Halloweens, Past and Present

Adults measure time in dates… the date your mortgage payment is due each month, the date of your next physical, the date of your next business trip.  Children measure time in events … the time you broke your arm climbing a tree, the Christmas you got a BB gun, the grade you were in when you had your first kiss.  Childhood memories tend to flow together, mingling like streams feeding a large river, until it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other.  Only the major happenings of life stand upright, like islands in the river.

To be sure, there were the usual milestones in the life of a young Unimonster, as well.  My first kiss was in Sixth Grade; my little brother and I got matching BB guns for Christmas 1978, over the objections of my mother (thanks, big brother!); and I’ve never had a broken bone … despite totaling a Cadillac that hit me as I dashed across a busy highway when I was 15.  But along with these, rather mundane, highlights of my life are those of a more … unusual nature.  And some of the most prominent “islands” in the river of my memory center around my love of Monsters, Horror, and Halloween.

Halloween when I was a child was quite different from the two-month-long shopping extravaganza that it is now.  Now, Halloween is celebrated by nearly everyone, of nearly every age, and is second only to Christmas in terms of sales generated.  Halloween decorating is big business, with dozens of companies supplying everything the home-bound haunter could desire for their porch-side graveyard, from 99¢ hokey rubber bats to animatronic reanimated corpses costing hundreds, even thousands of dollars.  The same people who go overboard when decorating for Christmas have taken to Halloween with gusto, pushing the bar ever higher with scary, gory, creative displays.  And costumes have progressed far from the screen-printed vinyl pajamas of my youth.  Today’s parents routinely spend $40, $50, even $100 on costumes for their children … and even more on their own outfits, something of which my parents never would have dreamed.

In the early 70’s, my peak Trick-or-Treating years, any house with a Jack o’Lantern on the porch was considered decorated and fair game for a visit.  We thought ourselves fortunate if stores had Halloween supplies two weeks before the big day, and even then, the selection left much to be desired.  That never mattered to me, as once I was old enough to know better

the thought of wearing a store-bought costume was simply unacceptable.  Store-bought costumes, at least in my childhood, were anything but scary.  Rather than making a costume that would allow your average MonsterKid to in some way resemble Frankenstein's Monster, the companies that produced them gave you a cheap plastic one-piece with a picture of the Monster (and not a very good one, at that …) printed on the front, with the word FRANKENSTEIN in large block letters underneath.  Add to that a thin polystyrene mask, with a rubber band that was guaranteed to break before you got home with the loot and a far too narrow mouth opening that cut your tongue every time you tried to talk, and it’s easy to see I wasn’t missing much by passing on the mass-produced monster togs.  Not to mention the fact that, if you had to have the name of the monster you were Trick-or-Treating as stamped on your chest in order for others to identify you, then it wasn’t much of a costume.

No, for my cousin, my brother, and me, only homemade costumes would do.  As I’ve mentioned previously in this column, my usual alter-ego was a vampire; smooth, scary, but most of all cheap ‘n’ easy.  But that wasn’t the only creature I was capable of pulling together on a $2.00 budget.  I could be a very convincing zombie, with some fake blood, some mud and dirt for that crusty, just-dug-my-way-out-of-a-hole look, and some tattered clothes for the basic raw materials.  Once I was “Dr. Death,” complete with saw, stethoscope, and blood-soaked lab coat.

Once costuming was out of the way, then the hunt began for pillowcases.  This was before the days of fancy manufactured bags, buckets, and pails for the collection of our Trick-or-Treating loot.  We had two options—paper grocery sacks, which were tough to carry and prone to tearing; and pillowcases.  Pillowcases were strong, they were large, and they were convenient.  There was only one problem with them.  They were my mother’s.

There was no chance of us using her good linen, of course … we knew enough not to even try that.  But like everyone, we had some old, faded, stained, ragged sheets and pillowcases in the back of the closet.  We had precisely three cases with enough structural integrity to carry a load of candy:  one was white, one avocado green, (hey, it was the ‘70’s, after all …) and one a flowered print.  You did not want to Trick-or-Treat carrying a sack with flowers printed all over it … at least, not where I grew up.

Our preparations complete, we would set out on our route with the resolve of Caesar's legions off to vanquish the Gauls.  The ritual was the same from year to year, never varying.  We would wait until it was dark, and then head out.  We would then immediately turn around and ring our own doorbell, shouting “TRICK-OR-TREAT!” when my mother opened the door.  She would grumble, but nonetheless dropped a few pieces of candy in each of our sacks.  Then the adventure would begin in earnest.

