Rewatching Stranger Things in anticipation of the new season. Show is so good.
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
edited October 2017
Day 8 (Late)
I assume it would bore you for me to apologize.
Cuadecuc, Vampir is a bizarre Spanish art film about a vampire. It came out in 1970, and has almost no dialogue at all. It’s not quite a documentary, and not quite fiction; it retells Count Dracula in black and white, but It was composed from cut scenes and set footage taken from Jesus Franco’s Count Dracula film (starring Christopher Lee). It’s quasi-comical, surreal, and very different from your run-of-the-mill Dracula movies. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but if you’re feeling like you’ve all there is to see in terms of Dracula, maybe give this one a whirl.
I know other people here are huge fans of the podcast/WNYC radio program Snap Judgment. I also know that I’ve gone on at length about the quality of their annual Spooked episodes, which are so spoopy that I once had to turn on all the lights in my apartment when listening. (The El Payaso Zombie story from Spooked VI: Awakening is literally one of the most pants-wetting stories I’ve ever heard told.) But did you all know that Spooked now has its own spinoff podcast entirely? It does! I haven’t listened to all of their new episodes yet - I have a constantly revolving 20-odd podcast backlog that I am swimming upstream against at any given time - but the ones I have listened to have had some extra scary winners.
I somehow can’t find this song in last year’s thread or 2015’s, which I guess means somehow I never… got around to posting it? Did someone else post it? Where did it come from? Why isn’t it in your life? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
Lucette’s album came out back in 2014 and I added it to my Halloween playlist in 2015, so if it hasn't come up before now then I have been much remiss. I think you could draw comparisons sound-wise to Alela Diane, Neko Case, and Odetta Hartman; she’s less rock than Neko Case but has the common thread of a dark blues and folk feeling. This song, Bobby Reid, is catchy and also either about some sort of terrifying forced Baptism or possibly a murder/hanging. It also features Austin-beloved Sturgill Simpson (A Sailor's Guide to Earth is a great album, incidentally), and JD Wilkes from Silver Jews (among other bands, but fuckin' hell I love Silver Jews). Put it in your ears.
Lost Salient on
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Halloween is not much of a thing in the down under.
Did you know that Ray Bradbury spoke to Charles Addams about doing some sort of collaboration, back in the day? Ultimately this never happened, but Bradbury did write a series of short stories about his own family of spooks and monsters, which appeared in various publications over the years. The collection of those short stories is a book called From the Dust Returned.
We all know how a town can gather need by need until suddenly its heart starts up and circulates the people to their destinations. But how, you ask, does a house arrive?
The fact is that the tree was there and a lumberman passing to the Far West leaned against it, and guessed it to be before Jesus sawed wood and shaved planks in his father's yard or Pontius Pilate washed his palms. The tree, some said, beckoned the House out of tumults of weather and excursions of Time. Once the House was there, with its cellar roots deep in Chinese tombyards, it was of such a magnificence, echoing facades last seen in London, that wagons, intending to cross the river, hesitated with their families gazing up and decided if this empty place was good enough for a papal palace, a royal monument, or a queen's abode, there hardly seemed a reason to leave. So the wagons stopped, the horses were watered, and when the families looked, they found their shoes as well as their souls had sprouted roots. So stunned were they by the House up there by the lightning-shaped tree, that they feared if they left the House would follow in their dreams and spoil all the waiting places ahead.
So the House arrived first and its arrival was the stuff of further legends, myths, or drunken nonsense.
(The linked version is the one with the Charles Addams cover, because continuity.)
