everyday is halloween!

 house on haunted hill [1999]

there is a look, a style, an aesthetic in these old movies from the late 1990s/early 2000s that i didn't appreciate when they were current & oh so new.  but with a perspective of a couple of decades, with the '20s as we observe them now, there was a sheen to this turn of the millennium horror films that define their era.  a slickness of production, certainly.  a kind of mad haunted house design too.  a cast of very pretty people as well wearing the coolest clothes.  the lighting & editing too that screams of a style so common to films of the late '90s.  you gotta see 'em to get 'em!  

but you might wonder why this remake rather than the original william castle pic?  as much as i love castle's movies i have a hankering for that turn of the millennium vibe so well executed by this remake.  a haunted house movie par excellence.  here goes: geoffrey rush is a madman millionaire theme park owner cum designer.  he's been trying to murder - why? - his wife, played by famke janssen.  & the best way to kill her is to invite a few people to her birthday party in a former insane asylum that's been shuttered since the 1930s when the inmates took over & killed the staff.

oh boy!  but the asylum has its own plans.  somehow it hacks into rush's email & sends out RSVPs to a group of strangers that include taye diggs, ali larter & peter gallagher among others.  why them?  because the house wants revenge & will take it out on the relatives of those that had once done harm to the long dead insane asylum patients.  so far so good.  oh yes, rush's character offers each of these invitees 1 million dollars - i feel the need to put my pinky to my lips & laugh maniacally a la dr. evil in the austin powers movies - if they can survive the night in the asylum now house.

well now, we get ghosties, creepies, ghoulies, & all other sorts of nasties that torment our guests.  this was a time in horror movies when one of the creepies, to prove how fucked up they were, would violently spin their head in a fast blur while everything else in the frame stayed still.  creeeeepy!  at any rate, this is a fun film for the Spooky Season directed by william malone, from a script by dick beebe [original story credited to robb white] & with fx by gregory nicotero et al.  

& but who survives?  the house?  one or two of the guests?  the hosts?  does it matter since we are all in for a treat of a movie that asks us to drop all our conceits & critical acumen, grab a beer or two, maybe smoke a bowl as well, & a big bucket of popcorn & strap in for the ride.  yes, this halloween movie is that much fun!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

i love a good trailer.  hell, the reason i watched the academy awards when i was a wee lad was because they would show excerpts from the movies.  i really didn't care for who won what.  i wanted to watch movie clips.  even more so going to the movies, before the internet, before cable TV shows that featured movie trailers, was the pure joy of watching them at the theater.  so, it is my pleasure to post the OG dracula [1931] trailer below in observance of the high holiday.  the picture is muddied & dark.  but little beats the ways it is designed & executed.  old trailers like this one just hit me right in the heart.  i'm on record, somewhere, stating that i am not a hardcore fan of vampire lore.  but c'mon!  bela lugosi as the eponymous bloodsucker & the movie masterfully directed by tod browning!  woo boy!  this is a fucking film!  

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 give me your souls, ok?

boo!

everyday is halloween!

the great punk rock&roll band the ramones don't want to be buried in a Pet Semetary.  neither do i!  this song fucking rocks!  hail to the ramones & to stephen king, author of the titular novel, & a big fan of the ramones!  nine bows to my brother from another mother, jonathan hayes, who today reminded me of this awesomeness of this song.  a great tune for the Spooky Season!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 ginger snaps [2000]

this is a werewolve film!  after suffering the trauma of watching the frank grillo werewolf movie i was hankering for other movies that featured creatures, great & small, that are hairy, fangy & hungry.  this movie plays all the delicious notes.  i've been aware of this film for nearly 26 years.  i've seen the DVD boxes on store shelves.  i've seen the thumbnail of the poster on movie websites.  but finally, after all these years, i sit down & watch this movie with absolute delight.  

it goes like this.  the fitzgerald sisters, bridgette & ginger, 15 & 16 repectively, live in the suburbs of ontario.  social misfits both they are bound to each other by a shared love of the macabre & violence & death.  often they will create bloody violent scenarios, horror movie style, & photograph each other in these scenes.  scenes of murder & chaos.  they even present these photos as a slideshow for a school assignment that freaked out their teacher.  the girls also made pact.  to die by the age of 16, together, if they have not left their boring suburb.  

