Well, the Pumpkins were thrown out last night, leftover candy was sent off with my brother-in-law as a reward for his students, and One Ring is moving into her favorite holiday time of the year (Thanksgiving - apparently no gifts, no decorations, and working towards minimal drama makes it number one with a bullet). As for me, I'm in mourning.
It's not just that Halloween has passed us by for another year - and was once again almost eclipsed by the Christmas decorations which have been smuggled into just about every store I entered this month. It's just that, well, I think maybe I should have started the celebrations sooner, so I could have gotten more worked in. As it was, I spent most nights coming home from work, crashing, and thinking of what I would do if I had the energy, money, and time. Curse you, need for employment! You cause such a massive buzz kill!
So, I figure I'll do what other blogs seem to be doing in honor of the sad times: create a "best and worst of" list and talk about what I'd like to do if I get a promotion that's being talked about in mythic terms (It's coming, but we don't know when!). Here goes:
Best Movie: Trick 'r Treat. Close second, 1408. Both are scary without being gory -we don't do splatter horror. Unlike the chaplain with whom I work, the Saw movies are verboten in my house. Honorable mention goes to Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers. Both, in case you haven't heard of them, are werewolf movies. Le Pacte de Loupe (aka The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Sleepy Hollow are also on my fave list, although I didn't get to them this year.
Worst Movie: Carnival of Souls. We actually saw this a few years ago, but it remains the worst horror movie I've ever intentionally seen during the Halloween season. The worst one we saw this year was The Innocents, followed closely by Let's Scare Jessica to Death - it was the ending that sent it straight into this category. Dishonorable mention goes to The Ninth Gate. Again, a confused ending and incredibly goofy glasses worn by the villian - played by Frank Langella - did this one in.
Geeky villians are so not scary! And his demise was one of the dumbest things I've seen in a horror movie.
Things I'd like to see more of in future Halloween celebrations: Better decorations. Yep, I'm one of those people who want people to decorate their yard in themes. I don't want to see someone's house look like a Big Lots truck overturned in their driveway! If you're going to have zombies come out of the ground, don't put a smiling scarecrow right next to them. And if you're going to spend the money on realistic looking headstones, try to make everything look realistic, and not place them side by side with cheap plastic ghosts.
I'm loving what people are doing in the DIY world of Halloween decorations (see links on the right), and part of the reason I love the Haunted Mansion in Disney World so much is that it's themed, and the quality of the displays is consistent. I think people should do the same. If you want a light-hearted theme, stick with it. Ditto with the gore factor.
Things I'd like to see less of in future Halloween celebrations: Ridiculous reality ghost hunting shows. Ghost Hunters (on the newly renamed SyFy channel) has been dinged repeatedly for faking hauntings, and I can only assume that all the other similar melodramatic programs - Most Haunted is by far the worst in my opinion (Hey, let's scream for no reason! That will help our ratings!) - pull the same stunts. Now we have Paranormal State and, get this, Extreme Paranormal, to add even more cheesy infrared camera shots and overblown stories of tragedies to our television diet.
Honestly, these shows come on every week, and every week they find "evidence" of ghosts and hauntings. Doesn't anyone out there find this suspicious? Sure, I could be swayed if evidence was found in one or two places every now and then, but everywhere, every time? With that kind of record, it stands to reason that ghosts and goblins and every other kind of supernatural being are crammed into every building, graveyard, nook and cranny of the world. Every person alive should be running into hauntings all the time. But we aren't. Which makes me wonder, with a very cynical mind, what's really going on here?
So let's tone those down, okay? And let's have the writers for those cheesy shows (and they do have writers, by the way - hmmm, wonder why?) create some scary fictional programming for us to watch. Just a thought.
Unfortunately, I need to get back to work. More later.
It's not just that Halloween has passed us by for another year - and was once again almost eclipsed by the Christmas decorations which have been smuggled into just about every store I entered this month. It's just that, well, I think maybe I should have started the celebrations sooner, so I could have gotten more worked in. As it was, I spent most nights coming home from work, crashing, and thinking of what I would do if I had the energy, money, and time. Curse you, need for employment! You cause such a massive buzz kill!So, I figure I'll do what other blogs seem to be doing in honor of the sad times: create a "best and worst of" list and talk about what I'd like to do if I get a promotion that's being talked about in mythic terms (It's coming, but we don't know when!). Here goes:
Best Movie: Trick 'r Treat. Close second, 1408. Both are scary without being gory -we don't do splatter horror. Unlike the chaplain with whom I work, the Saw movies are verboten in my house. Honorable mention goes to Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers. Both, in case you haven't heard of them, are werewolf movies. Le Pacte de Loupe (aka The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Sleepy Hollow are also on my fave list, although I didn't get to them this year.
Worst Movie: Carnival of Souls. We actually saw this a few years ago, but it remains the worst horror movie I've ever intentionally seen during the Halloween season. The worst one we saw this year was The Innocents, followed closely by Let's Scare Jessica to Death - it was the ending that sent it straight into this category. Dishonorable mention goes to The Ninth Gate. Again, a confused ending and incredibly goofy glasses worn by the villian - played by Frank Langella - did this one in.
Geeky villians are so not scary! And his demise was one of the dumbest things I've seen in a horror movie.Things I'd like to see more of in future Halloween celebrations: Better decorations. Yep, I'm one of those people who want people to decorate their yard in themes. I don't want to see someone's house look like a Big Lots truck overturned in their driveway! If you're going to have zombies come out of the ground, don't put a smiling scarecrow right next to them. And if you're going to spend the money on realistic looking headstones, try to make everything look realistic, and not place them side by side with cheap plastic ghosts.
I'm loving what people are doing in the DIY world of Halloween decorations (see links on the right), and part of the reason I love the Haunted Mansion in Disney World so much is that it's themed, and the quality of the displays is consistent. I think people should do the same. If you want a light-hearted theme, stick with it. Ditto with the gore factor.
Things I'd like to see less of in future Halloween celebrations: Ridiculous reality ghost hunting shows. Ghost Hunters (on the newly renamed SyFy channel) has been dinged repeatedly for faking hauntings, and I can only assume that all the other similar melodramatic programs - Most Haunted is by far the worst in my opinion (Hey, let's scream for no reason! That will help our ratings!) - pull the same stunts. Now we have Paranormal State and, get this, Extreme Paranormal, to add even more cheesy infrared camera shots and overblown stories of tragedies to our television diet.
Honestly, these shows come on every week, and every week they find "evidence" of ghosts and hauntings. Doesn't anyone out there find this suspicious? Sure, I could be swayed if evidence was found in one or two places every now and then, but everywhere, every time? With that kind of record, it stands to reason that ghosts and goblins and every other kind of supernatural being are crammed into every building, graveyard, nook and cranny of the world. Every person alive should be running into hauntings all the time. But we aren't. Which makes me wonder, with a very cynical mind, what's really going on here?
So let's tone those down, okay? And let's have the writers for those cheesy shows (and they do have writers, by the way - hmmm, wonder why?) create some scary fictional programming for us to watch. Just a thought.
Unfortunately, I need to get back to work. More later.
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