Darren Endymion's Blog, page 26

Scattered Randomness

It has been a hell of a week/month, folks, and it has all left me scattered and clinging to what I can control and trying to rid myself of what I cannot.

1) First, we have work, always a bane to my soul. The karma I so gleefully described earlier did come about, but since management seems to be afraid of the harpy who had it coming to her, they have made the covetous shrew my back up and presumably my replacement should I leave. (http://darrenendymion.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/karma-comin-round-the-bend/) Let her have it. That brings me to…

2) Getting the hell out. For some time I have been talking about uprooting myself and going to another job and state. It is no longer just talk. I have updated my resume and am currently tossing in some magic keywords. I am planning a trip (alone) to the desired state later this month. This is terrifying, but not wholly unexpected. However, something has been suffering…

3) My writing has limped and is lying flat. I have so much on my mind right now that I can’t focus. Not only that, but the imaginary city the story takes place in is based on the city I want to move to. Further, it lacked life and was this limpid, flat, lifeless thing. I needed to correct that, but stuff got in the way. Namely…

4) One of my parents is dying from cancer at a remarkably young age. I am not close to this parent; to describe our relationship as estranged is being generous. Still, after debating the hypocrisy of it all, I have contacted this person and just talked. **Massive spoiler for American Horror Story: Coven** Having recently rewatched the last episode of Coven, I was struck by an exchange between Cordelia and her dying mother, Fiona. Cordelia is crying and Fiona gently mocks her tears. Cordelia came back with something that made me nearly weep because it is perfect. She says, “I’m not crying over you. I’m crying for ME. You were the monster in every one of my closets. A lifetime spent either trying to prove myself to you, get close to you, or get away from you. I am crying for the girl in me who dies when you die.” I’m not a little girl and never was, but the sentiment still stands. **End spoiler** I don’t regret forming a bond this late in the game, hypocrisy aside, but something from my childhood was forever lost, and when my parent passes, that will go, too. However, that time is not as close as I was led to believe and there is room for a bond, should we desire that.

5) To end this on a happier/inane/junior high school note, the Prince Charming/pig-launching scientist I mentioned several entries ago (http://darrenendymion.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/insecurity-through-beauty/) is refusing to go back into the shadows where he normally lurks. Usually I would see him maybe once every 2-3 months. I have seen him 5 times in the past three weeks. Random coincidences, training, seeing him in the hall, talking with him, seeing him peer at me from the corner of his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking, my friends catching him looking when I’m not paying attention, another friend making me snort by saying that if she were me, he would be on a rotisserie and drizzled in honey, etc. I. Am. An. Idiot. I wouldn’t know where to go from here. What if he IS interested? He’s not making a move in front of his coworkers and I’m definitely not in front of mine. WTF? We’re adults. Does this ever get easier? So, I’m Eeyore, knowing it will never happen, but wondering what if.

Every one of my coworkers thinks he’s strikingly beautiful…all but one. That one said, “No, not at all. He looks like that boy Gelfling from The Dark Crystal.” So, I said, “Then I’m a Skeski ready to drain his vital essence!”

Dirty birdy.

 

10 Days of Halloween – Halloween/H20

1 – Halloween / H20

You had to know this was coming, right? Well, at the risk of being totally predictable, I present you with the final day of my 10 Days of Halloween. It has been fun, even if only one or two people enjoyed it as much as I did…or at all. *giggle* As I have plans for the rest of the week, I will wish everyone a happy Halloween, and I will be back on Monday. Now, let’s get to business, shall we?

Halloween is an undisputed classic. Its legacy has survived for a billion years and will always be seen as a pinnacle, something every slasher movie aspires to be: low-budget, made all the money available in the world, and stands the test of time.

The story is simple. We start with a child, one Michael Myers, killing his older sister for no goddamned reason. Years later he escapes to wreck havoc and death on his childhood home town as his psychiatrist tracks him down. A nice young girl and her friends get in Michael’s way and pay the price for it.

And Michael does the most terrifying sit-up ever.

Michael Myers is so terrifying because he says nothing, seemingly has no motive, can’t be stopped, and (of course) that mask. I think the mask is so terrifying (as opposed to Jason’s hockey mask) because it is a human face. Stark white, emotionless, expressionless, it betrays nothing. It’s human, yet totally alien. The horror is that behind it is not a monster, but rather another human — evil, corrupt, insane — but human. Jason, Freddy, Pinhead…they are all monsters, looking totally abnormal and disgusting under it all. Not Michael.

