaney, Jr. transform into a beast without ever tearing his clothing!), An American Werewolf in London (as mentioned in a previous post, I first saw this gem when I was three; imagine the night terrors!), The Howling (contains the longest man-to-wolf transformation scene in cinematic history; seriously, you'll have time to take a bathroom break and make dinner before he's finished), Dog Soldiers (a bunch of obnoxious Scottish military guys get systematically devoured on the moors), Ginger Snaps (angst-ridden teenage hussies get wolfy on their boyfriends and family members).

Ghosts (those who know that they're dead and those who aren't so sure): The Sixth Sense (the scene on the spiral staircase made me wet myself), Poltergeist (a truly disturbing jaunt through corpse-filled suburbia; clowns, TV static, and old trees have never been the same), The Ring (if you watch it, you will die in seven days, and not because of your late fees at Blockbuster!), The Grudge (proves conclusively that nothing is more frightening than a Japanese contortionist who croaks like a frog), The Others (demonstrates the consequences of too much religious education and time spent indoors, as well as why you should never piss off Nicole Kidman), The Blair Witch Project (shaky, nausea-inducing camera shots aside, this movie made tent and sleeping bag sales drop across the country).

Monsters, Ghouls, Zombies, and Other Such Mess-cellany: Frankenstein (the original 1931 version with Boris Karloff), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (believe it or not, Robert DeNiro will make you cry, and Kenneth Branagh's painted-on abs will make you laugh), The Thing (though it is technically an alien, this hideous parasite makes the things Sigourney Weaver had to fight look like Teletubbies), Dead Alive/aka Braindead (forget The Lord of the Rings; this is the film that proves Peter Jackson's genius; prepare for lawnmowers and overbearing zombie mothers), The Evil Dead Series (let's face it, zombies really aren't very scary, but they are pretty damned funny), Child's Play (this film made my cousin lock all of her dolls in the closet each and every evening for the entire duration of her childhood).

Serial Killers and Other Crazy People: Misery (gave me my irrational fear of old-fashioned typewriters; thanks, Stephen King!), Psycho (the Hitchcock version, of course; rocking chairs and granny wigs will be spoiled for you forever), The Silence of the Lambs (it puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose...oooh, now that's going to be stuck in my head), Wolf Creek (this one really bothered me; it's not for the faint of heart or for those with plans to visit Australia in the near future), Se7en (despite its attempt to pass off the number 7 as the letter "V," this is an intellectual thriller that will keep on creepin' long after it's done), AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST......Halloween (something about the atmosphere of this film is unspeakably creepy; the flickering jack o'lanterns and the rustling fall leaves make Mike Myers somehow unbearably frightening; this film sums up everything wonderfully eerie about the month of October).

Please Do Not Read This Post!

Just in case anyone is in the neighborhood . . .

Want to See Something Really Scary?

"Designed to improve social interactions, especially for tens of thousands of people who suffer from a mild form of autism called Asberger's Syndrome, Finan's "Mood Phone'' would light up in a spectrum of color - from warm reds to cool blues - based on the verbal patterns of everyday speech received through the handset. Seen through the corner of the eye, the visual stimulus would help users interpret the mood and inflection communicated through the words and phrases they hear."

It's not enough that they already govern our schedules, driving habits, manners, news and information intake, and pretty much the whole of our external existences. Now they want inside our minds!

For the whole horrific story, click here.

And I Just Can't Wait Until Next Halloween...

Are you all as excited as I am? I don't know if it's because I will be experiencing my first Hallow's Eve as a homeowner or if it's simply because the weather is cooler up here next to Everycity and Ft. Valuecity, but whatever the reason, I'm frothing at the mouth for October 31st this year. I love Halloween. I hope that doesn't make anyone out there in blogland think I'm a pagan. I'm not. I just absolutely love this supernatural nod to the old beliefs in magic and mysterious creatures that has somehow survived the Enlightenment and its systematic demythologization of everything that can't be proved in a laboratory to exist in the modern era.

I love the fact that thousands of people still dress up as ghouls, monsters, zombies, vampires, werewolves, hobbits, and Power Rangers to ward off and confuse the evil spirits that are said to congregate on the last day of October (even if they don't know that this is why costumes were originally worn on Hallow's Eve). I love taking an evening walk around my neighborhood and seeing the orange glimmer of jack o'lanterns on people's front porches, their eerie grins adding just a touch of the unknown to my boring run-of-the-mill life in suburbia.

Who else loves Halloween out there? Is it still cool to like this holiday? I was raised a Methodist during a time when "Fall Festivals" were unheard of as a safe and wholesome alternative to that most evil practice known as "trick-or-treating." Far from discouraging Halloween frivolity, my father would dress up as Jason (complete with an actual meat clever or machete, mind you; none of that plastic Wal-Mart crap at our house) and hide in various closets around the house until he could leap out and add several more months to my tenure in therapy. My mother would wear a witch wig and long fingernails so she could sit on the front porch and cackle at everyone who loitered in our front lawn. These are the people who let me watch An American Werewolf in London when I was three. I come from odd stock...

Anyway, at the risk of sounding too much like a bumper sticker, blog if you love Halloween. And let me know what I should be this year; right now, it's a toss-up between George Harrison and Victor Frankenstein.