I grew up the child of two parents who believed in raising children entirely without religion or any religious interference/influence from parents (I didn't know what either of them believed until I was in my mid twenties) so my personal spiritual beliefs are some kind of weird cobbled together patchwork of things and one of those things is the story of the gates of heaven from this book. I used to also read Something Wicked every October, though I haven't in years
I checked out a 100 short story collection of his from the library and it turned out that 100 consecutive Ray Bradbury stories was Too Many in a row. meanwhile The People in the Castle was exactly the right amount of Joan Aiken creepy
so as promised here are the photos from my morning on October first, an extraordinarily spooky drive up New York's Rt. 22
the mist was extremely thick, but with just enough visibility that driving along we spotted a sculpture yard along the side of the road
we kinda thought that it would just be quirky circular stuff but it turned out to be largely scrapyard psychedelia full of mildly horrific body imagery
oh and the sun shining through the mist made things extra black metal
it is hard for these pictures to quite convey the scale of the place, too, nor the dread that we were gonna get rushed by a bunch of cannibalistic scrapyard druids
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
October 9th
I don't think there's anything I could say about Get Out that people a lot more talented at writing and speaking (and with a lot more time to spend pulling together their thoughts) haven't already said about Get Out. Jordan Peele (of Key and Peele) wrote, directed and produced this horror film. In the style of the best of the genre, it is made effective and more horrifying because of its roots in social issues and fears.
Go see this movie. Do not let anyone spoil this movie for you.
I was going to spend a lot of time choosing and analyzing a song, but I got really distracted trying to find out whether anyone in the universe had a tattoo of the Unsolved Mysteries logo and then it was thirty minutes later than I realized and I had to take a work call. Soooo, Screaming Lord Sutch's version of the song Jack the Ripper!
The Horrors do a real good version of this song which I am hoping I didn't talk about in previous years, but the original is the novelty-type 60's garage tune in the link above. The real tragedy is that if you put it on a playlist you can't see the video, whiiiich iiiis guh-reat. Please, someone go as that version of Jack the Ripper for Halloween.
Lastly, a poem by Margaret Atwood. I am a big Atwood fan, and certainly the argument could be made that The Handmaid's Tale is deeply horrifying and therefore should be chosen for Halloween, buuuut I think that's selling the novel short, and also it's hard to recommend a book as a fun spooky read when actually it will fill you with despair.
The poem below the spoiler, Corpse Song, is from the collection You Are Happy. A lot of her poetry touches on themes of mortality and the inevitable progression of life toward death.
I enter your night
like a darkened boat, a smuggler
These lanterns, my eyes
and heart are out
I bring you something
you do not want:
news of the country
I am trapped in,
news of your future:
soon you will have no voice
(I resent your skin, I resent
your lungs, your glib assumptions
Therefore sing now
while you have the choice
(My body turned against me
too soon, it was not a tragedy
(I did not become
a tree or a constellation
(I became a winter coat the children
thought they saw on the street corner
(I became this illusion,
this trick of ventriloquism
this blind noun, this bandage
crumpled at your dream’s edge
or you will drift as I do
from head to head
swollen with words you never said,
swollen with hoarded love.
I exist in two places,
here and where you are.
Pray for me
not as I am but as I am.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
so as promised here are the photos from my morning on October first, an extraordinarily spooky drive up New York's Rt. 22
the mist was extremely thick, but with just enough visibility that driving along we spotted a sculpture yard along the side of the road
we kinda thought that it would just be quirky circular stuff but it turned out to be largely scrapyard psychedelia full of mildly horrific body imagery
oh and the sun shining through the mist made things extra black metal
it is hard for these pictures to quite convey the scale of the place, too, nor the dread that we were gonna get rushed by a bunch of cannibalistic scrapyard druids
The new Silent Hill is looking pretty terrifying.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Okay this is a five year old podcast, so it's nothing new, but it came up when I was doing some research for my very specific Halloween needs.
Radiolab did an episode called Crossroads, about Robert Johnson, the blues singer who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical talent.
I won't lie and say I'm a big fan of Robert Johnson or the blues or anything like that, but the story itself has outgrown his specific legend, and I find the mapping of the legend done here really interesting.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Okay this is a five year old podcast, so it's nothing new, but it came up when I was doing some research for my very specific Halloween needs.
Radiolab did an episode called Crossroads, about Robert Johnson, the blues singer who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical talent.