As the story continues, the one survivor, Laurie Strode, is actually Michael’s baby sister who was adopted out after Michael’s childhood crime. He hates his family so much, apparently, that he wants them dead. (Don’t pretend you can’t sympathize.)

Or he just wants to read Laurie a bedtime story…after a game of hide and seek.

One could see Michael as a protector. Annie was a total bitch who needed to die. Linda was nicer, but ultimately going down a rocky path filled with booze, sex, and probably teenage pregnancy. But that’s reaching. He was insane.

20 years later, Michael resurfaces to terrorize Laurie and her son, where they are in hiding from the probably dead Michael. H20 parallels the original Halloween wonderfully and is the ultimate climax to the series. (Everyone sensible pretends that Halloween: Resurrection doesn’t exist. It was a cheap way out and shouldn’t have ever been made).

Brother and sister. A family reunion.

The victim becomes the aggressor, the series wraps up, and we have a worthy addition to the Halloween legacy.

Halloween remains simple, stays true to its roots, and still delivers chills. Nightmare on Elm Street jumped the shark early on (culminating in the wretched video game scene. Ugh.) Hellraiser got stupid after the second movie. Friday the 13th was magical and special all along (though at least it tried to be scary for four whole movies). They all have their places, but to me, Halloween is the biggest, brightest jewel in the resplendent crown.

One thing about Halloween which cannot be overstated is the impact of the simple music. It’s not grand on the scale of Lord of the Rings, but it’s simple and evokes fear, effective dread, and — for those of us with severe Halloweenitis — a wash of nerdy, geeky happiness. The whole movie does this and I’m excited to watch it for the thousandth time.

Totally.

10 Days of Halloween – Paranormal Activity

2 – Paranormal Activity

Remember, I have put these movies in no particular order. I don’t think that Paranormal Activity is better than The Exorcist or Evil Dead. I wanted to have a mixture of old and new movies, and so here we are.

I saw the first two Paranormal Activity movies in the theater with a bunch of screaming teenagers. I want you to know it wasn’t by choice; to quote Animaniacs, “Teenagers should be locked away until they’re thirty.” It was just a horror that happened to rush in as my friends and I were watching the movie. They were loud, obnoxious, talking after the scares, screaming more, etc. On one hand, it was cool to see an audience so into it. On the other, I wanted to hose them all down with wet cement to shut them up.

Get the cement mixer.

One of the tenants of horror, one which lamentably seems to be almost  forgotten, is that it’s scarier if you don’t see the monster right away, or at all. Remember the good Nightmare on Elm Street movies? The first one was awesome and terrifying because you almost never saw Freddy full on. Freddy in the second one, while not up to the quality of the first, was still somewhat scary. It wasn’t until the third movie and we saw him full on that we started to not be that scared of him. (And the famous line from #3, “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” while hilarious, paved the way for the series to become comedic.) Many other movies have used this sort of horror tease to scare the hell out of us. Anyone can slap a costume on some poor schmo and be done with it.

Paranormal Activity went for total creep factor, and ultimately, you never saw any great, hulking monster. You heard, you saw Katie stand and hover and get pulled, you saw a shadow, you heard someone walk up the stairs, you heard a thump, you saw footprints appear out of nowhere.

I seriously would have to kill her. No questions asked.

It was that you saw nothing. There wasn’t a monster. You couldn’t fight it. It didn’t materialize into a monster you should shoot in the head. It pulled you, it terrorized you, it tortured you, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. It was like fighting smoke in the dark. The movie messed with your imagination. Flaming Ouija board and all.

I would also kill my boyfriend if he brought this in.

The audience was tense, on the edge of our seats, terrified. The second one was less so, and took a long time to build. The third was better (and had the cutest guy of the three. Coincidence? Probably not.). The fourth was subpar, and I haven’t seen the most recent one yet. I shall.

My friend slept with the light on for two weeks. She wasn’t alone. It freaked people out, and the imaginations of the world decided to collectively cause us insomnia. I thought opening my door would find me face to face with…nothing. Nothing that could be seen, anyway, but something which would nonetheless pull me out of my room and down the stairs, pissing myself the entire way.

Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same.

10 Days of Halloween – The Evil Dead

3 – The Evil Dead

I love the original Evil Dead, so when I heard there was going to be a remake (no, I don’t mean The Evil Dead 2), I was a little skeptical. It wasn’t as bad as when I heard that Halloween was being remade, where I was flinging poo and bile (but eventually liked it), but I wasn’t sure why it should happen at all.

The original Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are campy, gory, gross, comedic (well, #2 was), and great fun. Bless Bruce Campbell. The man is not afraid of getting dirty. Remember how I mentioned that messed up voices freak me out? Yeah, that was the case with the first one. When I first saw it, it freaked my little ass out!

Good times.

I fully intended to see the remake of The Evil Dead on DVD because, as I experienced with Halloween, some remakes can be good. Instead, a friend of mine was going through a bad depression, as it was approaching the anniversary of her husband’s death. She hates scary movies because they scare the hell out of her very, very easily. So several of us got together and decided to take her to a horror movie to get her mind off it. We decided on The Evil Dead remake…and we scored. Most importantly, my friend wasn’t sad and didn’t think about her husband even once. She was too busy being horrified…because we held her hands and wouldn’t let her cover her eyes.

She looked a bit like this, actually.

The movie was a bit more bloody and violent than I expected, though I don’t know what I was expecting. I have to say that I hate torture porn. I liked the premise of Hostel, but the first 45 minutes was like soft core porn. Tits everywhere and not one single shot of Jay Hernandez’s ass. What the hell, man?! The rest was just torture and a gross out. It’s cheap and I don’t like it.

Evil Dead is horrifying, torturous, and terrible things happen. The first one was the same. In this one, a drug addict is trying to ditch the habit by going to a remote cabin and going cold turkey. They find a book made out of flesh encased in garbage bags and barbed wire. Somehow, the cute blond scholar guy decides this is the kind of book he wants to open and read aloud in the cabin. A little nighttime read. Dumb ass. The evil dead possesses the former drug addict and it just gets awesome. Horror, torture, tongue-splitting, nail guns, meat saws, vomit, and a rather tepid shower. You think it’s going to mirror the original with a different cast…but it doesn’t. It’s new enough for a viewing.

Tongue piercing: the home version.

The remake was amazing. I didn’t expect to like it much, but it was quite amazing. My friend eventually calmed down and returned to her grief, but remembering the movie would snap her out of it. The real lesson, other than that everyone should see the Evil Dead remake, is that horror heals and alleviates heartbreak. Therefore, Evil Dead can be considered therapy.

Pass it along to your ailing friends. They will thank you from the asylum.

10 Days of Halloween – The Exorcist I / III

4 – The Exorcist/The Exorcist III

I considered all sorts of movies for today, and most of them revolved around possession: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Exorcist, The Last Exorcism, etc. I decided I was going to do The Exorcist, but decided at the last minute to do the only decent sequel, The Exorcist III, based off William Peter Blatty’s book, Legion. Legion was a very good book and I enjoyed it totally. It dragged a bit with Kinderman’s constant soliloquies on religion, life, and morality, but they were good thoughts and so I got through it.

As we know, The Exorcist is a classic, still widely considered to be the scariest movie of all time. I have seen it so many times that I am largely desensitized to it, though the book can still scare the crap out of me. The dialogue in the movie, when taken out of context, is hilariously dirty. When put in context, it’s kind of frightening, even now. Watching it in the dark and alone will still freak me out. Listening to the audio book (expertly read by the author) at night…well, I have stopped trying to do that, as I prefer my pants remain unsoiled. It involves the possession of a pretty young girl, Regan, and the priests who try to help her, Karras and Merrin. It’s sort of a medical loop, as they try to prove what we all know — Regan is the unwilling bitch of the demon Pazuzu. It ends…happy and sad. There are deaths, yet the friendship between Karras and detective Kinderman (who is investigating a related murder), lives on between Kinderman and Father Dyer.

