Figured since The Simpsons have a lot of fun every Halloween with Treehouse of Horror I could do the same with 3 Halloween vignettes. That kinda borderline comedy. Because the border between horror and comedy is so thin.
And for those who do not enjoy Halloween I attached a non-horror related episode of My Summer Lair. A recent guest was Sean Sirianni "videographer, hack comedian and host" of the Creative Imbalance podcast. His fantastic show just hit 150 episodes so I wanted to talk about that milestone as well as look back and look ahead. Completely non-scary, goofy episode.
A little something for everyone because I grasp in this life an advertised haunted Airbnb is not universally ideal.
Halloween I
So yeah SiriusXM has this horror channel Scream Radio whose programming includes popular mainstream hits (Thriller!), beloved sound effects and of course scary score music like the iconic Halloween theme song.
I drop by the channel every so often because tis the season. Today though I caught the beginning of Carpenter’s Halloween theme song. At first I was like oh hell no and I reached out to the dial but I paused before switching away.
Then I pulled my hand away.
Partly to face my fears: tis the season right?
But really I was driving and I’ve never heard that song while driving. Driving defines a lot of popular music: there’s something about that action of getting in your car even if you’re just driving to the dentist that makes a song truly pop. Especially in the Summer...windows down system up.
Sometimes when I hear a brand new song I think it’s fun but I wanna hear it while I’m driving. Driving is like melted cheese. I dunno why but it just makes it taste better. And road trips are of course synonymous with playlists.
So feeling as dumb as the big breasted chick in a tight white tank top going down to investigate that strange sound from the basement I left the Halloween theme song on.Only I was driving through suburban neighborhoods. Through 2 school zones which meant slowing down. This chilled wind sailed through the trees plucking Fall tinted leaves so they swirled in the air in large sweeping circles like a drunk Superman. A young lady was out for a walk with her dog...it was all normal and yet so eerie...cruising. Driving slowly through the hood.
It felt way too menacing.
Fun Fact? “John Carpenter showed Halloween to an executive before it was finished. He showed the movie without the music. The executive didn't find it to be scary at all. After the film was released, and she saw it, she changed her mind, an indication of how much Carpenter's score adds to the film's atmosphere.”
Nah man that was unsettling like eating slightly spoiled Subway. I now understand why a tagline for the 78 original was: “everyone is entitled to one good scare.” Indeed. Never doing that again even if it’s tis the season.
Halloween II
Watching live TV: My Dad came across Chucky TV show commercials...he's never been a fan of magic or ventriloquism or horror. He sighed.
So I decided to make him feel better: "Oh: it's not ventriloquism! Chucky is a doll imbued with the maniacal soul of a serial killer."
A beat.
As we go through life we all have moments where we say things out loud we wish we could take back. Sometimes even as we're saying em. I misread the situation...this was clearly NOT a teaching moment.
Halloween III
In early 2019 I put on pants and attended a screening of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present.As you can tell from the title it’s a documentary that explores race and the black experience from the usual Birth of a Nation right up to Get Out and all the horror movies in between including Blacula. Remember Blacula?!
Seeing the schlocky horror movies from the 50, 60s, and 70s made me mourn what we've lost. I “discovered” movies like Blacula on late night cable.There was a glorious period where you’re not old enough to go out but you’re up late on Friday and Saturday nights...and you’d stumble upon hidden gems like Blacula, the Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon...Vincent Price movies.You kids with your newfangled Netflix...they treat tv like a booty call: they log in, get what they want, when they want and leave...Hey Netflix you up?
We had a relationship with shows that screened these horror movies: Creature Feature (showing the Universal Horror movies!!), Elvira's Movie Macabre gave wayward youths 2 pretty solid reasons to tune in...anybody remember Off Beat Cinema all shot in black and white with beatniks hosts: “hey cool cats we got Night of the Living Dead and daddy-o’s gonna be in trouble.” Then he’d adjust his beret and we’d be On The Road.Our pop culture was so broad because we were just consuming all this stuff...it was only later that we became selective (and perhaps sophisticated...defending our taste with phrases like “guilty pleasure.”).But initially and wonderfully we had this broad foundation of fantastic images stitched together from flipping through late night tv channels where inevitably we’d discover a moment that would make us stop and ask what is happening here?There was no context for anything...nobody used words like Blaxploitation and as a kid it never occurred to me all these karate movies were actually foreign movies. Oh...yeah.We developed a common language (“I vant to suck your blood!”) and were in so deep that even Count von Count on Sesame Street was entirely natural...it’s a vampire-Muppet that’s a parody of Bela Lugosi and we got the joke! That’s crazy!! (It also never made sense...Muppets don’t have blood...what does Count suck?!)I’m happy we have streaming...I don’t miss taping the wrong show or reruns. I sometimes send Netflix the Eggplant Emoji; we’re all guilty of that. Hey Netflix you up?It’s just a moment recognizing what we’ve lost...we zip through so many changes...cord phones, cordless phones, mobile phones...because these changes are happening so quickly our Wonder Years narrator doesn’t have time to process everything and come up with a pithy takeaway.If your house is on fire you’re quickly grabbing stuff and getting out...it’s only later that you realize what you’ve lost; it’s never in the moment.
This observation has nothing to do with the documentary per say...this is what I was thinking about watching it...it’s a fun doc...currently airing on Shudder if you want to check it out.
I can almost the taste that day after discounted candy. mmmSammy Younan-28-
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