I won't lie and say I'm a big fan of Robert Johnson or the blues or anything like that, but the story itself has outgrown his specific legend, and I find the mapping of the legend done here really interesting.
And now I know what I'm listening to on the way home today.
Hey Halloween thread, maybe y'all can help me with some stuff.But I've also got a pretty large back deck (which, given the way that people approach my apartment, is more of a front deck) and a bathroom to concern myself with. They're not places where people are going to spend a whole lot of time, but I'd still like to do some decorations. I was originally planning on using a fog machine to hotbox the bathroom (with all red lighting added in, of course), but there are some pretty sensitive smoke alarms in my apartment so that doesn't seem like it's going to work.
Can you put lights under the deck?
I was in a bookstore once where the bathroom mirror was actually a pane of mirrored glass with a niche in the wall behind it (the remains of a set-in cabinet, I assume). The niche was lit with a blacklight, so you could only see what was in it - a betta fish, in this case - when the bathroom lights were turned off. I don't know how feasible that is for your bathroom, though.
...I hate it when people use animals as decoration :sad:
Hey Halloween thread, maybe y'all can help me with some stuff.But I've also got a pretty large back deck (which, given the way that people approach my apartment, is more of a front deck) and a bathroom to concern myself with. They're not places where people are going to spend a whole lot of time, but I'd still like to do some decorations. I was originally planning on using a fog machine to hotbox the bathroom (with all red lighting added in, of course), but there are some pretty sensitive smoke alarms in my apartment so that doesn't seem like it's going to work.
Can you put lights under the deck?
I was in a bookstore once where the bathroom mirror was actually a pane of mirrored glass with a niche in the wall behind it (the remains of a set-in cabinet, I assume). The niche was lit with a blacklight, so you could only see what was in it - a betta fish, in this case - when the bathroom lights were turned off. I don't know how feasible that is for your bathroom, though.
...I hate it when people use animals as decoration :sad:
Hey Halloween thread, maybe y'all can help me with some stuff.But I've also got a pretty large back deck (which, given the way that people approach my apartment, is more of a front deck) and a bathroom to concern myself with. They're not places where people are going to spend a whole lot of time, but I'd still like to do some decorations. I was originally planning on using a fog machine to hotbox the bathroom (with all red lighting added in, of course), but there are some pretty sensitive smoke alarms in my apartment so that doesn't seem like it's going to work.
Can you put lights under the deck?
I was in a bookstore once where the bathroom mirror was actually a pane of mirrored glass with a niche in the wall behind it (the remains of a set-in cabinet, I assume). The niche was lit with a blacklight, so you could only see what was in it - a betta fish, in this case - when the bathroom lights were turned off. I don't know how feasible that is for your bathroom, though.
...I hate it when people use animals as decoration :sad:
Yeah.
Put some kind of pickled corpse in it.
Can't be that hard to get a pig fetus, it's HS bio season too.
Hey Halloween thread, maybe y'all can help me with some stuff.But I've also got a pretty large back deck (which, given the way that people approach my apartment, is more of a front deck) and a bathroom to concern myself with. They're not places where people are going to spend a whole lot of time, but I'd still like to do some decorations. I was originally planning on using a fog machine to hotbox the bathroom (with all red lighting added in, of course), but there are some pretty sensitive smoke alarms in my apartment so that doesn't seem like it's going to work.
Can you put lights under the deck?
I was in a bookstore once where the bathroom mirror was actually a pane of mirrored glass with a niche in the wall behind it (the remains of a set-in cabinet, I assume). The niche was lit with a blacklight, so you could only see what was in it - a betta fish, in this case - when the bathroom lights were turned off. I don't know how feasible that is for your bathroom, though.
...I hate it when people use animals as decoration :sad:
Yeah.
Put some kind of pickled corpse in it.
Can't be that hard to get a pig fetus, it's HS bio season too.
The whole glass-and-niche setup might not be feasible in Straightzi's bathroom, though. Kinda depends on what's already there and how much space there is.