Your host for The Exorcist III

The Exorcist III picks up several years later with Father Dyer and Kinderman going out to a movie on the anniversary of Damien Karras’ death. Kinderman is brooding over a murder spree currently going on. There are some peculiarities and patterns which would not be out of place in a Hannibal Lecter novel or an Alex Kava crime mystery. All these killings follow the same pattern. A familiar pattern. The hows and whys are the meat of the story, but a great deal of the supernatural and demonic intrudes.

I don’t think The Exorcist III got its fair chance. After the snooze fest that was part two, nobody was interested. Blatty got to direct Legion, but they didn’t think it would do well without the “Exorcist” part of the title. The studios renamed it and made Blatty throw in an exorcism at the end to fit with the theme. Even so, it was very interesting and kind of terrifying. Parts of it still give me the chills.

There is one scene (pictured above) that literally made my friend scream, made me jump almost out of my chair, and gave us both goosebumps. It’s the most effective scare in the movie and several better horror films could learn from the technique. If you have to do a slow build/boring ramp, and then something like a jump scare, this is how it’s done. Take notes, kiddies.

10 Days of Halloween – The Conjuring

5 – The Conjuring

Clearly, I am on a certain kick now: Ed and Lorraine Warren. I’m reading The Demonologist, watching and listening to the audiobook for Amityville, and now we have The Conjuring. Remember yesterday when I was mentioning how I read? If I really want to creep myself out, I read on my stomach, in the dark, with scary music playing. Remember also how I have been lamenting that scary movies no longer have the impact they used to? In the dark, reading about Annabelle the doll, with the theme from The Shining playing on my iPod…I freaked myself out. I had to turn on the light and change the track list on my iPod….and then turn off the light again. I wanted to be a little bit scared.

This poster should do it.

The story of Annabelle is told at the beginning of The Conjuring. As I’m sure everyone now knows, Annabelle was in reality a Raggedy Ann doll who, if the Warrens are to be believed, was manipulated by a demon, or an inhuman spirit. For the sake of The Conjuring and Annabelle, they used the creepiest, ugliest doll to ever be created. She moved around, sat here and there, knelt when it wasn’t possible for her to kneel, etc. When the owners of the doll got freaked out, they called a medium. The medium said there was the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle who was playing with the doll and wanted to stay with them. The brain dead infants saw nothing wrong with this and invited this spirit to inhabit the doll. They can be partially forgiven, as The Exorcist was not out when this incident occurred. But who in their right goddamned mind would want the spirit of a little girl (or ANYthing) living in a doll in their house?

The real Annabelle. She comes into your house and watches you sleep.

The Warrens intervened and moved on with their lives. Then we have the Perrons, who moved into a farmhouse and are terrorized, abused, clapped at, and eventually possessed by an evil spirit or entity named Bathsheba. The movie makes it seem like it happened over the course of a few days, but it was some time. And to live in that much terror? No thank you!

I was reading the trivia for The Conjuring on IMDB and the MPAA said that no amount of editing would make the movie have a PG-13 rating. Not because of sex or blood or gore, but because the movie was too damned terrifying. One of the things I loved about The Conjuring (besides the fact that it actually scared me) was that it was a slow building terror. Jump-scares are the lame sparrows of the horror world — common, cheap, and ultimately disappointing. The Conjuring had one or two, but for the most part, it was slow, allowing the horror to linger, to ripen, and to develop. There was a constant sense of dread during that movie. The ball gently tossed out from the pile of rubbish. Bethsheba and Annabelle in the chair, slowly looking at the little girl. The clapping from the wardrobe when nobody was in there. Things like that allowed this movie to stand out where Annabelle did not. I liked Annabelle, but I didn’t expect it to be The Conjuring all over again. It was hammered together for profit and included almost nothing but jump-scares (though the demon holding Annabelle was very creepy).

Bethsheba wants a kiss. *leap*

And that’s why The Conjuring is the movie for today. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out (but likely not reading this anyway). It, along with Insidious, are two of the greatest recent horror movies. Ed and Lorraine Warren were either magnificent frauds, or brave souls, because I would not go in that damned house. And I certainly wouldn’t have a demonic Raggedy Ann doll in my basement.

10 Days of Halloween – The Amityville Horror

6 – The Amityville Horror

I am currently reading The Demonologist about Ed and Lorraine Warren, the renowned paranormal investigators. They rationally and calmly discuss all these phenomena as though it would not scare the piss out of anyone. They do make a distinction between ghosts (spirits of people who once roamed the planet), and the inhuman (demons, or malefic entities capable of great strength and greater malice). Ed and Lorraine Warren have been popularized by a fantastic movie titled The Conjuring.