another major detail. the sisters do not want to participate in the expected roles of teens girls created by our society.  they do not want to date.  they do not want their bodies changed.  they do not want to become their parents.  they are, in fact, by these round rejections, quite ordinary human beings.  be that is it may, on the day of ginger's first period, proof that she, whether she excepts it or no, is changing she also survives a werewolf attack.  thus, ginger's mental, emotional & physical changes move at warp speed.  ginger's body becomes wolf-like in every respect.  but her desires are quite human even as they are warped by changing into a wolf. 

rightly hailed as a feminist cult classic, the director, john fawcett, & screenwriter, karen walton, achieve a teen flick of great sensibility & nuance.  the fitzgerald sisters are awkward, strong, scared, scary, & utterly relatable to almost all of us who survived our teen years.  & the bond between the girls is unassailable.  bridgette is loyal almost to a fault.  even going so far as to try to become a werewolf herself.  but rather than give the plot away i recommend seeing this movie yourself.  the script is fantastic.  the direction is fabulous.  the editing, lighting & photography are superb.  more so are the fitzgerald girls, bridgette & ginger, played with aplomb & finesse by emily perkins & katharine isabelle.  this is one helluva werewolf movie!

boo! 

everyday is halloween!

 werewolves [2024]

where to begin.  clicking thru a streaming service for something to watch i come across this flick about a pandemic of werewolves starring frank grillo.  i am a grillo fan.  i think this dude is underappreciated & under used in horror & action pics.  he has a sinewy strength & a face with rugged, handsome features & great hair to boot.  so when i watched the trailer i thought, why the fuck not.

when i hit the play button on my remote is when things went south.  you see, this movie takes place a year after the werewolf pandemic.  the cause was a supermoon that turned everyone, i think, exposed to moonlight into a hairy howler bent on ripping apart any living thing.  around a billion people perished.  the world is still rebuilding.  another supermoon is forecast.  everyone who can is hardening their homes.  including grillo, who is, i think, a molecular biologist who helped develop a kind of vaccine against the effects of the supermoon light, called, get this, moonscreen.  i shit you not.  grillo's sister-in-law & niece, who lost their soldier husband/father in last year's pandemic, batten down the hatches with grillo's help while he trots off to the CDC.

lou diamond phillips plays the CDC director.  three volunteer test subjects, all survivors cuz they got the scars to prove it, of the werewolf pandemic, agree to get chained up & locked into tiny cells to test the vaccine administered as a body spray.  of course, shit goes sideways & the test subjects turn into hairy monsters to escape & cause mayhem!  that's when grillo, along with his colleague, doctor chen, played by katrina law, whose husband is one of the test subjects, slip off their lab coats, don tactical gear, grab weapons & ammo, body spray on some moonscreen & head out into the night to grillo's family.  

well fuck me.  the world building sucks.  the werewolves look like stunt people wearing oversized dog costumes.  the premise is cool.  a worldwide werewolf pandemic?  sign me the fuck on.  but i guess the budget was too tight to actually show a world where a billion people are murdered by goddamn werewolves.  i love werewolves too.  they are, like grillo in hollywood, underused movie monsters.  they are much more terrifying to me than, say, mummies or even vampires.  but no, the production decided to try to build a world after the initial pandemic & localize the chaos & destruction to a handful of hairy critters & the odd balls roaming the streets either worshipping these creatures, yep, there's a scene where our two scientists cum soldiers fall upon a collection of goofballs lead by a dude wearing a purple boxer's robe, or a militia trying to exterminate them.  

not even the grace of frank grillo can save this flick.  the direction, by steven c. miller, who is no stranger to my beloved horror genre, is muddy & vague.  the script is nearly non-existent.  the lighting & photography are slipshod.  tho the lighting does sometimes achieve a kind of spookiness.  & grillo looks more like an older underwear model, for all the posing he does, sans shirt, than scientist.  blimey.  now, if miller got some decent dinero, a good script, & made a prequel to this movie, where we find our heroes fighting for their lives during the stunned confusion, chaos & strangeness of the initial pandemic, we might get a film.  at any rate, approach this particular pic like you would a large, hairy, fanged-up animal you might find at midnight, under a full moon, with extreme caution.

boo! 

everyday is halloween!

walking thru a haunted land

the plague doctor makes haunted house calls

landed in area 51 1/2

a wild patch of pumpkins

whoa there, mr. bones!

nothing but bones & a haunted dream

into the mystic

boo!

