So August and September came and went, it's amazing how fast these two months went by, when June and July felt like it would never end. I guess that's due to school starting back, busy new season of shows at the gallery, and fooooootball.
October is one of my favorite months in the year, besides my birthday month of February and December. I love October because in Alabama, that is when you really start to see the change into fall and finally feel that 70 degree weather you have been wishing for in the heat of a hot sticky summer. I love that first morning when you turn on your heat and first smell that "heat" smell, something about that comforts me. I love seeing pumpkins arriving at the grocery stores with bails of hay, scarecrows, and the smell of the Cinnamon brooms. I love getting up on Saturday mornings, knowing that it's going to be filled with either going to a football game, or watching it with your loved ones on TV (when I'm not working, but even so, thanks to the power of Internet, I can still manage). And of course, when it comes to the month of October, who can't love Halloween?
One of my earliest Halloween memories of dressing up, was as a clown. Ironically funny that today, I don't really care for clowns, something about them freaks me out (maybe it was the movie "It"?) Another year I was a Southern Bell in a huge dress with a hoop that was purchased in a bag at Party City with my friend/neighbor Eva. As an adult, I have been a devil (for a heaven/hell party), a flapper, and my favorite so far, Rainbow Brite....
I was thinking if I was to dress up this year, which I am not sure if I am or not, but if I was, what I would be? There are two options that really interest me right now. The first choice is to be Edie Sedgwick. For those that don't know who she was, I urge you to watch the movie "Factory Girl." Edie Sedgwick was a 60's icon, and was part of Andy Warhol's Factory entourage that stared in his many movies. Her life fascinates me, for she also was an artist herself, and was involved with Bob Dylan shortly. However, if I was to have all the "Edie" things that she wore (mostly huge dangle earrings, black tights and a short sweater or top) I think people would just think I was a 60's chick. Unless I had a cardboard cut out of Andy Warhol next to me, or someone dressed as him or Bob Dylan, I would be spending the whole night explaning who I was, and for most people, wouldn't even know. So sadly, there will be no Edie this year...
Fabulous Edie...
Now if I was a kid today, I would no doubt be Coraline! I absolutely loved that movie from start to finish! I love any movie that is made in stop action animation, and this one is my new favorite. She's clever, resourceful and brave, and I like to see a little bit of myself in her when I was that age (except my parents didn't have buttons for eyes). Wherever I spend Halloween, I hope I see some young girls dressed up as this curious purple haired girl.
Now when it comes to Halloween, I am NOT one that goes to Haunted Houses. When I was 9 years old, my Mom and my stepdad took my stepbrother and I to the local Jaycee's Haunted House. I remember standing in line for what seemed like hours, thinking about it more and more, and when I started asking questions, every person told me that NO ONE would touch me or grab me. Well as soon as we entered inside, someone grabbed my leg from a set up from the "people under the stairs" and I was done. I wanted an exit right then and there, and I haven't been back to one since. Now don't get me wrong, I love Halloween and I'm obsessed with watching anything about the paranormal/ghost hunters, give me the scariest movie ever made with the bloodiest scenes imaginable, but please do not take me to a commercially/marketed Haunted House where I know someone with a chainsaw is going to run after me. Please, I'll take a REAL haunted house any other day of the week, just give me my EMF detector...
With that being said, I also wanted to list some of my all time favorite horror movies, which some you may know, others you may not. With Halloween coming soon, I love to watch at least one or try to watch parts of them a day, it's just not Halloween without it...just like candy corn...
14. Arachnophobia - Though many folks might consider this a comedy first and a horror film a distant second anyone with even the slightest fear of spiders will feel their skin literally crawl when they watch this creepy spider flick starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. I still to this day, check my shoes sometimes before I put them on...
13. Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, "B-Horror Movies" - Speaking of films with comedic elements to them, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy certainly fits that mold. Bruce Campbell is stellar, as Ash who battles the legions of hell with a shotgun and chainsaw. Endlessly quotable, this film could easily make a list of the best comedy movies of all time, yet still belongs in any self-respecting horror fan's DVD collection.
12. Poltergeist - Now, being a child of the 80's, there are few images in the horror movie genre that are as enduring as the little girl sitting in front of the TV, communicating with the poltergeist that haunts her family's house. Steven Spielberg's classic is easily one of the best horror movies from the 80s.
11. Teen Witch-Another 80s movie and one of my favorite movies growing up, no matter if it was Halloween or not. Awkward teen Louise dreams of a date with high school football hero Brad but she's so shy that Brad barely notices her. Louise's luck changes on her 16th birthday when she learns that she's descended from a long line of witches. Great music as well!