There is a huge, raging debate (which will never be solved) about whether or not the Amityville story was a hoax. Some people say that it was cooked up over bottles of wine, others point to the fact that George and Kathleen Lutz both passed polygraph tests. Still others point to the fact that when Ed and Lorraine Warren went to the house to hold a seance (which was, by their own admission, a failure), there were no children in the house, yet this photo was taken:

Frankly, for this purpose, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. It could be a total hoax, or it could be 100% real. Frankly, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. However, it makes a damn good story.

The story is that a family was murdered in this large house in Amityville. The oldest son went through and systematically murdered his entire family with a shotgun. Everyone was lying on their stomachs, none of them woke, there were no drugs in their systems, and none of the neighbors heard anything. This all really happened. Where the book and ensuing movie picks up is when a family moves into this house and is terrorized by flies, voices, smells, moving objects, the front door being blown off its hinges, etc. Horror ensues. And the house has eyes.

And these eyes are watching you.

As we learn in The Demonologist, religious imagery and artifacts will provoke an inhuman spirit. Remember when George and Kathleen try to bless the house and Kathy ends up with blisters on her hands and face? Remember the poor priest who tries to bless the house? You get a pissed off house-demon. The flies were bad enough. The whispering/screaming voice? Too much. “Get OOOOOOUT!”

I’m out! I will shout to the children as I’m fleeing down the stairs, hoping sincerely that they join me, but I will most certainly get the hell out. Remember Poltergeist when the house is being eaten and the older sister is standing there shrieking like an idiot? Little toothy Robbie screams, “Leave her, dad! Leave her!” I would be the same way. When the Lutz family finally get the hell out, George goes back for the dog. It was a sweet dog, very cute, and it would be remembered fondly when I was at the pet store looking for a replacement pooch. Just like Jones the cat from Alien. I love animals; I think they are life-affirming bundles of happy, but I am not going back into the waiting arms of a xenomorph or Jody the purple pig to collect them. If they were smart — and animals are generally smarter about this stuff than we “logical” humans — they would have fled earlier.

Yeah, it looks cheesy, but if you saw a demonic floating pig, I’m certain you wouldn’t go back either.

The movie is good stuff, if you take into account the time period it was made in. Still, it’s worth your time. The book, though…the book still scares the hell out of me. I don’t know why. Lying in bed on my stomach reading (as I normally do), I always think something is creeping up behind me — or worse — hovering over me. It’s not available on Kindle or eBook format, and the author was overly fond of exclamation points, but it’s worth getting a physical copy, reading it, and then reading The Demonologist. And wearing a diaper.

Just in case there really is something behind you.

10 Days of Halloween – The Fog

7 – The Fog

Few of these movies are Halloween-centric, but are rather some of my favorites that I decided to share. Today’s slot almost went to Rosemary’s Baby (“What have you done to its EYES?!”), but since I just upgraded to Blu-ray on The Fog, I watched it instead. It’s preeeeetty! The colors are vibrant, the picture is clear, Adriene Barbeau’s hair blows in the wind, and all it good with the world. It’s absolutely gorgeous. A nearly perfect transfer that makes it look like it was only made a few years ago.

Also inspiring my choice was that one of my best friends recently went to a screening of Halloween in L.A. where Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter were giving interviews and taking audience questions. John Carpenter is responsible for some classics, and you would think that being directed by him, even in retrospect, would be a geek’s dream come true. My friend said that Jamie Lee had a story about being directed in The Fog by John Carpenter. Remember the intense scene where the fog is coming at them in the truck and they have to turn and screech away, speeding from their doom? Jamie Lee Curtis said that Mr. Carpenter was essentially whispering at them like a bored AM radio newscaster. In a soft, low, calm, quiet voice he would say something like, “The fog is rolling in. You’re scared. It’s coming toward you. It’s getting closer. You have to get away from it. It’s getting closer.” During the questioning she apparently laughed and said, “Are you fucking kidding me? Direction by John Carpenter, ladies and gentleman.”

