Halloween: Two Weeks In (Overview)

Well, I try to take it slow until the thick of the season, but I've already stumbled on some really great finds. I don't have time to delve into TV right now so I'll stick with the films.


Absence (2013)
8/10

Oops, I may have screwed myself. If I knew it'd be half this good, I'd have saved it for later. There's never been a truly flawless, 10/10 alien-themed found footage movie in equal to The Blair Witch Project or [REC]. Absence doesn't quite reach that height, but it's the best the genre has shown me so far. Incident In Lake County will always have a place in my heart, but the superior effects in Absence just barely edge it out.

Alien movies don't need to have convoluted storylines. The idea of beings from another world with no concept of humane treatment and who can grab you right out of your bed from the sky is terrifying enough. I was worried it'd be more of a mystery like The Fourth Kind, but the premise of a woman losing her baby was only used as the excuse to film everything that's happening. Ultimately this is just your classic, cabin in the woods, strange lights in the sky film. And for that, I adore it. All the great money shots you never get from most alien found footage movies, Absence finally gives us. And the characters, and their slice of life activities, actually were quite enjoyable in and of themselves. Definitely scared the crap out of me and definitely a great film.


Midnight Son (2011)
7/10

This instantly has become one of my favorite vampire films. I love, love films of this style. In the tradition of Let The Right One In and Ginger Snaps, this is a coolly dark, slow and brooding, seductive story of a human being who just happens to be a monster. Most impressive.


Pontypool (2008)
7/10

A charismatic radio DJ gets a new gig in a small town. Unfortunately he finds himself in the midst of... the zombie apocalypse. Watch them scramble in the studio to find out what's going on, and listen to the horrific bits and pieces of the story trickle in. It's an interesting concept, definitely a different and welcome vanage point from which to explore the zombie apocalypse. I was genuinely impressed. The ending was very clever although it was definitely not what I would have preferred.


The Pact (2012)
7/10

Traditionally ghosts have not been one of my favorite topics for horror. So this year I'm making a conscious effort to explore and endear the genre to myself. The Pact is a fairly run-of-the-mill ghost movie but it is highly effective and fairly clever.


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
5/10

I've heard a lot about this being among the worst remakes. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. How much more do you expect from your average 'sadistic hillbilly' film? I mean I'm no huge fan, nor afficionado, of that subgenre, but this is probably the best film of its ilk that I've seen so far. I found the characters somehow more believable than their counterparts in other sadistic hillbilly films such as The Hills Have Eyes remake.


The Lost World (1992)
4/10

The old story of Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World. It's my favorite cryptozoological concept. The effects were less than satisfactory, but the story was solid enough and the characters were charismatic. Not a horror movie but a good adventure film for kids.


Truth or Die (2012)
4/10

A group of hot shot mean kids (college or high school I guess), get caught up in the sadistic game of an ex-military man looking for some answers. It's pretty run of the mill for the genre but it gets some props for subverting expectations a bit. It's a fun romp, if you're into this kind of movie. Torture & serial killers are not among my interests so it has to be a truly exemplary film of that genre to work for me, which Truth or Die is not. But I did find the characters pretty interesting.


My Babysitter's a Vampire (2010)
4/10

Disney Channel still puts out paranormal-themed TV movies most years, this one they imported from Canada. They're never scary but they're sometimes good fun. This time they take their stab at the Twilight craze, and for the portion of the film that mostly pokes fun at Twilight -- this was a very funny and fun movie. But when they end up fighting vampires, I quickly lost interest. Action movies in general are not what I'm out for, let alone action movies that can't show blood or violence or treat it realistically. But hey this is sort of like a vampire-themed Shaun of the Dead. If that's the kind of thing you're into, you may well like it.


Hansel & Gretel Get Baked (2013)
3/10

I'm all for an adult interpretation of a fairy tale, films like that can be incredibly chilling. But Hansel & Gretel Get Baked fell short. Not nearly enough pot smoking, not nearly enough comedy for a supposed comedy movie, and I just wasn't invested in the story. Good concept, good try, just wasn't to my liking.

Will o' the Wisp

Walking around in my neighborhood, one of the things that strikes me the most is the multitude of floating lights I invariably see. They're just, all around me in the otherwise black night. But they really don't illuminate much of anything, not in the pitch darkness and the morning fog. Instead they just sit there like vigil lanterns, little orbs appearing to float of their own volition. Exactly like the will o' the wisp. Many of the streets are very curved as well, so small walkway lights or garage lights, etc., that people may have in their yard, end up looking like they're sitting in the middle of the road when I'm far away. I like to think they're leading me home but... they might just be leading me deeper into the shadow.

The darker, reddish pictures are the creepy ones of what I *actually* see when I'm haunting the neighborhood, the lighter ones are with my camera's night mode to make it look a little more clear.

I also found 3 deer grazing in a yard. These deer were damn smart, they were standing right in a patch of pitch darkness. I honestly could not see them, I HEARD them snorting and took the picture with my night mode on to bring in more of the light. I actually had no idea there were *three* deer until I got home and looked at the picture. I may just as well have come home and found a chupacabra in this picture!

Halloween Collections 2013

One of my favorite parts of Halloween are the Halloween collections I make. Similar to my Pop collections, they are composed of individual new tracks to form a cohesive whole. I put together haunting rock songs with eerie movie soundtrack material to create the perfect mixes for scaring the shit out of myself on my late-night walks.

