Halloween is my favorite ‘holiday’. It is not celebrated here in Germany (but of course shops use it to sell candy, and nowadays Halloween party are quite common) and is probably the one thing I wish I had had in my youth. Trick-or-treat, spooky decorations, fog, scary stories, things that go bump in the night, the legend of sleepy hallow, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, ghouls, vampires and zombies.

In the past years I always had a private Halloween movie marathon. This year, I somehow completely lost track of it and so I didn’t borrow or buy any scary movies. I still have a bunch that I have viewed before, we’ll see. I’ll probably spend the entire night working on the NaNoWriMo thing anyway.

I checked my Music collection for all the Halloween-related music I could find. Here’s the result:

• “The Mummy”, Bob McFaddin
• “Monster Mash”, Dr. Demento
• “Werewolves of London”, Warren Zevon
• “Monster”, The Automatics
• “Witchy Woman”, Eagles
• “Halloween (Live at Luther College)”, Dave Matthews Band
• “Haunted”, Type O Negative
• “Season of the Witch”, Blues Brothers
• “The Witch”, The Rattles
• “Queen of Witches”, Kano
• “The Witch Queen of New Orleans”, Leon Redbone
• “Thriller”, Michael Jackson
• “The Tell-tale Heart”, Alan Parsons Project
• “The Raven”, Alan Parsons Project
• “A Dream Within A Dream (Instrumental)”, Alan Parsons Project
• “The Cask of Amontillado”, Alan Parsons Project
• “Halloween (Live)”, Dave Matthews Band
• “The Ghost Song”, White Ghost Shivers
• “Sympathy for the Devil”, The Rolling Stones
• “Ghostriders in the Sky”, The Blues Brothers
• “Ghostbusters”, Ray Parker Jr.
• “Theme to Ghostbusters 2″, Run DMC

That’s all I have, and I don’t really have any additional ideas. Do you know any other music appropriate for Halloween? Please post in a comment.

This is an article from last year, but I didn’t see it then: The BBC asked whether Halloween was too scary after some dim-witted British preacher suggested that the horror theme of Halloween was “too scary for children and adults”:

The Rt Rev David Gillett, the Bishop of Bolton, says the “more horrific” of masks prove too scary for many children. With the Mothers’ Union – a Christian parenting group – Bishop Gillett is backing a campaign called Halloween Choice to promote the lighter side of the festival.

“The emphasis has become so evil and scary, I’ve spoken to children and adults who find it too scary,” he says.

To be fair, the BBC provides opinions to counter the reverend as well. And if anybody objects the commercialization of Halloween – also criticized in the article – then why don’t they take on Valentine’s Day or Christmas first?

Maybe the good Mr. Gillett should get out of the home more and actually live a little. The scary atmosphere is exactly what’s fun about Halloween. I love Halloween: Especially on years when it is foggy. Nothing better to watch some scary old movies with a bowl of orange and brown M&Ms at hand.

What do you think? Is Halloween fun? Too scary? Too commercial? What’s your favorite Halloween activity, or do you never even take notice of it?

It’s October. It’s dark and cold and rainy and you know what that reminded me off? Halloween is coming up again. And like every year, I will get myself some Halloween style candy and watch good movies late at night. Currently on the list for this year:

1. The Thing from Another World – It’s a tradition.
2. The Monolith Monsters – An old 1950s style science-fiction movie.
3. Donnie Darko – A time travel/parallel worlds scary movie.

It’s a work day night so the movie marathon won’t be too long. I will write reviews for The Monolith Monsters and for Donnie Darko afterwards.

The Vactican university is offering study courses in exorcism. Students will learn not only about how to exorcise the devil, but also about psychology and law.

“Because each case of possession is different, each person possessed is different. Those studying to become exorcists should also study psychology and know how to distinguish between a mental illness and a possession.”

I should include The Exorcist in one of my future Halloween Movie Review Marathons.