For those readers who are parents of young children; no, our mothers and fathers weren’t exceedingly neglectful or careless of their offspring.  That was a different time, and only babies went Trick-or-Treating before sundown, or accompanied by their parents.  We knew our neighborhood, and felt completely safe and comfortable in it … even at night.  That confidence was doubled on Halloween, when we always traveled in a pack, constantly crossing paths with other, similar packs doing the same.  As we passed we would hail each other, like old-fashioned sailing ships meeting far out at sea.  We would exchange information on the houses we had visited; who was giving out the good stuff, who was tossing out the cheap crap, who wasn’t handing out anything at all.  It was a cooperative hunt, and like wolves word would’ve traveled swiftly of any threat to the pack.

Quite frankly, it never occurred to us that there could be any threat … at least, not the immediate kind.  We had all heard the stories about razor blades and broken glass in treats, of course, and our parents always told us not to eat anything before they checked it out.  We never were overly concerned about that, however.  Personally, I thought that was just an excuse to give the adults first crack at their favorite treats.

Once we had thoroughly covered the neighborhood we would stop somewhere, typically the 7-11 just down the street, and take stock of the night’s haul.  Seldom were we satisfied with the results of our officially sanctioned panhandling, but there’s a fine line between persistence and obnoxiousness, and we usually tried not to cross it.  Contrary to our parent’s instructions, we would eat a few pieces of candy while deciding on our next move.  Occasionally, we would have some change in our sacks, from people too busy or too disinterested to shop for candy, and sorting that out was a high priority.  As always at that age, if I had 25¢ to my name, it was going to be spent on a comic book … ordinarily, it would be Batman, Action Comics, or The Flash, but not on Halloween.  On Halloween it had to be Ghosts, or House of Mystery, or The Unexpected.  Not that I didn’t buy those titles throughout the year, but they were must-haves to cap off the perfect Halloween night.

When we finally did straggle on home, we would camp in front of the TV, watching a holiday-appropriate Creature Feature on one of the local stations, as we munched happily on our Halloween bounty.  My dachshund would throw herself protectively on the sack beside me, snarling menacingly at anyone who dared approach it—especially my little sister.  This never failed to earn her a treat; butterscotches a particular favorite, though she also had a fondness for Mary Jane’s.  The sight of her working her way through a piece of peanut butter taffy was guaranteed to bring laughs.

 

All too soon, the night would end.  We would be sent upstairs to bathe and prepare for bed, and as we scrubbed the residue of fake blood and Hershey’s miniatures off ourselves, another Halloween would officially draw to a close.  Those days are more than forty years in the past now, and I’ve known great joys in my life since then, as well as the heartaches that all of us are familiar with.

But I’ve never known pure happiness like Halloween nights when I was a child.

Halloween—Unimonster Style

As long-time readers of this column are no doubt aware, Halloween is, and has always been, a special time of the year for the Unimonster.  Most of my happiest childhood memories revolve around the month of October, and I’ve been pleased to share many of them with you.  Whether it was the effort expended in trying to come up with the perfect homemade costume, or the pleasure of sitting on the living room floor after a successful Trick-or-Treating expedition, bag of candy in my lap, dog by my side, and Lon Chaney, Jr. on the TV screen, my Halloween memories represent some of the simplest, purest joys one can experience.

But some have asked me if Halloween still holds that same charm, that same appeal for the middle-aged Unimonster, and obviously the answer is no.  I’m no longer that wide-eyed, (mostly) innocent MonsterKid, living in a much simpler time, and society does seem to frown on 45-year-old Trick-or-Treaters.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t found new ways to celebrate my favorite holiday, or that I’ve outgrown all of my childhood traditions.

Though there’s something of a chicken-or-egg quality to it, there’s no denying that my love of Halloween and my love of Horror Films are directly related, and those beloved Horror Films have assumed top priority in my seasonal planning.  Just as I used to plan my Trick-or-Treating well in advance, I now spend weeks scheduling my assault on the October Couch Potato Film Festival title [An October Tradition, October 24^th, 2009].  I carefully choose the movies I’ll be viewing throughout the month, with more consideration given to quantity than quality, I will admit, but I never forget my favorites.  There are some movies that just have to be viewed each October; without them, the month would seem incomplete.  Some of these I discussed in a recent column [Halloween Movies to Watch, October 10^th, 2009].