I wound up at a lot of crossroads in the Mississippi Delta in the couple years I lived there. I don't think I ever went to that specific one, though a lot of locals will tell you that the one nearest to them is ACTUALLY where it happened
Never got a single offer from Old Scratch! Rude
But boy, it's not a comforting place to hang out
I wound up at a lot of crossroads in the Mississippi Delta in the couple years I lived there. I don't think I ever went to that specific one, though a lot of locals will tell you that the one nearest to them is ACTUALLY where it happened
Never got a single offer from Old Scratch! Rude
But boy, it's not a comforting place to hang out
Put on Howling Wolf's Smokestack Lightning, light one cigar for yourself and leave another for the old bastard, and dance in a circle. For lack of a guitar that's about as good as a summons as a common man can muster
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Ahava you just gotta make your own Halloween! And fuck the haters!
It's not the 10th anymore
Sooo work has been kicking my ass and I have a guest in town etc etc. It's still the 10th in the States, which is the place where Halloween matters the most. (At least it is in some parts of the States. Oy vey, work, can't you see I'm doing other work?)
Blacula is a blaxploitation film from 1970 that is justly a cult classic. The title character (I really want to know who was the one in the room to come up with ‘Blacula’, by the way - and which came first? The movie, or the title?) is played by William Marshall. He plays a wealthy and intelligent man who, along with his wife, visits Count Dracula in the 18th century for reasons that are extremely difficult to understand. Like, honestly, why are you visiting this dude? The best I can figure out is that he thinks Dracula will help him bring his unknown nation’s culture into the European sphere of influence. Also, he wants to ban slavery. Dracula is like “I love slaves, can I buy your wife?” And Mamuwalde (ahem - Blacula’s - real name) is like “Or you can get fucked!”
Then they fight, Dracula turns Mamuwalde into a vampire and locks him up for hundreds of years, and leaves his wife to die outside of the coffin. Dracula is a DICK. Blacula/Mamuwalde is a tragic figure, though, pretty much - as we see when we fast forward to the 70’s. Some interior decorators in LA pop open the coffin (I am very curious how it got all the way to LA, I think there are pretty strict customs rules about transporting dead bodies) and HE’S BACK, BABY.
Siouxie and the Banshees’ album Juju is realllly good (Siouxie and the Banshees are criminally underrated). The track Halloween from that album is the obvious choice; it’s upbeat enough that it can go on a party mix, but still has Siouxie’s signature gothic sound.
One time my friend said he saw a picture on Facebook of Siouxie and thought it was me, and it’s still one of my favourite compliments.
Annnd last for today, a review of a nonfiction book worth reading in the season: Katherine Howe’s The Penguin Book of Witches. I haven’t read this, but it’s on my wishlist - she dissects the persecution of witches and analyses them with an eye toward the sociopolitical motivations for levying accusations against individuals/groups who represent nonconformity to the community or in other ways were vulnerable to victimization by their government for reasons not strictly ‘she turned me into a newt.'
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
This is the first year I've felt I really got into Halloween. In the past I'd watch some scary movies and maybe a quick costume for work, but never had a chance for much else.
This year I'm dating someone who loves Halloween. I'm talking spooky decorations in her bathroom all year round, giddy walking through party and costume stores, and if we get married it's absolutely going to be in October. This, in turn, has me super excited.
I've been listening to the Lore podcast and introducing the GF to scary movies (despite her grandmother being a huge horror fan, she hasn't seen many). We have done some joint arts / crafts. Halloween will be the first party we throw as a couple. I have a real costume for that (General Hux - she's doing Kylo Ren). I also get to participate at work this year, my department goes all out but I had to miss last time. We are doing an insane asylum theme this year.
This is so much fun.
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BeastehTHAT WOULD NOTKILL DRACULARegistered Userregular
my location/description finally make sense again
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Okay, let me phrase this in a normal human way: I love movies that feature cannibalism. That's not weird, right? I once spent like a solid year devoted to viewing every cannibal-related movie I could. It was like the time I spent reading pre-1980’s post-apocalyptic novels, only with a lot more people asking “what is this?"
