11 More Days 'Til All Hallows Eve

I never did get to see any Scanners last night. By time I was done with broadcast television I was ready to sit down and start banging out a new short story. I worked until I was tired then I did a little bit of web surfing for some nitty-gritty details to add to the story. I really like to have some crunch to my stories, something that grounds them firmly in reality, gives a connection to the reader, ties parts to the world and the memory of the audience. When I attach a piece of experience to a story I'm betting on twigging something in the reader's head if not actually semi-bonding a part of what I know with what they know. Its easiest to do that with very common things like figures in entertainment, entertainments themselves--books, TV shows, music, etc.--or elements common to all of us that give us a sense of the environment we are a part of each and every day.

I may try again to watch Scanners tonight, or I may not. As much as I'd like to watch thirteen movies for Halloween one a night, the truth of the matter is that I could watch one a night from Labour Day to Christmas and not repeat anything. So, that said let me suggest a few more films. I can certainly endorse another Stan Winston driven horror-fest in the form of “Wrong Turn” a wonderful little film that is many ways a much better modern-day Texas Chainsaw Massacre, minus the chainsaw and I don't think it was Texas, than the TCM remake could ever have be. Wrong Turn is like a nightmare put on a DVD and its a doozy. If you want to see TCM please see the original, you can't beat the classics.

Halloween I find is also a good holiday to cross-pollinate with another holiday, namely Christmas. On that front we have a couple dual goodies. First up is the wide-age audience range, but utterly cool, “Nightmare Before Christmas”. No need to wax poetic on and on for it, it more than sings for itself.

Then we have what I and half of people (apparently) consider a great classic, “Silent Night, Deadly Night”. Oh, I love this film to gory bits! I call it the “Carrie” of slasher films. As if it wasn't an awesome enough movie it also has this great lyrical soundtrack of Christmas songs made specifically for the film, partly because it was a good idea, and partly because no one wanted their Christmas songs in a movie about a killer in a Santa Suit. Hoo-boy did SN,DN cause a ruckus, and a huge backlash. In many ways we're lucky to have this little gem. People all over the place without seeing any of it decided that Santa himself had gone serial killer and they all but cried for the blood of the movie-makers. Oh, word of warning, there are a bunch of SN,DN sequels, the only one I've seen is the second movie and it's shall we say cut from a different cloth, don't watch it unless you like to heckle bad B-movies.

Okay kiddies, one more suggestion for today, I don't want to run out of the best of the best. This one may be a little hard to get a hold of. It's based on a Peter Straub novel, so don't shoot the messenger please, book to film conversion don't sit well with a lot of people. “Ghost Story” is the name of it, and I have the DVD which sadly is very quiet except for a few quite loud parts making it a little hard to watch. Last time I saw it I ran the close captioning to make up for it. I'm unsure who did the special effects but they range from mediocre to absolutely stunning for the final one. The final one I want to call surreal, but really it's almost too real, like being there, and that makes it a real holy **** moment. It was also the film that I'm first to pull out when people used to say things like only nobody's appear in horror films. Here we have a horror, with of all people, dance legend Fred Astaire, in it.

Back again tomorrow with some more suggestions.

Mood: skippy.
Music: Witch Hunt by Stratovarius and Sin by Nine Inch Nails