So far this year I have three new ones to add to the canon. I find that the live tracks from Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit are ideal for something like this: they're acoustic, sparce, and more than a little haunted. The Harry Potter movies also have some surprisingly fantastic horror-esque music. Each album is about 45 minutes.

Halloween 5: Neighborhood of Creatures

1. The Neighborhood -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]
2. Original Inhabitants -- Jeff Grace [The House of the Devil]
3. Darkness Takes Over -- Nicholas Hooper [Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix]
4. Nothing As It Seems (Bridge School) -- Pearl Jam
5. The Mothman -- Jeff Toyne [Shadow in the Trees]
6. Passing Trees -- Jeff Grace [I Can See You]
7. Walking With a Ghost (Bridge School) -- Tegan and Sara
8. Footsteps -- Jeff Grace [House of the Devil]
9. Like Oh, Like H (Bridge School) -- Tegan and Sara
10. Laurie's First Time -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]
11. Little Anna -- Javier Navarrete [Mirrors]
12. Ghost (Demo version) -- Indigo Girls
13. Creature -- Jericho
14. Lumos! (Hedwig's Theme) -- John Williams [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]

Halloween 6: Spirit on the Porch

1. It's Halloween, Not Hanukkah -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]
2. Heritage -- Opeth
3. Girl and the Ghost -- KT Tunstall
4. Not a Trick / Red and Black -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]
5. He's Calling You -- Jeff Grace [House of the Devil]
6. Asturias / The House is Safe -- Javier Navarrete [Mirrors]
7. The Devil's Orchard -- Opeth
8. The Halloween School Bus Massacre -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]
9. The View Upstairs -- Jeff Grace [House of the Devil]
10. A Book of Blood -- Javier Navarrete [Pan's Labyrinth]
11. Ghost of the Gang (Acoustic) -- Indigo Girls
12. Bathilda Bagshot -- Alexandre Desplat [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1]
13. Ghost of a Dog (Bridge School) -- Edie Brickell

Halloween 7: Will o' the Wisp

1. Pitch Meeting -- Jeff Grace [I Can See You]
2. Scars (Bridge School) -- Kacy Crowley
3. Something Out There -- Anton Sanko [The Last Winter]
4. Disposable Heroes (Bridge School) -- Metallica
5. Lights Out -- Jeff Grace [The House of the Devil]
6. I Feel the Dark -- Opeth
7. Snape's Demise -- Alexandre Desplat [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2]
8. Fade to Black (Bridge School) -- Metallica
9. Ghost Hardware -- Burial
10. Evening Fog -- Jeff Grace [I Can See You]
11. Ghost Dance (iTunes Original Version) -- Patti Smith

HBO's The Newsroom

A few years ago I was turned on to an older show, a CBS phenomenon from the turn of the century called The West Wing, written by famed writer and showrunner Aaron Sorkin. It was an innovative, unique, and very touching series about the inner-circle of the US President and their struggle to keep afloat and do no harm while navigating the politics and crises of the world's most powerful office.

Sorkin's newest show is The Newsroom, an HBO drama that could work as a spiritual sequel to The West Wing. This time the focus is on the staff of a cable news network and their struggle to bring real news to the people without succumbing to the petty tactics of the tabloid mentality which has befallen cable news.

The pulse and flow of the series is very similar to The West Wing: we have plucky idealists at the pinnacle of their respective career path, fighting the good fight but failing to always keep their head. The Newsroom isn't half as innovative as The West Wing was, but it improves on the formula in two notable ways. Firstly, The Newsroom doesn't concoct artifical news stories for their fictional world, they frame their fictional story around real-life news stories. This is a very unique and engaging flourish, that also allows real ethical questions to come into play on a more realistic playing field.

Secondly and most importantly, The Newsroom brings to life a cabal warm, charismatic, loveable characters in a way The West Wing never did. I liked The West Wing's crew as human beings and individuals. I was rooting for them, I wanted good things to happen to them. But I never found it in me to really feel for them, to really relate with them or love them. They were just such dry, burdened workaholics. "Real life," the personal stuff, was never more than a burden to them. The star of The West Wing was the politics and the writing, the characters were mere vessels. When they tried to get personal, they always failed, and those were the episodes that didn't interest me.

The Newsroom, on the other hand, almost instantly endears you to these characters. They're people with lives and loves, hobbies and aspirations. I've fallen in love with all of them and I really care what happens to them. Emily Mortimer is especially beautiful and engaging as the Peabody-winning journalist & producer who keeps this tumultuous group together by the skin of her teeth.

This program has received a lot of middling reviews for its perceived preachiness and saccharine ethos. But mostly critics are forgetting that this has been both Aaron Sorkin's M.O. and his claim to fame from the start. It's not 1999 anymore and the tone of well-crafted adult dramas has changed. Today the critics are all about main characters who are vicious monsters (Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Vikings, Dexter), and anyone can die at any time (Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead). But there's room on the airwaves for more than one zeitgeist, not everything has to be grim and brutal.. If you appreciated The West Wing, there's no reason you can't appreciate The Newsroom.

In the last year's time I've watched about 20 different drama shows. Out of these, four are worthy of a perfect 5/5 rating. These are: Jericho, In the Flesh, Switched at Birth, and of course The Newsroom. The Newsroom has really been able to improve upon The West Wing's formula to create something truly special:  enormous fun, clever characterization, and heart-wrenching sentimentality at a pinpoint perfect note.