Blood Diner is another cult classic (although potentially less generally enjoyable than Blacula) that deserves more love. The plot: Two dudes run a vegetarian diner as a front to allow them to collect body parts. But why body parts? To summon an ancient evil goddess, duh!
Guys… even the trailer for this movie is hilarious. I mean, sure, it’s dark comedy and an itty bit occasionally revolting. And it is offensive to… probably everyone. Yeah, I’m going with everyone. The taglines are “First they greet you… then they eat you,” and “Food so good, it tastes just like mom used to.” There’s a demonic/evil goddess with a mouth in her abdomen, a crude-talking resurrected brain (with eyeballs), over-the-top death scenes and tons of practical effects put to excellent use. You all know how I love practical effects. The biggest downside for this recommendation is that I discovered, while writing about it, that it is not currently available to stream - at least not that I can find. But it's worth investing in a copy or going to your local weird old VHS rental place. (You have one of those, right?)
Lately on top of bizarre chanting, the new Kesha, and afrobeat, I’ve been getting really obsessed with the tiki/boogaloo music fad of the late 50’s and 60’s.
Please don’t ask why I love the things I love. I cannot answer this question.
Robert Drasnin is famous as the composer of the theme from The Twilight Zone (also good on Halloween playlists) but he also composed an album called Voodoo! which was released in 1959. It is… approximately as far away from actual voodoo/vaudun as you might imagine music from the 50’s composed by a white dude from West Virginia would be. But setting that aside, they are great tunes to put on a cocktail playlist, and definitely would suit a spooky cocktail party very well.
You can’t listen to that and fail to imagine yourself sneaking through a jungle made of plastic plants, rubber snakes “leaping” out to scare you, tropical beverage balanced carefully so you can escape something evil and possibly also woefully culturally ill-informed while also getting blitzed off rum.
Lastly, for today, Alfred Kubin. An expressionist/symbolist artist from Austria, his art is surreal and dark, heavily featuring elements of the macabre. There are often elements of horrific/distorted sexuality, where monstrous forms seem to loom on the verge of attack, and grotesque nude figures contort themselves in grey landscapes that - in my opinion - bear similarity to those of Bosch and Dali. If you look up his work, be mindful that a lot of it is NSFW.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
miscellaneousinsanitygrass grows, birds fly, sun shines,and brother, i hurt peopleRegistered Userregular
been having a weekly spoopy movie club and man, army of darkness really doesn't hold up, huh
evil dead 2 is still a pretty good time tho, and so far it's still the best at capturing the "1993 alone in the dark DOS demo" feeling (one of my earliest and most formative horror experiences)
we also decided gremlins is more of a christmas movie than a halloween movie
gremlins 2 is up next, haven't seen that since we had it recorded on vhs
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Ok, first we had Army of Darkness being declared an ironically good movie. Now we have someone saying it really doesn't hold up.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Army of Darkness is the weakest movie in the Evil Dead franchise
I think it's fun enough, but it's my last pick still
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miscellaneousinsanitygrass grows, birds fly, sun shines,and brother, i hurt peopleRegistered Userregular
edited October 2017
it realllly didn't age as well as its predecessor
there are some standout individual scenes but it's mainly just a vehicle for bruce campbell to make faces
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
there are some standout individual scenes but it's mainly just a vehicle for bruce campbell to make faces
I watched it last year at a screening with Bruce Campbell and Doug Benson providing a live running commentary. Benson was pretty much MST3King it and Bruce was telling all sorts of amusing stories about the filming. Even without all that, it still would have been a great time seeing it in a theater again, with a very receptive audience. It's not as good as Evil Dead 2? Sure, that's true. It's still a fun movie though.
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I assume it would bore you for me to apologize.