“The fog is coming towa…” *snooooore* — Direction by John Carpenter

So, the story of The Fog (spoiler alert…for a movie made in 1980) is essentially that a hundred years ago a bunch of assholes didn’t want a leper colony near them, so took the lepers’ gold, turned out their guiding lights in a fog, and allowed the approaching leper ship to crash on the rocks, killing everyone inside (this scene is the ONLY reason to watch the 2005 remake, by the way). On the town’s 100th anniversary, an unnatural fog comes in and the dead lepers return for revenge. I believe there were six original conspirators (I might have made that up), so the misty corpses claim that six must die. Not the ancestors of the original conspirators…just anyone. Some guy on a ship, a transient, an old lady, the town drunk, someone visiting from out of town, a DJ, a puppy, the Pillsbury Doughboy, doesn’t matter. Six people are gonna get it from glowing-eyed demons emerging from the serial killer fog.

The cast was like a mash up of several other horror movies. You have Annie (“I have a place for thaaaaat.”) and Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) from Halloween; Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother, Janet Leigh (from Psycho); Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, and Tom Atkins from Creepshow; and a brief appearance by George “Buck” Flower from many things, but most importantly from one of my personal favorite camp movies, Cheerleader Camp.

These people and more. Nice cover art, though.

Some of it is creepy, but it doesn’t inspire the same chills or horror in me that it once did. Alas, not much does. But it’s fun to watch and a good movie besides. There is a creeping sense of dread, and part of you indicates that it’s only fog…but what about what’s IN the fog?

*whispering* “The fog is rolling in. You’re scared. It’s getting closer…”

10 Days of Halloween – Hocus Pocus

8 – Hocus Pocus

Before we continue into real horror movies — and because it’s a Monday and those are scary enough —  I thought we would stop off in 1993 in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is primarily known for the horror of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and 1693, famous partly because they took place so long after the bulk of the witch hunting had petered out, from 1400 to about 1700 (this being one of the last). I find it sad that such a beautiful place is besmirched by a little over a year in time. For the hell of it, I present you with a picture stolen from a travel site, highlighting autumn in Salem.

This is their autumn, and I’m currently looking at a week of temps in the high 80s. *bitter and struck by beauty all at once*

Now that we have dispensed with the obligatory historical context, we get into one of the best and most beloved Halloween movies of our time, Hocus Pocus. Anyone with an inkling of sanity and taste who isn’t a religious nutjob can at least see that this movie is cute and does what it’s supposed to – entertain. It’s fun, funny, cheesy, overacted, and totally fantastic. It has a huge cult following, and it’s beloved by many.

Apparently, the critics hated it — it still sits at a meager 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. To put that into perspective, the average score for all five Twilight films is 39.8% (in order of release: 49, 28, 49, 24, and 49, in case you care). Think about that. Hocus Pocus, one of the cutest and most beloved Halloween movies is rated lower than the Twilight hackery — a universally panned and reviled series (despite the millions and millions of teen girls’ money it leeched right out of their pockets).

The movie is about three sister witches whose essence-sucking shenanigans would make the Skeksis go out and take a Potions class. They snatch a little girl, suck out her youth, get caught, and are killed. (It would be very dark were it not a Disney movie.) Before being hanged, a toothy Bette Midler curses Salem, saying that when a virgin lights the black flame candle on a full moon on Halloween, the sisters will come back to terrorize Salem. That’s a lot of stipulations to put on your own resurrection, but I assume the pressure of imminent death led Winnifred to babble out whatever she could to buy her and her sisters another few moments of life. Said events finally occur in 1993 (300 years after their hanging), mayhem ensues, the witches make some poor decisions based on revenge, and all the viewers with good taste are happy. (Seriously, though, Winnifred. You have like 100 children at your door. Suck their essences and then torture the insult-hurling Thora Birch at your leisure. You’re pressed for time and you’re up against children. This shouldn’t be difficult.)

