Spook Me? Spook You!

Two days from Halloween. Seems like it was only 367 days from the last Halloween, but I guess time does fly when you’re having a stressful year, huh? What was I doing last Halloween? Well, I think we had just gone to the great BEAT Tour in Indianapolis on October 30th, and Halloween had landed on a Thursday. Much like the last few Halloweens we didn’t do anything since the kids were all grown up and doing adult-like things. So we just turned the outside lights off, closed the front door, and hunkered down hiding from ghouls and goblins going door to door for fun-size confections.

We never handed out candy, at least since we had kids. We might have handed out the first three years we were in our house, but since we began making our own ghosts and goblins we were usually out getting candy for our little ones. My daughter just yesterday brought up the one Halloween when it rained all night, so I hid behind different doors in the house and the kids would come up to them and trick or treat. I’d hand them candy, then they’d go to the kitchen while I’d go to the next room. It was silly, but it relieved some of the disappointment of a very rainy All Hallow’s Eve. What’s funny is that my daughter is 22-years old now, and we probably did that when she was 3 or 4. Maybe even younger. I guess that Halloween stood out for her.

I’ve been trying to fit in as many scary movies as I can before Halloween. I’ve tried doing that each year, but I never hit the quota that I want to hit. Nearly every Friday for the last few weeks I’ve watched something on Shudder. Some old flicks, but mostly new Shudder originals. I’m of the thought process that I WANT new horror to succeed. Hey, I love classic 70s and 80s horror films as much as the next pathetic 51-year old loser. But I’m all about evolving and growing, more so than living in the past. I will always worship at the altar of guys like Romero, Argento, Craven and Carpenter. But I think starting with Ari Aster’s Hereditary I felt a shift in modern horror. Aster gave us something completely different with Hereditary. I felt it sitting in the movie theater with my son back in 2018. This was pure horror, but with a twist. Like if you took The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby and combined them with something like Ordinary People. The dysfunctional family possessed by King Paimon.

From that spot forward I’ve seen this amazing shift in horror. You can be thoughtful, intellectual, and moving while still being scary as Hell. Movies the past few years that have done an amazing job of moving the horror film forward that made an impact on me personally, in no particular order: Barbarian, Mandy, Train To Busan, The Dark and the Wicked, Midsommar, Infinity Pool, Saint Maud, Nope, The Night House, Black Phone, Host, When Evil Lurks, Oddity, Weapons, Talk To Me, Deadstream, The Invisible Man and everything the great DIY king Joe Begos has made in the last several years(Bliss, VFW, Christmas Bloody Christmas).

It doesn’t have to be serious horror, either. The V/H/S anthology series is great classic gorefest stuff that isn’t reflecting society or attempting to teach something about our inner demons. They give us equal parts humor, horror, and just plain weird. I love that as well. Want just a good old fashioned slasher movie? Give Clown In A Cornfield or Night of the Reaper a watch. Hell, I even enjoyed the Street Trash remake. It’s not going to win any awards but it was gory and funny and entertaining. Much more than the original. I tried watching that last summer and turned it off 20 minutes in. Nothing politically correct about that one. The Mortuary Collection is a blast of an anthology flick with the great Clancy Brown that doesn’t disappoint in all categories. Greg Nicotero’s Creepshow series on Shudder is also fantastic. You get some stinkers, but that’s part of the fun of an anthology show…digging for treasures. Ooh…and Glorious is an absolute blast of a flick about a cosmic glory hole in the bathroom stall of a highway rest stop. JK Simmons voices Cthulhu. All you need to know.

My point here is that horror offers as much or as little as you want in film and television. If you want heady ideas and emotions, it’s out there. Or if you want just a popcorn and bag of M&Ms slasher trash flick there’s that as well. For me, more than anything else, horror films are like a time machine back to my childhood and teen years. Horror movies were there for me when I was alone and lonely on a Friday or Saturday night. I could get lost in being scared, grossed out, or ultimately just disturbed. It took that loneliness away and I was distracted by the macabre. Much like Linus’ safety blanket, films like Dawn of the Dead, Fright Night, Phantasm, and Nightmare on Elm Street offered me an escape from a sometimes “meh” teen existence. It made weekends where everyone but me had plans not so bad. Throw a party pizza in the oven, fill my giant plastic IU(Indiana University) glass with Mountain Dew, and plop in the Friday the 13th : The Final Chapter Betamax into the player and I was set. It helped that my parents liked horror movies as well.

I mean, my mom rented The Evil Dead herself and her, my older brother and I watched it one weeknight eating dinner in the living room. My parents were pretty cool when it came to movies. They took me to see Fright Night, Silver Bullet, Hellraiser, Nightmare On Elm Street 2 and 3, and many more I can’t even remember.

Horror has always been a family thing.

And I’ve handed the horror bug down to my kids. I think maybe the first toe dip into horror my kids had was The Simpsons‘ ‘Treehouse of Horror’ episodes. That opened the door. Referencing classic horror films like The Shining, Nightmare On Elm Street, The Twilight Zone, and so many more that when the kids actually saw those movies I think it may have lessened the fear factor a bit. Made those movies feel less like horror and more like just a part of life. Though, my son watching the first Insidious at age 6 may have been a bit too much. I thought I actually traumatized him. But, nothing a little Billy Madison at midnight couldn’t fix.

All my kids love horror, and I’ve seen so many horror flicks in the theater with all of them. My wife on the other hand isn’t a fan of scary movies, and likely never will be. She’ll begrudgingly watch them sometimes, but she rarely enjoys them.

So I hope you all have a great Halloween week, if it’s something you enjoy and celebrate. I’ll be filling my head with old and new horror all week. And on November 1st, I’ll still be filling my head with horror because that’s what I do. It’s my happy place, ironically enough.