With the new horror movies coming this Halloween
featuring villains of all ilk, I’m wondering which type of bad guy you prefer.
From the days of Christopher Lee and the Hammer films I’ve been a vampire fan. Lee was the most elegant of vamps until Louis Jordan came along and oh, sigh … who didn’t want bitten? Although Luke Evans is adorable, I skipped Dracula Untold. Is the romance over for me or is it a case of too much gore, bad language, and smut in everything these days? Those things were limited, alluded to, left to your imagination with fading to black in the early films. We saw drama, lots of it hokey, but we weren’t totally grossed out. Well, except for that creepy flick about the creepily creeping severed arm. Yikes!
Other classics include Lon Chaney’s Wolfman and Bela Lugosi’s Frankenstein. Despite admiring both actors, I never developed a taste for any wolf films, even An American Werewolf in London, while I continue to love and re-watch Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein. This 1974 film remains one of the funniest ever with lines that are infinitely quotable. From Marty Feldman’s Igor’s (eye-gore) interpretation of what Abby Normal meant to Madeline Kahn’s prim send off of Gene at the train station, “Taffeta, darling.” If you haven’t seen the film, treat yourself this month and laugh over your buttered popcorn.
But about Halloween
I’m not a fan of any other version of Frankenstein, not Mary Shelley’s novel, the Kenneth Branagh film, or any released before or after handsome Ken. While vampirism is an imaginative stretch, regenerating pieces of people into a new person is too disturbing on every level.
This Halloween brings fans of the movie by the same name a new treat with Jamie Lee Curtis popping into the latest remake of the re-resurrection of the resurrected and resurrected Michael Myers.
Mark Gatis, author, actor, playwright and spearhead of BBC’s Sherlock, hosts a special on the History of Horror: Hammer Films and British Horror. It’s great fun and worth watching if you’re a fan of the genre.
It’s Not My Thing
For reasons I’d have to go into therapy to figure out, Halloween is not my favorite time of year. Jackie once gave me a card I still have and used to tack to my front door, “Put all your candy in the box and no one will be hurt.” I used to get a lot of laughs with that. As kids, we had fun pulling together the best homemade costumes Mom could invent. One year she made my brother into a pumpkin—complete with stem as his head. Pre-internet, Pinterest and all other p-help, how did Mom think that one up?
There were the occasional years our parents would dress up with us and wander the neighborhood collecting treats. There was always great humor involved. But of the four of us, only the youngest sister LOVES Halloween. Her parties have taken on a level of notoriety in the neighborhood.
The current Halloween ritual my husband and I share is to pour liberal glasses of warming red wine, keep the bottle handy, light the jack o’lanterns, and prepare for the onslaught of treaters. We’ve no desire to be tricked! We pass out candy (one bowl with nuts, one bowl without—who knew that would be such a hit with the kids and parents?) and laugh a lot. I am impressed with the inventiveness I see in many of the costumes—there are still imaginations being put to work despite the amount of pre-made everything available for purchase. So while I don’t know half the characters being depicted, I happily oh and ah and shiver respectively. The kids seem to like the drama I give them.
What’s Your Deal With Halloween?
Love it? Hate it? Dress up? Hide? Will you do something new this year? Go to a party? Don a costume before passing out treats? Oh, and don’t forget to tell me: Who is your go-to Ghoul?
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Not a fan of Halloween. It was always the pressure of deciding what to be. I did not like thinking it up. I would have preferred the bought costumes with all the pieces and parts. No pressure there!
And we kept fighting over who would wear the little white dress with tiny red dots that Mom made.
I love the pics of you in costume.
As an adult, I’ve always lived in cites where there aren’t kids. So I’ve literally never had a trick or treater come to my door. I would feel bad if they did, because I’m a food coach and don’t have any candy sitting around. I need to prepare for these kinds of things. Of course, I loved Halloween as a kid – it was the best thing ever!
A couple of years ago when we realized that separating the candy by nuts/no nuts was a brain storm, our neighbor went and one upped us–yep, he had candy and a box with assorted toys. Probably from a dollar store. Brilliant, right? Of course, I keep forgetting to do that ahead of time with all that dazzling candy in the stores. Oh wait, I mean all that really nasty candy…
Glad that you had fun Halloween’s as a kid, too, Erica!
Rose Mary, we just watched “Winchester” with Helen Mirren (she is always a favorite). It’s based on historical events and is truly ghostly. If you haven’t seen it, I’d suggest checking it out. For trick-or-treat night, happily more kids are in the neighborhood and coming. We can no longer sit outside to greet the kids with Baker because he howls like the hound dog he is! Our new tradition is to have “Hocus Pocus” playing on the TV which the kids can clearly see from the door.
I can totally picture Baker going wild for the kids and the excitement. I wondered about the Mirren movie–if I decide to creep myself out, that’s the film I’ll pick. Although these days I’m much more the Hocus Pocus kind!