10. The Witches-Another favorite growing up as a kid, from one of my favorite author's as a child, Ronald Dahl. A young boy named Luke and his grandmother spend vacation time together in a seaside town. Little did they know their hotel houses some very unusual and rather scary guests: witches. They're in town for a convention to listen to the Grand High Witch unveil her master plan to turn all children into mice. Also The Worst Witch was another childhood favorite done by HBO in 1986 with Tim Curry as the Grand Wizard who all the girls swooned over and I never understood why, oh well, still love the film.
9. A Nightmare on Elm Street - One of the horror genre's most iconic characters made his debut in this 1984 Wes Craven classic. I refer to Freddy Krueger, of course, the burned up hat and sweater wearing serial killer with knives for fingers. Robert Englund is perfectly cast in the role as Freddy, and though the rest of the film is mostly filled with no-name actors, a young Johnny Depp made his jump to the big screen in one of the scariest movies during the 80s along with Friday the 13th.
8. House of Wax-In this spine-tingling film (one of the first 3D movies ever made) Vincent Price thrills as Professor Henry Jarrod, the creepy curator of a wax museum who loses his beloved business to a fire and then rebuilds it. This time, though, he doesn't use wax models, but a ghoulish alternative: dead bodies. It can't be Halloween without Vincent Price.
7. Saw - Though this franchise has quickly grown tired due to the too many sequel syndrome, the original film starring Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell as two strangers who wake up in a room, chained up with a dead body in between them was an instant classic. Another movie with more than its share of twists, the gore factor is nothing to sneeze at either. If you're a horror film fan who has somehow missed this one, and you can stomach the blood, definitely add it to your DVD collection.
6. Friday the 13th - Speaking of movies that have spawned sequels it is hard to think of another movie in any genre that has given birth to more progeny than this 1980 horror classic about a murderous mom who goes on a murderous rampage at a summer camp to avenge her dead son, Jason Voorhees. In future films Jason would take the reins, coming back from the grave to deliver his own bloody brand of justice., but none of the many sequels could top the original.
5. The Blair Witch Project - Much like Scream did in 1996, 1999's The Blair Witch Project temporarily turned the horror genre on its ear. The movie is definitely not for those who suffer from any sort of motion sickness as the entire film is shaky cam footage from a handheld video camera. However the story about 3 film students who disappear while hunting the Maryland woods for the Blair Witch is definitely creepy, and it is one of those movies that will cling to your psyche for a few days after you watch it. Thankfully this one didn't spawn copycats like Scream did. I don't think my stomach could have taken more than one film like that. However, I can not wait to find someone who is brave enough to see, what I believe is to compete with the Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity!
4. Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock has made many classic films including The Birds, Rear Window and Strangers on a Train, however his horror masterpiece is indisputably his 1960 slasher film Psycho. Perhaps Hitchcock's greatest achievement was his casting of the cadaverous Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. You know a movie has had a huge influence on pop culture when all you need to say is "shower scene" and everyone in the room knows immediately which movie you are referring to. Psycho is a true horror film classic and is just as frightening today as it was nearly 50 years ago. Classic.
3. Halloween - This is pure testament that music can really set the mood of a scary movie and John Carpenter's Halloween is one of those movies. Whenever that music starts playing you'll find yourself holding your breath as you wait to see what horrors homicidal maniac Michael Myers will visit on his victims. Like most popular horror franchises this one spawned plenty of bloody sequels, including the dreadful Halloween H20, but none could come close to the high standard set by the original.
2. The Shining - Stephen King winds up on this list of course, but out of all his movies, The Shining has to take the cake (other then "It" apparently for me). Jack Nicholson is absolutely perfectly cast as father, novelist and hotel caretaker Jack Torrance who loses his grip on sanity due to a combination of cabin fever and a haunting presence in the hotel. A spine-shivering downward spiral of psychopathic violent behavior ensues. This collaboration of the disturbed minds of novelist Stephen King, director Stanley Kubrick and actor Jack Nicholson make The Shining indescribably creepy. No matter how many times you've seen it, watch it again. It will never fail to spook you. I would love to see this at a drive-in someday, so much fun.
1. The Exorcist - Only a movie this scary, this disturbing, this powerful could top The Shining for the number one spot on the list of the best horror movies of all time. I believe that movies with a religious theme seem to evoke more powerful responses from people and that is certainly the case in this highly disturbing film about demonic possession. Though I am not old enough to have seen this 1973 film when it came out in theaters,however it has been told that people walked out of the theaters in droves during the movie, physically or spiritually sickened by what they were seeing. I can think of no higher praise for the power of a horror film.
Happy October Everyone!