PISS Live at The Windmill

my brother from another mother, jonathan hayes, forwarded me this live performance of punk/noise band PISS from vancouver, bc.  the intro had me at boo.  then the vocalist introduces the band, gives instructions for good vibes & decent behavior in the mosh pit & warning the audience that the band uses language & images in recorded sequences & in their lyrics that may be disturbing for some.  then they go on to rip into glorious noise.  the vocalist, i'm afraid i don't know her name, even after going to their website, is brilliant.  her lyrics are more than just words for songs.  they are fucking manifestos.  her performance is searing & cathartic.  this is punk rock of the highest order & makes this old punk thrill to the noise of a younger generation who is not taking shit with a front woman of considerable power.  

everyday is halloween!

 siriusxm scream radio

yeah, i might be a square to subscribe & listen to satellite radio.  but anna & i are long-time subscribers.  we like radio with DJs & shit.  i also really dig the siriusxm app on my phone.  which i use every day.  there is a shitload of good stuff to be found on the app.  including this annual trick 'r treat, Scream Radio.  it is available only from mid october to halloween.  the short broadcast time of this channel is a bummer.  i would listen to it all year long.  hell, siriusxm has a year-long christmas music channel!  the yacht rock channel was once a summer only broadcast, but it proved too popular so now you can listen to the smooth AOR stylings of boz scaggs & christopher cross any hour of the year.  at any rate, Scream Radio is a potpourri of horror movie soundtracks, scary stories, sound fx etc etc.  which i freaking love!  if you wanna know what Scream Radio sounds like here is a youtube channel that is dutifully recording many of the station's pieces, for which i am eternally grateful, so that we can enjoy these pieces of the most wonderful time of the year, The Spooky Season, all year long, SiriusXM Scream - YouTube.    

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 dia de los muertos

buu!

everyday is halloween!

 the prowler [1981]

speaking of slashers this movie is a prime example of the sub-genre.  solidly directed by joseph zito with a clever-ish script, good editing & lighting & photography, & with a serviceable score.  but even more so is the FX by maestro tom savini with kills that are sudden, violent & gory.  this is a fun kinda stabby pic that is proof that slashers can attain the level of good trashy art.

who is 'the prowler?'  well, the movie starts with a 1945 newsreel of WWII G.I.s returning home from a long exhausting war to their families & their sweethearts.  except for one soldier who gets a deer john letter from his girl, rosemary, while he was overseas.  forward to a college graduation dance in the california coastal town of avalon where rosemary with her new beau leave the dance to neck on the water's edge.  this is when things get gooey.  a dude decked out in army fatigues, boots, gloves, helmet, long knife, &, get this, a pitchfork, & masked, pierces rosemary & boyfriend to death in mid-smooch.

fast-forward 35 years.  it is now 1980 & the college in avalon is having its first graduation dance since the horrible murders happened in 1945.  the killer is still at large.  indeed, we see him getting all kitted out for a solid night of murders.  & boy does he!  still, the filmmaker throws us a red herring or two to keep us guessing the identity of the prowler.  not in a great murder mystery kinda way but enough to keep the story's engine running.  nevertheless, the deputy sheriff, mark london, played by christopher goutman, is a solid dude who has a deep crush on our final girl, pam macdonald, played with precocity by vicky dawson.  pam & mark make a good team as they race all over avalon to find & stop the killer.

classic hollywood tuff guy lawrence tierney is major chatham, the father of rosemary, in a blink & you might miss him kinda role.  hell, i didn't know that was tierney until i read the credits!  farley granger plays the sheriff of avalon who leaves the movie early to go fishing while leaving deputy mark in charge.  interesting thing about slashers there is rarely any psychological explanations given as to why the killers are all stabby.  or why they prefer knives, & other sharp things, over firearms.  still, this is a sub-genre that is about action rather than reflection or motivation.  except for the flimsiest kind, such as the prowler was dumped by his girlfriend while he was fighting overseas.  he comes home to stab her in a fit of rage.  but why kill a rangy group of relative strangers 35 years later?  because the mis en scene is a graduation dance at the same college?  