Cuadecuc, Vampir is a bizarre Spanish art film about a vampire. It came out in 1970, and has almost no dialogue at all. It’s not quite a documentary, and not quite fiction; it retells Count Dracula in black and white, but It was composed from cut scenes and set footage taken from Jesus Franco’s Count Dracula film (starring Christopher Lee). It’s quasi-comical, surreal, and very different from your run-of-the-mill Dracula movies. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but if you’re feeling like you’ve all there is to see in terms of Dracula, maybe give this one a whirl.
I know other people here are huge fans of the podcast/WNYC radio program Snap Judgment. I also know that I’ve gone on at length about the quality of their annual Spooked episodes, which are so spoopy that I once had to turn on all the lights in my apartment when listening. (The El Payaso Zombie story from Spooked VI: Awakening is literally one of the most pants-wetting stories I’ve ever heard told.) But did you all know that Spooked now has its own spinoff podcast entirely? It does! I haven’t listened to all of their new episodes yet - I have a constantly revolving 20-odd podcast backlog that I am swimming upstream against at any given time - but the ones I have listened to have had some extra scary winners.
I somehow can’t find this song in last year’s thread or 2015’s, which I guess means somehow I never… got around to posting it? Did someone else post it? Where did it come from? Why isn’t it in your life? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
Lucette’s album came out back in 2014 and I added it to my Halloween playlist in 2015, so if it hasn't come up before now then I have been much remiss. I think you could draw comparisons sound-wise to Alela Diane, Neko Case, and Odetta Hartman; she’s less rock than Neko Case but has the common thread of a dark blues and folk feeling. This song, Bobby Reid, is catchy and also either about some sort of terrifying forced Baptism or possibly a murder/hanging. It also features Austin-beloved Sturgill Simpson (A Sailor's Guide to Earth is a great album, incidentally), and JD Wilkes from Silver Jews (among other bands, but fuckin' hell I love Silver Jews). Put it in your ears.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
So I live vicariously through you.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
I grew up the child of two parents who believed in raising children entirely without religion or any religious interference/influence from parents (I didn't know what either of them believed until I was in my mid twenties) so my personal spiritual beliefs are some kind of weird cobbled together patchwork of things and one of those things is the story of the gates of heaven from this book. I used to also read Something Wicked every October, though I haven't in years
I checked out a 100 short story collection of his from the library and it turned out that 100 consecutive Ray Bradbury stories was Too Many in a row. meanwhile The People in the Castle was exactly the right amount of Joan Aiken creepy
the mist was extremely thick, but with just enough visibility that driving along we spotted a sculpture yard along the side of the road
we kinda thought that it would just be quirky circular stuff but it turned out to be largely scrapyard psychedelia full of mildly horrific body imagery
oh and the sun shining through the mist made things extra black metal
it is hard for these pictures to quite convey the scale of the place, too, nor the dread that we were gonna get rushed by a bunch of cannibalistic scrapyard druids
I don't think there's anything I could say about Get Out that people a lot more talented at writing and speaking (and with a lot more time to spend pulling together their thoughts) haven't already said about Get Out. Jordan Peele (of Key and Peele) wrote, directed and produced this horror film. In the style of the best of the genre, it is made effective and more horrifying because of its roots in social issues and fears.
Go see this movie. Do not let anyone spoil this movie for you.
I was going to spend a lot of time choosing and analyzing a song, but I got really distracted trying to find out whether anyone in the universe had a tattoo of the Unsolved Mysteries logo and then it was thirty minutes later than I realized and I had to take a work call. Soooo, Screaming Lord Sutch's version of the song Jack the Ripper!
The Horrors do a real good version of this song which I am hoping I didn't talk about in previous years, but the original is the novelty-type 60's garage tune in the link above. The real tragedy is that if you put it on a playlist you can't see the video, whiiiich iiiis guh-reat. Please, someone go as that version of Jack the Ripper for Halloween.
Lastly, a poem by Margaret Atwood. I am a big Atwood fan, and certainly the argument could be made that The Handmaid's Tale is deeply horrifying and therefore should be chosen for Halloween, buuuut I think that's selling the novel short, and also it's hard to recommend a book as a fun spooky read when actually it will fill you with despair.