What movie would be more appropriate to my series of Halloween reviews than, well, the movie “Halloween”. This classic with young “scream queen” Jamie Lee Curtis is probably the best known example of the slasher sub-genre of horror movies.

For those who don’t know the story: 15 years after he killed his older sister, Michael Myers returns to his little Ohio hometown to follow his murderous instincts.

Hey, I pretty much just summed up the entire movie in one sentence. I had never seen this one before, except maybe possibly on TV. When Olav suggested it for my Halloween reviews I was actually quite eager to finally watch it. Olav is going to disagree with me on this, but to be quite honest, I think this movie sucks.

For about the first sixty percent we get to see what seems like a typical Halloween day. Kids being kids (that is, tormenting each other); teenagers being teenagers (getting stoned behind the wheel, being horny, and so on), all that sort of stuff. In between we have the good Doctor Loomis who’s trying to convince everybody that Michael Myers is “evil” because, well, he doesn’t really have any evidence but he just knows the kid is evil.

So after a while the plot thickens, and eventually, some of the girls buy the farm. Some naked breasts in between, and one of them, like all great movie sluts, dies after having sex (which by the way must have been the minute waltz. I guess the 70s were really quite naive and harmless when it comes to movies). The showdown is quick, harmless, and to the point. The end is predictable as it can be – especially when you know that Halloween spawned an entire series of movies.

I realize this movie’s supposed to be a classic, and maybe it even managed to scare someone once upon a time. But unfortunately for Mr. Carpenter, Halloween does not stand up to the test of time. I’m genuinely trying to think of one moment during the entire movie that scared me, and frankly, find none. I will be gentle with Mr Carpenters work; I am sure a great deal of this is that (a) the plot of the movie was pretty much known ahead of time and (b) the slasher format has been copied again and again until one is nowadays seriously tempted to suggest that anybody proposing to finance another slasher movie should have his own throat cut in a graphic manner. This would probably do the world more good than another clone of Halloween.

There are many old horror movies that are still scary today, but Halloween unfortunately isn’t one of them. It’s probably a must-see simply because it started the slasher craze, and because Jamie Lee Curtis is proof that a woman gets either more good looking with age, or with money.

Let me add a few words to the very simple DVD edition I watched. It was the German version and was bare of any extras. A few text pages about actors and the director are rendered in a yellow-blue combination that is so painful on the eyes that they could actually be the most frightening part of tonight’s cineastic experience. Browsing Amazon it seems that at least three editions of the Halloween DVD were produced. Hopefully some sort of collector’s edition has nicer extras. Halloween is one of the movies I’d really have loved to hear an Audio commentary of. There wasn’t even an English audio track. At least, they restored scenes that were obviously cut from the original release – they were not dubbed, but merely subtitled. I can barely manage to imagine just how horrible the movie must have been without these – quite essential – scenes.

Note: One interesting tidbit is that one of the horror movies the kids watch in Halloween is the movie “The Thing from Another World” from 1953, which Carpenter later re-made in the 80s.

It’s Halloween Season, and as I had promised last year, I have begun to review more movies. Here’s what I have reviewed so far:

1. The Quatermass Xperiment
2. Event Horizon
3. Halloween 1

Don’t forget to read last year’s reviews for more Halloween goodness.

Finally, here we have a movie that’s much more appropriate to Halloween. Sure, it’s a science-fiction movie but that doesn’t really change anything. Event Horizon is a splatter-shocker-horror-movie, plain and simple.

Event Horizon stars Laurence Fishburne (in the role of the cool, calm and collected salvage ship captain) and Sam Neill as the scientist person that built the mysterious missing ship that gave the movie its title. When it first reached the big screen – received a mixed reaction at best. People told me that the movie starts off well enough but that it went downhill from there.

I try, of course, to not let such comments influence me overly. What I had read about the story itself sounded interesting enough: A research vessel disappeared without a trace several years ago. And now, totally unexpectedly, it re-appeared in an orbit around Neptune. Captain Miller and his crew are sent to investigate.