why ask why, i suppose.  just let the story take you down its psycho road.  this pic is a very good example of a slasher that hits all its marks with a finesse that is equal to the moods of the Spooky Season.  

boo!

everyday is halloween!

below is legendary horror/exploitation critic/reviewer/actor joe bob briggs giving a short history of the slasher films.  briggs is eloquent as hell but he elides a couple of details regarding the origin of the slasher films, such as not crediting the writer robert bloch who wrote the novel based on the ghoulish crimes of ed gein that was the foundation for hitchock's great flick Psycho [1960].  small detail but it is the details that matter.  at any rate, briggs, acting here as a TV horror host, as well as a historian of horror movies, is fun to listen to.  i have to caution to my own sorta kinda appreciation of the slasher genre.  which was appreciated recently.  i wasn't a great fan of these movies during their original release dates.  cuz they seemed too sexually puritanical & focused on gory kills rather than the rich tapestry of magical storytelling that makes of my beloved horror genre.  still now i can watch slashers as the artifacts of their age.  & sometimes, after a long, stressful day, a movie whose primary construction is to get all kinds of stabby, can be, dare i say it!, cathartic.  put that in our pipes & smoke it!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

'please allow me to introduce myself i'm black cat of wealth & taste.  pleased to meet you hope you guess my name'

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 i got my pumpkin eyes on ya!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 2 clowns down!

boo!

the nobel prize

the newest nobel laureate in literature was announced today & kudos to the novelist, i was obsessed with the prize giving when i was a bit younger, & i don't mean to poo-poo the massive lifetime achievements of its winners, i was quite happy when seamus heaney & tomas transtromer & wislawa szymborsska got the coveted award, & some of the lodestar writers of my life, william faulkner & ernest hemingway, were also laureates of this great honor, but at the risk of sounding jaded & silly, the award means little to me now, cuz some of the most important & critical writers of my life, be it thom gunn or nicanor parra or james schuyler or jim mccrary or tom beckett or jonathan hayes or eileen tabios or jean vengua or mark young or alex gildzen [a few here listed among a great many more who are not only teachers in my life but literally operatives of my life support systems], have not gotten this honor, still & yet the great antipoet parra, who was often on the nobel prize shortlist, opted for another kind of prize from the swedish academy, a prize that i yearn for too, one that might never be created by awarding boards & their trustees, but without it literature simply fails as an art, thus i give you parra's request:

for without readers literature is simply noise, take from parra's antipoem what you will, & in the awarding of the nobel prize in literature in re the spirit of bob dylan's laureateship perhaps next year the swedish academy might consider one of our great filmmakers as a laurate for cinema is literature too

everyday is halloween!

 monsters crash the pajama party [1965]

this short film, made for about a buck & 75 cents, was made to be shown during a Spook Show, a live performance of magic, monsters, thrills, chills & goofiness.  kinda like vaudeville but with monsters & horror gimmicks.  think william castle kinda of gimmicks but for live performances.  the ad campaigns were lurid & goofy.  but could they deliver the goods?  couldn't tell ya for sure since by the time i was alive & conscious enough to want to see such a thing they were already on their way out of popular entertainment.

bummer!  still, something weird video released in 2001 a gorgeous DVD with this flick on it & chock full of cheapie Spook Show trailers, odd horror movie clips, another full-length film & other goodies & easter eggs to make yours truly slightly crazy with happiness.  i still have the DVD but lost the 3D glasses that came with the disc, booklet & artwork.  oh fucking well!  often i'd skip this main feature on the DVD but i just watched it again via a streaming platform & lemmee tell ya watching this movie is a fun slog.

the gist goes like this.  the narrator of this flick, a dude with thick rimmed glasses & a white lab coat monogrammed MAD DOCTOR on it speaks to the audience about the dangers & horrors we are about to experience.  then a group of girls decide to have a pajama party at a haunted house.  their boyfriends dutifully drop them to their nightly abode.  little do the girls know that the MAD DOCTOR who introduced us to this movie is in the basement along with what i think is a witch, a guy in the silliest gorilla suit, & a pair of goons dressed in their monsterest finery.  later, the goons & the gorilla chase down the girls & bring them into the MAD DOCTOR'S lab.  