The first of these films is ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.  This 1944 classic, starring Cary Grant and Raymond Massey, is pure comedic gold; a shining example of Hollywood in its heyday.  I often devote an entire day during the month to Horror Comedies, and this one always makes that list, along with movies such as GALAXY QUEST, SCARY MOVIE, and of course the Abbott & Costello Monster pics.

Other days during the month are devoted to different themes…  Alien Invasions, Slasher Films, Euro-Horrors, and Giant Bug movies are favorite themes during the days leading up to Halloween.  Halloween night itself is devoted to the best of the genre, from DRACULA to the one movie that must be viewed to end the season—John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN.

But movies aren’t my only means of celebrating the holiday.  While the Crypt always has a ‘Halloween’ feel to it, from the middle of September to early November it is decked out from top to bottom (or as much as the Unimonster’s budget will allow…) with Ghosts, Goblins, Witches, and that most necessary and iconic of Halloween symbols, the Jack O’Lantern.  Real ones, plastic ones, foam ones, even glass ones… nothing screams “Halloween” at the Unimonster as loudly as Jack does.  In fact there are always three on display in the living room—a foam one that stays lit 24/7; a vintage plastic blow-molded one that was a gift from a dear friend, and is exactly like one I had as a child; and a glass candy bowl, that I try to keep full.  There are others that appear during the season, and of course, the highlight of the year is carving a real Jack for the front porch.

As I’ve mentioned before, my artistic talents, such as they are, start and end with the written word.  Though I can visualize the fantastic Jack O’Lanterns I’d love to carve, when I sit down in front of blank pumpkin, the same Jack always emerges—two triangular eyes, a triangular nose, a lopsided grin, vaguely triangular, with three or four triangular teeth—let’s just say that I handle curves like an overloaded minivan.  Not even those booklets of pre-printed stencils help… besides, that’s cheating.

Finally, everything comes together for the big night.  The Crypt is decorated, the Jack is glowing on the front porch, and Bela is waxing poetic over the music of his night-children.  And the large empty skull by the front door is filled with candy for the Trick-or-Treaters.  Now I’ve mentioned before that my friends and I had considered ourselves ‘candy connoisseurs’ once upon a time, and I can still remember the disappointment I felt as someone would thoughtlessly drop a handful of crappy candy, or even worse, a box of raisins, into my bag.  I resolved as a young Trick-or-Treater that I would always pass out the ‘good stuff’—M&M’s, Hershey’s Kisses, Tootsie Pops—when it came to be my turn at the door, and I still hold true to that resolution.  So here I sit—lights low, the room lit by the yellow glow of electric Jacks and the silver gleam of Lugosi and Karloff, skull full of candy—waiting for that first knock on my door, remembering the thrill and joy of being the vampire, ghost, or ghoul on the other side.

Hacking through Haddonfield: How HALLOWEEN Gave Birth to a Genre

(Originally Published in 2006)

Though my preferences usually run more in the Classic vein of Horror, every so often I feel the need to inject a little blood and gore into the mix.  Usually, I’ll pull out a Bava or Fulci film, or, depending on my mood, one of De Ossorio’s Blind Dead movies.  The European “Lost Cannibal Tribe” films of the ‘70’s are always good for plenty of blood & guts, though they aren't for most tastes.  For more recent fare, there’s no shortage of filmmakers who tend towards the gorier aspects of Horror.  Takashi Miike, director of the Japanese cult hit Ôdishon —aka— Audition, has developed quite a reputation as a director who pushes the boundaries with his films.  The Spanish filmmaker Nacho Cerdà has repeatedly blown through those boundaries, most notably with his short film Aftermath.

Domestically, the movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis never fail to keep me entertained, even if calling them “B-Pictures” is paying them an undue compliment.  I’ve always had a soft spot for bad movies, and H. G. Lewis would’ve given Ed Wood a run for his money in that department.  Romero’s Dead films are always an option for gore, as are the films of Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and Clive Barker.  Currently, directors such as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie are keeping Hollywood’s manufacturers of fake blood in clover.

Of course, we also have the teen slasher films so popular in the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s … franchises such as Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and the first and best of the Unstoppable Slasher movies, John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Thought of today primarily for being the film that introduced us to Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween should instead be remembered for having given birth to the uniquely American sub-genre of the standard slasher films, a curious sub-genre that I refer to as the “Unstoppable Slasher” movies.  Jason might have gotten the glory, and Freddy the best lines, but Michael beat them both to the punch.  And, in addition to being the first, he was by far the best.