The poem below the spoiler, Corpse Song, is from the collection You Are Happy. A lot of her poetry touches on themes of mortality and the inevitable progression of life toward death.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
The new Silent Hill is looking pretty terrifying.
Radiolab did an episode called Crossroads, about Robert Johnson, the blues singer who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical talent.
I won't lie and say I'm a big fan of Robert Johnson or the blues or anything like that, but the story itself has outgrown his specific legend, and I find the mapping of the legend done here really interesting.
And now I know what I'm listening to on the way home today.
oh man the year I lived in Tanzania I remember getting really hyped up for October and Halloween and the Kiwi ex-pats just did not get it one bit
didn't help that most of the ex-pats in the area were missionary types and probably thought it was some sort of demonic consortium
I was in a bookstore once where the bathroom mirror was actually a pane of mirrored glass with a niche in the wall behind it (the remains of a set-in cabinet, I assume). The niche was lit with a blacklight, so you could only see what was in it - a betta fish, in this case - when the bathroom lights were turned off. I don't know how feasible that is for your bathroom, though.
...I hate it when people use animals as decoration :sad:
I LOVE HALLOWEEN
IT'S MY FAVORITE 3 MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR!
Yeah.
Put some kind of pickled corpse in it.
Can't be that hard to get a pig fetus, it's HS bio season too.
The whole glass-and-niche setup might not be feasible in Straightzi's bathroom, though. Kinda depends on what's already there and how much space there is.
Never got a single offer from Old Scratch! Rude
But boy, it's not a comforting place to hang out
It's, distressing.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Put on Howling Wolf's Smokestack Lightning, light one cigar for yourself and leave another for the old bastard, and dance in a circle. For lack of a guitar that's about as good as a summons as a common man can muster
It's not the 10th anymore
Sooo work has been kicking my ass and I have a guest in town etc etc. It's still the 10th in the States, which is the place where Halloween matters the most. (At least it is in some parts of the States. Oy vey, work, can't you see I'm doing other work?)
Blacula is a blaxploitation film from 1970 that is justly a cult classic. The title character (I really want to know who was the one in the room to come up with ‘Blacula’, by the way - and which came first? The movie, or the title?) is played by William Marshall. He plays a wealthy and intelligent man who, along with his wife, visits Count Dracula in the 18th century for reasons that are extremely difficult to understand. Like, honestly, why are you visiting this dude? The best I can figure out is that he thinks Dracula will help him bring his unknown nation’s culture into the European sphere of influence. Also, he wants to ban slavery. Dracula is like “I love slaves, can I buy your wife?” And Mamuwalde (ahem - Blacula’s - real name) is like “Or you can get fucked!”
Then they fight, Dracula turns Mamuwalde into a vampire and locks him up for hundreds of years, and leaves his wife to die outside of the coffin. Dracula is a DICK. Blacula/Mamuwalde is a tragic figure, though, pretty much - as we see when we fast forward to the 70’s. Some interior decorators in LA pop open the coffin (I am very curious how it got all the way to LA, I think there are pretty strict customs rules about transporting dead bodies) and HE’S BACK, BABY.
It’s streaming on Amazon for a few dollars.
Siouxie and the Banshees’ album Juju is realllly good (Siouxie and the Banshees are criminally underrated). The track Halloween from that album is the obvious choice; it’s upbeat enough that it can go on a party mix, but still has Siouxie’s signature gothic sound.
One time my friend said he saw a picture on Facebook of Siouxie and thought it was me, and it’s still one of my favourite compliments.
Annnd last for today, a review of a nonfiction book worth reading in the season: Katherine Howe’s The Penguin Book of Witches. I haven’t read this, but it’s on my wishlist - she dissects the persecution of witches and analyses them with an eye toward the sociopolitical motivations for levying accusations against individuals/groups who represent nonconformity to the community or in other ways were vulnerable to victimization by their government for reasons not strictly ‘she turned me into a newt.'