the gimmick of this flick is HORROR VISION.  what?  HORROR VISION!  a new cinematic technique when the monsters crash the fourth wall with operatives in the theater who grab a real girl sitting in the audience then brings her onscreen.  that must've been something to see!  well, then the girls' boyfriends return to the house, fight off the gorilla & the goons & rescue the girls.  the end!

this is all done tongue-in-cheek & the humor is worn on its sleeve.  this movie runs only about 30 minutes so it doesn't wear out its welcome or its novelty.  it was made to be shown during the live performances of a Spook Show so this pic was not the main attraction.   would it were that i had the opportunity to see this flick in its intended setting!  nevertheless, this movie is easy to find on the interwebs.  a halloween emblem of yore.  

boo!

    

quote unquote

 

--jim mccrary

everyday is halloween!

 waiting for the Great Pumpkin

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 here there be ghosts.  beware!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

chopping mall [1986]

now for some '80s cheese!  this pic has become a comfort movie.  like mom's meatloaf.  whenever i need a dose of calm i watch this film, in bits & pieces, or in its entirety.  how the hell can i explain that?  i can't.  but for the synth score, the adequate acting, the mis en scene (in a SoCal shopping mall, might even be the same mall that other '80s flicks were set, like Valley Girl [1983] & Fast Time at Ridgemont Hgh [1982].  my brother & i visited that mall in the late '80s, the Sherman Oaks Galleria.  it looked so cool onscreen.  a place where dreams & desires are met.  at any rate, it was just a mall.  very 1970s decor & vibe.  c'est la vie!

the gist is this:  murder bots are brought to this mall to patrol & protect the mall afterhours.  this is a Roger Corman production.  indeed, Corman movie posters adorn almost every inch of the walls of this mall.  so we have Corman regulars like Paul Bartel & Mary Woronov, as mr. & mrs. bland, hamming it up in the first few minutes of this movie.  later we are treated to the great character actor, & Corman regular, Dick Miller, as a hapless janitor who is greased by one of these murder bots.  

does this shit make sense?  it's not supposed to!  directed by b-movie stalwart jim wynorski this flick is fast-paced, dumb & fun.  the final girl is kelli maroney [who?] she is better known as one of the cheerleaders in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  maroney does more than a fare job against these robot killlers.  but the fun is watching this movie as a time capsule of days gone by.  malls no longer have hardware stores where survivors can find weapons, ammunition, & fuel.  malls no longer have pet stores with live animals in them.  malls no longer have smoke shops where you can buy tobacco.  malls are no longer the apotheosis of capitalism, a place where you can find anything & everything your heart desires.

still, there are murder bots. or the worry of them.  which is kind of prescient to today's worries of AI & drones.  but don't believe that this is a visionary flick.  it is not.  rather it is a cheapie exploitation flick intent on cashing in on the straight-to-video market.  still, i said this is a mom's meatloaf movie to me & i meant it.  watching this movie is like settling in to bed with your best comforter & pillow while your cats stretch out beside you.  for a horror movie?  yes, indeed.  just like The Spooky Season where one can feel like he or she or they is home again.

if that is not the highest praise i don't know how to praise!

boo! 

quote unquote

 

--sallie tisdale

everyday is halloween!

yep, it is the first full day of the most wonderful time of the year, THE SPOOKY SEASON.  the weather certainly turned cooler with clouds & a chance of rain.  quite autumnal.  despite all the terrible shit going on & around us it is absolutely critically important that we be kind with each other & with ourselves.  that also means taking our pleasures from, & with, the people we love & things that we love.  so in that spirit, & to start out halloweentime, here is a cartoon that breaks in the humor of any creative person - be him/her/they a poet, painter, filmmaker, songwriter, even finishing carpenter et al. - who also went to grad school to get an advanced degree married with the time-honored halloween tradition of trick r' treating! 

boo!

i fucking love this song!

the swirling guitars, the tempo, the melancholic constructive/destructive beauty of youth.  slowdive hits all the notes.  damn this song is both ecstatic & sad.  it is a piece of the many things i want from art.