Horror Fans today, long since jaded by multiple sequels, prequels, and even a cross-over, rightfully view each new iteration of these masters of massacre as nothing more than the lowest form of Horror, the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac and fries… in truth, just more evidence of Hollywood’s contempt for the loyal fans of Horror Films.

But that overlooks just how good … just how influential, these films were when they premiered.  Halloween gave birth to a genre, and resurrected the Franchise concept that had been so successful for both Universal and Hammer Films.  Fans today might decry the never-ending parade of sequels that these films became, and not without reason.  But that fails to acknowledge that there is a reason that Halloween, and films like it, became franchises in the first place:  Because the original movie was so damn good.

If Slasher films are the American version of Italy’s Giallos, then John Carpenter is the American Bava.  One of the best directors in Horror today, as he has been since 1978, Carpenter has been responsible for some of the greatest Genre films of the past thirty years.  The Fog, The Thing, Christine, The Prince of Darkness … all have served to demonstrate the range and ability of Carpenter, and Halloween is, at least in my opinion, his masterwork.  Though not as polished and professional in appearance as his later films, the film’s raw, rough edge helped make it one of the most effective Horror Films of all-time, and the best of the Slasher genre.  The minimalist plot; the silent, emotionless killer; the teen-agers trapped in a peril they’re not even aware of, and Loomis’ absolute conviction that his patient is the physical embodiment of evil.  All of these factors combine to produce a truly suspenseful film—one that slowly builds into a frightening climax while not depending on the cheap, throwaway shocks that would become the hallmark of movies of this type.

This soon became one of the most successful films of the ‘70’s, and was, for a long time, the top-grossing Independent film of all time.  Though it gave rise to a series of sequels, none were helmed by anyone with a hint of Carpenter’s talent, and the series declined rapidly.

A year and a half after the premiere of Halloween, Friday the 13^th made its debut.  Directed by prolific producer Sean S. Cunningham, and owing much to Halloween, F13 was nevertheless a tremendously good movie in it’s own right… not up to the quality of the former film, but easily the best of a weak year for Horror.  The film was hugely successful, well beyond the anticipation of the producers, and a string of sequels soon followed.  Friday the 13^th:  Part II, released one year after the first film, introduced us to Jason Voorhees, the champion of the Slasher circuit, who’s still in business 25 years later.  Yet another sequel is currently in pre-production, with a 2007 release planned.

Four years after F13 began its domination of the sub-genre, Wes Craven gave us his take on the theme with the wisecracking, knife-gloved, ghost-of-a-psychopathic-pedophile Freddy Krueger, in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Craven, certainly the most commercially successful of the great Horror directors that arose in the late ‘60’s-early ‘70’s, predictably took the Unstoppable Slasher movies in a new direction with Freddy, and would resurrect the sub-genre 12 years later with the innovative, and much-copied, Scream.

There were other attempts to create similar horror franchises … the Candyman movies, a doll named Chucky, even a Leprechaun and a Genie.  Some of these movies were actually pretty good.  Most weren't.  But none ever equaled Halloween—the night Michael came home for the first time.

Monsters Wanted: DVD Review by S. J. Martiene

Monsters Wanted


Review by:  S. J. Martiene

Too early to talk about Halloween, you say? P’shaw, I SAY!!! It is NEVER too early to talk about the second biggest holiday of the year … and even now … preparations are being made to scare the poop out of you, dear reader. Oh yes, plans are being drawn up, and plots are being formed. NO, not the normal plotting that comes from your relatives, but from those hard-working people at your local Haunted Attractions. Do you know that planning has to start in the heat of a summer night? Well, it does, my candy corn chomping friends. Today, we are going to focus on one place. It is a place that exists not too far from where I grew up in Kentucky, but first a little back story.

Long ago, three decades ago or more, your humble servant had a brief stint as a Haunted House Actor. I performed in two separate haunted houses in North Central Kentucky during the early 1980’s. My duties were varied from zombie, to Mad Doctor’s victim, to “screamer”. Though the ones I worked were small-town, and on a much, much smaller scale than detailed in the MONSTERS WANTED documentary, I can empathize with the creators of Asylum Haunts (Louisville, KY). We also had to build our own sets, create our own costumes, do our own make-up, and hope we were not too exhausted at the end to want to do it again the next year.