I love dressing up, but most of my friends don’t do the Halloween thing. I’d like to go out this year, but without the former love and his friends in the mix, I’m not sure how things will pan out. Hopefully one of the meetup groups I’m in will do something that involves going out in costumes to dance. I don’t like sparkly vampires, but I’ve always been a fan of the vampire Lestat.
Ah, Lestat… such a troubled, intriguing soul. I love him. 🙂
I hope you get to enjoy Halloween with some new friends, Jeri.
I’m not sure why I love Halloween so much, maybe it’s the getting the day to be whoever or whatever you want to be and no one gets to judge you for how you look! LOL or just the pure fun in being creative and coming up with a costume. I don’t think my Halloween parties have taken on any notoriety because of anything I do, I mean anyone can put up decorations and make some ghoulish looking snack food, I think it’s more because everyone had enjoyed seeing who is going to show up dressed as what! I am amazed every year by the thought that goes into the costumes that show up and the fact that 9 years later they still want to do it!! I love my friends!!
Well, Joanne, your party is so good that I can from Lancaster several times to attend 🙂
Photos, please!
I love seeing your photos, Joanne. You and your friends are incredibly inventive with their costumes. I think that’s so wonderful. And I agree with you about it being a chance to just be someone else. One year in Montana, I was Indiana Jones. Tee hee. Hat and whip!
Oh I need to see a picture of that!
I have proof somewhere….
In the quaint little town I live in, Red Lodge, MT, a day is picked close to Halloween during the week where all the kids go to businesses downtown that have the orange sign hanging in the window that indicates that business has treats. It is such a pleasure to see all the inventive costumes for the kids (and some of the parents)! Do I like Halloween? No. But I do enjoy this aspect of it.
Oh I love that idea! What a great way for the business folks to get to see the kids dressed up. Do you remember sleepy boy that one Halloween I was there? He was sliding out of the chair with sleep.
I am so hoping that since the “kids” around here are starting families of their own we will soon have little trick or treaters again!
Yippee! That’ll be great fun.
Went to a party with my wife dressed as Chong (as in Up in Smoke era Cheech and Chong). Couldn’t convince her to to be Cheech though. She went as Frida Kahlo.
Ah, bringing back 1970s memories with the C&C reference, Ken. Thanks for the comment. Just signed up to follow your blog–good stuff.
I still like the notion of Halloween, but I live at the top of a hill in a rural area and there are no street lights – all of which means my house would make for a great spooky visit for tricksters but in the 6 years I’ve lived here not a single one has ventured up the dark, steep road to my house. As far as ghouls – I love the classics and own several of them – but if I have a guilty pleasure it’s the B-Rated monster flicks like Them, Thing and of course the all time great Crawling Eye. Otherwise I’ve followed Walking Dead up until the current season. It’s weird, like I still care about the people and check on their progress but the stories have gone over the edge for me – maybe it’s an age thing. All I know is a guy watching someone else eat part of his leg is just not fun viewing for me anymore. 🙂
Yep, Marquita, my guilty pleasure has been watching the Walking Dead when husband is not around (good thing he does not read these comments). Hating all things Zombie related, he’d laugh way too hard to know that this show has my attention. That was until the leg-eating-incident. OH, YUCK. I don’t know the Crawling Eye movie, but do you remember the crawling Hand one? Best creepy stuff!
I loved dressing up as a child and sometimes as an adult. And I have nightmares when I think of making a Spider-Man costume one year. Easy? I think not. But my son loved it and it was fun taking our children around for trick or treating. I don’t like scary movies but I did have fun writing a cozy mystery this year which starts with a fancy Halloween party!
Pat, how did the cozy mystery end? Just kidding–I never want the spoiler. Good luck with it. We had a couple of spidermen last night. One with great blinking shoes. Had they just been a size larger…
Hey Rose. I used to enjoy a lot of horror and scary movies but I stopped a while back and only stick to comedy and action. There is not much Halloween parties this side of earth but when I visited the States about 7yrs ago I was quite intrigued with all the house décor I saw.
We had a guest from Switzerland with us for handing out candy last night, Welli. He said they celebrate a much milder version of Halloween, so he got a huge kick out of the kids and the costumes. You know America–everything has to get carried beyond the norm. Sort of like Texas takes over the whole country with its bigger is better idea!
I never really went all out for Halloween over the years. I’ve been to a couple of parties. This year I will be in the house watching movies. My go to ghoul/monster is Michael Myers. I love the Halloween series.
You are tougher than I am–I can’t watch the Halloween movies! Way too scary for me!
As a child I loved Halloween too! But scary movies and characters were never my thing. My parents took me to see The Brides of Dracula when I was 8 years old…scared the sock off of me. I slept with them for month. Later in life I read Dracula and IT scared me to death s an adult! I slept with lights on for a month! I don’t get trick or treaters…I live in a condo. So it’s wine for me too:)
Every Dracula movie scared me senseless (that explains a lot!) and I watched them repeatedly! Here’s hoping this Halloween is a ton of fun for both of us–wine included!