There is a chase, the all-important search for a magic book, Bette Midler singing “I Put a Spell on You”, a delightfully brain-dead Sarah Jessica Parker (“Amok! Amok-amok-amok!), and Kathy Najimy abusing her nether regions with a vacuum (“We fly…*nervous giggle*…on what?). There are cute kids who grew up to be disturbingly letch-worthy adults (my advice is to not watch this if you have seen American Beauty in the past 30 days). There’s an occasionally headless zombie, a dance-till-you-die costume party, a brief French language lesson, and more fun than you should be allowed to have as an adult watching a kid’s Halloween movie. Bette Midler has said that this was the movie she has enjoyed making the most. If, during the Halloween season, you need a break from the nonstop horror movies, this is a good one to pop in, along with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

As a side note, if you find yourself wondering if it’s worth it to upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray, my advice is to do it. First, it’s super cheap (currently $12 for the DVD/Blu-ray combo). Second, the transfer is good and the movie looks great. Third, why not? If you’re this far, you probably like the movie enough to consider it.

As Winnifred reminded us when she, Mary, and Sarah recovered from being burned alive: Bonjour! Je veux mon livre!

10 Days of Halloween – day 8, Hocus Pocus

8 – Hocus Pocus

Before we continue into real horror movies — and because it’s a Monday and those are scary enough —  I thought we would stop off in 1993 in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is primarily known for the horror of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and 1693, famous partly because they took place so long after the bulk of the witch hunting had petered out, from 1400 to about 1700 (this being one of the last). I find it sad that such a beautiful place is besmirched by a little over a year in time. For the hell of it, I present you with a picture stolen from a travel site, highlighting autumn in Salem.

This is their autumn, and I’m currently looking at a week of temps in the high 80s. *bitter and struck by beauty all at once*

Now that we have dispensed with the obligatory historical context, we get into one of the best and most beloved Halloween movies of our time, Hocus Pocus. Anyone with an inkling of sanity and taste who isn’t a religious nutjob can at least see that this movie is cute and does what it’s supposed to – entertain. It’s fun, funny, cheesy, overacted, and totally fantastic. It has a huge cult following, and it’s beloved by many.

Apparently, the critics hated it — it still sits at a meager 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. To put that into perspective, the average score for all five Twilight films is 39.8% (in order of release: 49, 28, 49, 24, and 49, in case you care). Think about that. Hocus Pocus, one of the cutest and most beloved Halloween movies is rated lower than the Twilight hackery — a universally panned and reviled series (despite the millions and millions of teen girls’ money it leeched right out of their pockets).

The movie is about three sister witches whose essence-sucking shenanigans would make the Skeksis go out and take a Potions class. They snatch a little girl, suck out her youth, get caught, and are killed. (It would be very dark were it not a Disney movie.) Before being hanged, a toothy Bette Midler curses Salem, saying that when a virgin lights the black flame candle on a full moon on Halloween, the sisters will come back to terrorize Salem. That’s a lot of stipulations to put on your own resurrection, but I assume the pressure of imminent death led Winnifred to babble out whatever she could to buy her and her sisters another few moments of life. Said events finally occur in 1993 (300 years after their hanging), mayhem ensues, the witches make some poor decisions based on revenge, and all the viewers with good taste are happy. (Seriously, though, Winnifred. You have like 100 children at your door. Suck their essences and then torture the insult-hurling Thora Birch at your leisure. You’re pressed for time and you’re up against children. This shouldn’t be difficult.)

There is a chase, the all-important search for a magic book, Bette Midler singing “I Put a Spell on You”, a delightfully brain-dead Sarah Jessica Parker (“Amok! Amok-amok-amok!), and Kathy Najimy abusing her nether regions with a vacuum (“We fly…*nervous giggle*…on what?). There are cute kids who grew up to be disturbingly letch-worthy adults (my advice is to not watch this if you have seen American Beauty in the past 30 days). There’s an occasionally headless zombie, a dance-till-you-die costume party, a brief French language lesson, and more fun than you should be allowed to have as an adult watching a kid’s Halloween movie. Bette Midler has said that this was the movie she has enjoyed making the most. If, during the Halloween season, you need a break from the nonstop horror movies, this is a good one to pop in, along with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

As a side note, if you find yourself wondering if it’s worth it to upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray, my advice is to do it. First, it’s super cheap (currently $12 for the DVD/Blu-ray combo). Second, the transfer is good and the movie looks great. Third, why not? If you’re this far, you probably like the movie enough to consider it.

As Winnifred reminded us when she, Mary, and Sarah recovered from being burned alive: Bonjour! Je veux mon livre!