MONSTERS WANTED is a documentary taking us through the good, bad, and the scary ugly of what it takes to put out a high end haunted theme attraction. The Asylum Haunted Scream Park is NOT just a haunted house….but a 40-acre world borne from the maniacal hard work and creative minds of Richard Treachout and Janel Nash. The time span of the documentary takes us from July 2, 2011 until Closing night October 28, 2011, detailing the openings of Darkness Falls, Zombie City, and Carnivale of Lost Souls.

The viewer is taken through what IS actually a theatrical production. There are stage managers, auditions and fine-tuning auditions. There are production meetings, staff meetings, and problems with logistics, sets, and people. As with any good production, there are always personality clashes, and they were evident here. HOWEVER, it seemed (with one glaring exception – JOE), that most of the people running Asylum Haunts were pretty much trying to stay on the same page despite the pressures of time and money. Oh, and let’s not forget this is an OUTDOORS production so, they had to deal with stuff getting rained on and the heat…and by the end of the movie you could see everyone’s breath when they were speaking. AH, weather in the Ohio Valley!!

As the months pass, we not only get treated to the birth of this HUGE Halloween baby, but we get a peek at several other holiday-oriented events that happened. One is The Transworld Trade Show in St. Louis, Missouri. This show is for proprietors of haunted attractions and premieres the latest and greatest in Halloween gore and more. It’s kind of like a toy trade show for adults. I thought it was pretty fun how Treachout wanted to look at everything and see if they could make it cheaper “with duct tape”. It is fitting that MONSTERS WANTED was shown at the 2013 trade show. Also, I discovered that Asylum Haunts is one of the sponsors of the annual Zombie Walk in Louisville. People get dressed up, there are bands playing, food, and they swarm in on one part of the city each year. I have relatives that go to this each year and have a blast. If I still lived in Kentucky and was about 20 years younger, I probably would attend too, but it does occur on my husband’s birthday each year, so I don’t know if that would work out or not. The documentary also covered other haunted attractions in the Louisville area, such as Baxter Avenue Morgue Haunted House and The Haunted Hotel. There is enough scare to go around for everyone in Jefferson County and the surrounding areas.

As the days closed in on opening night, there was the usual drama one could expect from this type of large-scale event: actors quitting, equipment failing, and the general “idea-in-the-head-not-playing-out-as-well-in-real-life.” It didn’t take long for things to start running fairly well, and everyone was enjoying the job and scaring people, discounting the two concussions of course.

Overall, I really liked this documentary. I thought it was VERY well-done and made me feel good that it was done “back home”. The only parts I didn’t care for was some of the language and getting no warning before a certain artist started stapling and piercing himself. I am probably in the minority on this overall, but if the f-bomb is part of one’s everyday verbiage, allow it to be bleeped so others do not have to hear it. As for the performer, once I realized what the he was doing, I could not watch that part of the documentary … ewww … I mean … ewww …

Aside from those two things, for me, it was wonderful. Richard Treachout, left a well-paying job to focus his entire energy on this project and the fact he and Nash went through their life-savings and were essentially broke after this is not lost on the viewer. They are both incredibly dedicated to this project and I am sure they will have many successful years ahead of them. They have probably created many memories for thousands of people across Kentuckiana and beyond…and not many of us can say we’ve done that in our lives. If you get the chance to see this documentary on DVD, do not hesitate, especially if you love Halloween.

Please check out the links below and show them some support. After checking today, I do not see 2014 dates set, but I’m sure that will be updated soon. And if you happen to be in the Kentuckiana area during the Halloween season and are looking for a scare, visit The Asylum Haunted Scream Park.