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
This year I'm dating someone who loves Halloween. I'm talking spooky decorations in her bathroom all year round, giddy walking through party and costume stores, and if we get married it's absolutely going to be in October. This, in turn, has me super excited.
I've been listening to the Lore podcast and introducing the GF to scary movies (despite her grandmother being a huge horror fan, she hasn't seen many). We have done some joint arts / crafts. Halloween will be the first party we throw as a couple. I have a real costume for that (General Hux - she's doing Kylo Ren). I also get to participate at work this year, my department goes all out but I had to miss last time. We are doing an insane asylum theme this year.
This is so much fun.
Blood Diner is another cult classic (although potentially less generally enjoyable than Blacula) that deserves more love. The plot: Two dudes run a vegetarian diner as a front to allow them to collect body parts. But why body parts? To summon an ancient evil goddess, duh!
Guys… even the trailer for this movie is hilarious. I mean, sure, it’s dark comedy and an itty bit occasionally revolting. And it is offensive to… probably everyone. Yeah, I’m going with everyone. The taglines are “First they greet you… then they eat you,” and “Food so good, it tastes just like mom used to.” There’s a demonic/evil goddess with a mouth in her abdomen, a crude-talking resurrected brain (with eyeballs), over-the-top death scenes and tons of practical effects put to excellent use. You all know how I love practical effects. The biggest downside for this recommendation is that I discovered, while writing about it, that it is not currently available to stream - at least not that I can find. But it's worth investing in a copy or going to your local weird old VHS rental place. (You have one of those, right?)
Lately on top of bizarre chanting, the new Kesha, and afrobeat, I’ve been getting really obsessed with the tiki/boogaloo music fad of the late 50’s and 60’s.
Please don’t ask why I love the things I love. I cannot answer this question.
Robert Drasnin is famous as the composer of the theme from The Twilight Zone (also good on Halloween playlists) but he also composed an album called Voodoo! which was released in 1959. It is… approximately as far away from actual voodoo/vaudun as you might imagine music from the 50’s composed by a white dude from West Virginia would be. But setting that aside, they are great tunes to put on a cocktail playlist, and definitely would suit a spooky cocktail party very well.
You can’t listen to that and fail to imagine yourself sneaking through a jungle made of plastic plants, rubber snakes “leaping” out to scare you, tropical beverage balanced carefully so you can escape something evil and possibly also woefully culturally ill-informed while also getting blitzed off rum.
Lastly, for today, Alfred Kubin. An expressionist/symbolist artist from Austria, his art is surreal and dark, heavily featuring elements of the macabre. There are often elements of horrific/distorted sexuality, where monstrous forms seem to loom on the verge of attack, and grotesque nude figures contort themselves in grey landscapes that - in my opinion - bear similarity to those of Bosch and Dali. If you look up his work, be mindful that a lot of it is NSFW.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I was giving you your time to shine.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
that one's me
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Or
For costume day at work tomorrow
evil dead 2 is still a pretty good time tho, and so far it's still the best at capturing the "1993 alone in the dark DOS demo" feeling (one of my earliest and most formative horror experiences)
we also decided gremlins is more of a christmas movie than a halloween movie
gremlins 2 is up next, haven't seen that since we had it recorded on vhs
I think it's fun enough, but it's my last pick still
there are some standout individual scenes but it's mainly just a vehicle for bruce campbell to make faces
I watched it last year at a screening with Bruce Campbell and Doug Benson providing a live running commentary. Benson was pretty much MST3King it and Bruce was telling all sorts of amusing stories about the filming. Even without all that, it still would have been a great time seeing it in a theater again, with a very receptive audience. It's not as good as Evil Dead 2? Sure, that's true. It's still a fun movie though.
...Can we move Halloween by two or three weeks? I think that's allowed?
Also hey kids!
I'm going to an internet-less island in Indonesia in a few hours.
So there's no post today, or for the next two days.
Sorry champs! Someone else feel free!
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
This one is definitely creepier for an office setting.
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