The movie certainly doesn’t waste any time in getting us down to the action. The voyage starts in a hurry, time for explanations is only taken upon arrival at Neptune. Looks like the research vessel Event Horizon wasn’t on such a routine mission afterall. It was testing a trans-dimensional drive that would propel it to the stars at speeds faster than light. Something went wrong… and now Miller and his crew have to explore the derelict vessel. And within minutes, the terror begins…

Event Horizon certainly keeps you on the edge of the seat. This isn’t so much because of the original story – far from it. From the very first moment you can identify various elements that were liberally borrowed from other movies. Take 2001, add a good deal of Aliens (the second movie), and replace the space alien with satanic/cabbalistic images and you’ve got Event Horizon. However, the fact that you know pretty much what is going to happen is building up quite a lot of tension. There’s also several scenes that should keep the friends of the more bloody sort of horror movie satisfied. I watched an uncut version of the movie (I presume), and some of the stuff really wasn’t pretty. I won’t give it away, but what happens to the doctor guy really wasn’t nice.

As for the end of the movie, I would agree with the people who criticized it. The movie does go downhill from about the mid-point, but it’s not nearly as bad as I had feared. It could have been done better, yes, but it really is more than adequate.

Event Horizon is nicely filmed. There are some really cool scenes and nice images in the movie. It does ignore some basic science, and blatantly so, but who cares, it’s not supposed to be scientifically accurate. There are good characters (I liked the salvage crew), the acting isn’t too bad, overall, Event Horizon makes for a rather decent evening of horror entertainment.

The DVD itself (I watched the German release) is sparse as most DVDs are these days. I guess the days of DVDs being released with many extras and produced with care and enthusiasm are over. We’re in the age of cheap mass-produced releases now. Besides a few languages it carries the theatrical trailer. Bah – What good is that? I really do not understand it, especially since for a modern movie like Event Horizont a lot of extra material probably already exists – Interviews, Making-Of, whatever.

Bottom line: Fun movie, disappointing DVD.

630It’s October. The days are getting shorter and the evenings colder. What could be more obvious than spend the time with a few decent DVDs. Tonight’s movie is barely Halloween-themed, but I think it still works. There’s something about destroying Earth that always cheers me up.

When Worlds Collide (German Title: “Der Jüngste Tag”) is a classic tale of doomsday. When a couple of astronomers first discover an alien sun and its planet fast approaching on a collision course with Earth, no one believes them. Naturally. Their proposal to build a modern Noah’s Ark is turned down by the United Nations. Only a few industrialists heed the warning – some out of idealism, but at least one because he fears for his own life. With their money, the scientists begin building a rocket to save a handful of people.

Filmed in colour in 1951, When Worlds Collide must have been an expensive movie to make. While it is certainly antiquated, it’s interestingly executed. It’s a good mix between the human drama of the survivors, and the natural catastrophe. There are even some nice pictures – the sunken New York City, for example, doesn’t look too shabby.

The DVD I watched – German Edition – contains no particular specials. There’s the theatrical trailer, which is funny more than anything else, and various languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish). You’re buying this for the movie and I can tell you that if you like sci-fi or catastrophe flicks, you’ll enjoy this one. Yes it’s ancient. Yes you have to take all that into account. Still, it’ll entertain you. Just… brace yourself for the ending. It is truly horrible. And I do not mean that in a good way. I don’t think I am giving much away by telling you that of course there is a “happy end”. It’s basically a few people being happy in front of a landscape that is so obviously painted that it was a piece of crap when it was first designed. I guess the movie’s budget ran out right before the end. Still, watch this one.

A short collection of the reviews I wrote for Halloween.

1. The Lost Boys
2. The Thing from Another World
3. Quatermass and the Pit
4. At the Mountains of Madness (Book)

Enjoy.