www.aslymhaunts.com

www.facebook.com/asylumhaunts

www.facebook.com/louisvillezombiewalk

My First ‘Grown-Up’ Halloween

I’ve written often of Halloweens of my youth, of how important they were in the development of the boy who would one day be “the Unimonster.”  I’ve even written of that last Halloween of my childhood, the point at which I realized I was too old to go trick-or-treating any longer.  I thought at the time that my Halloween celebrations were in the past, buried in the same heap as outgrown clothes, broken toys, and forgotten books.  Life has a way of carrying us forward, and the normal passage of time soon had my thoughts turning in other directions.  Everyday concerns and worries—college, work, dating, trying to figure out how Bruce Willis’ career survived HUDSON HAWK—all pushed thoughts of Halloween into the deep recesses of my mind.  By the early 1990s, I was married, to a lovely redhead without the slightest interest in monsters or Horror movies, and I settled down to a life of grown-up domesticity.  Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, a fondness for the ghosts, ghouls, and creatures of the Horror genre wasn’t the only difference that my wife and I had, and those differences eventually led to our separation and divorce.  That separation occurred in October of 1998, with the divorce being finalized twelve months later.  Frankly, Halloween was the furthest thing from my mind at those times, but if anyone had asked me if I’d ever look forward to the October season again, I would have replied, quite honestly, that I never again wanted to think of October.  And that was my frame of mind for some time after my divorce.

However, as trite and clichéd as the aphorism may be, time really does heal all wounds.  A year after my divorce, I was casting about for something to take my mind off my pain and troubles.  I had become far too friendly with a pair of Southern gentlemen named Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, and I knew I needed something other than alcohol to occupy my mind.  Psychologists might have much to say regarding my reaching back into my childhood to find a refuge from my pain; if so, then … so be it.  All I know is that I turned to the monster movies that I had loved as a child, and rediscovered that love as a thirty-six year-old man.  I’ve written of how I began collecting Horror movies, taping every one that came on television, buying others as I could afford it.  I’ve also shared with you how that simple hobby led me to the yahoo groups full of like-minded people, and how that, in turn, led me back to my writing.  That’s what led to my ‘rebirth’ as the Unimonster, nearly a decade ago.

Something else that was reborn in me was my love of Halloween, though it had certainly never died.  It had merely been sublimated by the pressures of life.  But that first Halloween after my divorce, long before ‘Unimonster’ was even a thought in my mind, as I started building my collection of movies with five straight days of twenty-four hours worth of Horror movies—courtesy of American Movie Classics’ Monsterfest—that love came crashing back to the forefront.  That October of 2000, I ended the month with fifty-three movies in my collection, a pair of VCRs that were hot to the touch, and—for the first time in two years—a measure of happiness in my heart.

As the summer of 2001 began to wane, my thoughts, as they always had in childhood, turned to thoughts of the approaching Halloween season.  It had been more than twenty years since I had been that excited about October, and I was looking forward to another month of scary and ghoulish fun such as I had known in that long-ago past.  I wanted to decorate, I wanted to celebrate, I wanted to recapture every bit of the joy that Halloween had represented to me as a boy.

Then one bright, splendid Tuesday morning in September, everything changed as I sat at my desk at work and watched as war was declared on my country.  As they had been three years before, thoughts of such trivialities as Halloween and monster movies were chased from my mind, by the actions of real-life monsters far worse than anything Hollywood ever conceived.  This time the hurt, less personal but far more profound, was moderated by an intense rage at those who would, in such a cowardly manner, strike at something I love far more than myself.  The stress of weeks of waiting for us to strike back left little room in my thoughts for Halloween, and when, in early October, a series of anthrax attacks targeted, among other organizations, television networks, my job as chief of security at a television station guaranteed that that stress would only increase.  Halloween passed almost unnoticed amid the hectic events of the first months of war.

Another year passed, and life returned to a manner of normalcy.  As August faded into September, I once again began to think of Halloween.  That July, I had joined my first Yahoo Group, the now-defunct (and sorely-missed) Horrorweb group.  By September, I was a fully active member; in fact, in response to the Horrorwench’s September 10^th question regarding plans for adding a store to the Horrorweb web-site to sell Halloween (and general horror) merchandise, I posted the following reply, “Love that Idea, Wench... I'm into ALL things Halloween! (Already started decorating my crypt!)”  I was not yet the Unimonster, but the Crypt has always been the ‘Crypt’!

That autumn was the best I had experienced in decades, as I luxuriated in the joys of Halloween as I remembered it.  Every store I entered seemed to have Halloween as its main stock in trade; every network on cable TV seemed to have non-stop horror-thons playing nightly.  To put it bluntly, I gorged on Halloween the way Augustus Gloop overindulged in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  I bought decorations, and movies, and candy.  I recorded every Horror Film that I could; and watched those that I already had over and over.  If anything, this new form of Halloween experience was even better than my youth, for now I was completely free to give in to the holiday ‘spirit’, if you will.  My dreams of Halloween perfection, the things I had wanted to do in childhood, but had never been able to make happen, were now possible—provided I spend the money to realize them.  And while my budget wasn’t as large as I wished it to be, I still came close to matching those childhood fantasies.

As that November 1^st dawned, I realized that that October had been the happiest month of the past several years for me.  Never again would I ignore the Halloween season, or pretend that I had long ago outgrown it.  Never again would I forget the joy to be found in black cats and Jack o’ Lanterns.  Eleven months of the year I would be a grown-up (well, relatively speaking …) with grown-up problems and responsibilities.  But October once more would be mine.  October would serve to remind me that there was still a part of me untouched by heartbreak, divorce, financial worries, ulcers, hypertension, stress.  October would keep me sane.

For thirty-one days every year, October would let me be a kid again.

DVD Review: TRICK 'r TREAT

Title:  TRICK ‘r TREAT

Year of Release—Film:  2007

Year of Release—DVD:  2009

DVD Label:  Warner Premiere

Considering that Halloween is the celebration of all things frightening and horrific, it’s remarkable that, save for the franchise launched in 1978 by John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, relatively few Horror Films are devoted to our favorite holiday.  Halloween might get a toss-away nod here and there, but I’m talking about using the day as the central theme of the film, as does Carpenter’s masterpiece of Holiday Horror.  One recent film not only took All Hallows Eve to heart, but it did so in spectacular fashion.  So much so, that it quickly became the Unimonster’s second favorite Halloween movie.  That film is Michael Dougherty’s 2007 movie TRICK ‘r TREAT.

Written by Dougherty, TRICK ‘r TREAT is a cinematic vision of the lore, wonder, and fascination that surrounds Halloween, crystallized into a series of four vignettes interwoven into one story centered on a demonic trick-or-treater named Sam.  Sam (short for Samhain, the Celtic festival of the dead that is the ancestor of our modern Halloween) is the personification of the holiday, watching over the festivities, and punishing those who lack the proper respect for the holiday and its customs and traditions.  He’s present in each of the four stories, as well as visible throughout the framing sequences.

As in most anthologies, some of the tales are better than the rest, but that variation is not nearly as marked here.  The opening sequence features a young married couple named Henry and Emma (Tahmoh Penikett and Leslie Bibb), who are returning from the evening’s festivities and their argument over the disrespect that Emma demonstrates towards the holiday’s traditions.  The four vignettes that follow are, in order:  The Principal, starring Dylan Baker as the principal of the local school, who has an odd way of celebrating the holiday; The School Bus Massacre Revisited, about a group of kids visiting the site of a mysterious tragedy thirty years before; Surprise Party, concerning a young woman’s (Anna Paquin) efforts to lose her “virginity;” and Meet Sam, in which a cantankerous, Halloween-hating old man (the always enjoyable Brian Cox) receives his just desserts.  The film’s conclusion ties the segments together nicely, as well as provides a very satisfying finish.

Technically speaking, the film is remarkably well-done, with photography by veteran DP Glen MacPherson.  Produced by Bryan Singer, director of films such as X-MEN, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and SUPERMAN RETURNS, TRICK ‘r TREAT has a smooth, polished look that belies its $12 million budget, due in large part to Singer’s experience and guidance.  One factor in that look that I especially enjoyed is the paucity of CGI; almost all the effects work was practical.  The Unimonster is an old-fashioned kinda guy, and much prefers the magic of latex and rubber to pixels and megabytes.  CGI, when perfect, can be spectacularly effective.  Films such as STAR TREK and SUCKER PUNCH demonstrate this.  However, perfection is both difficult to achieve, and tremendously expensive.  If the result is anything less than perfection, then our eyes simply aren’t fooled.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but often a $200 latex appliance can be more convincing than several thousand dollars worth of computer time.

The DVD, from Warner Premiere, is okay—skimpy on special features, but acceptable.  The only bonus is the animated short Season’s Greetings, upon which the film is based.  The disc does include subtitles, something I always appreciate, but the lack of a commentary track on the feature (oddly, there is one for the animated short) is an unfortunate oversight on Warner’s part.  More information on the difficulties the producers had in finding distribution for this movie would be greatly appreciated.

For the Unimonster, there are certain movies that just define Halloween, movies that must be watched before the holiday ends or it’s just not Halloween.  Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, Lugosi’s DRACULA, the original THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD—these movies say “Halloween” to me.  I do believe that TRICK ‘r TREAT will be joining that list this October … and for many Octobers to come.