Ah, October… this really is my favorite time of year.
Autumn is the best for me, hands down. And to me, the Fall begins in October. The Summer ends on the 31st of August… and September was always that weird limbo-month when school started. But it’s officially Fall when October hits.
When I was living on the West Coast… this was always the time of year that I missed New England the most. From October 1st to Thanksgiving… if I ever got “homesick” it was then. (After that, it got too freaking cold. I’d spend a week back home for Christmas, get my fill of snow in that time… and most of the rest of the year can be nicely experienced in the fairly tepid temperatures of the Pacific Time Zone.) Northern California had *some* similarities to New England… mostly in the Geography (at least the area I was in), but you still didn’t have the color changes of the leaves. Up there it was almost all Evergreen trees… which were pretty on their own, but you couldn’t tell if it was the Dog Days of Summer or early February just by looking around.
In fact, the changing of the leaves is what really signifies Autumn. The colors of Fall are yellow, red and orange… and you get the best color-changes here in New England. You even get people from out-of-state that make trips solely to see the leaves change color. Personally, I think that’s a *tad* on the extreme side. It’s all great to look at when you’re on your way to see or do something else… as part of the journey… but as the destination? That just seems… a little boring. If you’re only reason to come to New England right now is to watch leaves die and fall off their branch… you *really* need better hobbies. We do have a few amusement parks, and other things worth looking at, you know… not just rotting plant life. (Which is essentially what it is)
But still, whatever floats your boat, I guess. Though it actually is a bit on the appropriate side to go out of your way to see death and decay… because October is also the time of Halloween!
Yeah, I admit… that’s probably my biggest reason for loving Autumn. It’s the closest thing that I have to a true “religious holiday”. (In fact, I *am* taking that day off work this year.) Sure, my first Halloween back here wasn’t the greatest, as I mentioned last year, but I’ll always be hopeful. In fact, I *am* planning to give Salem another shot this year… so we’ll see if it goes any better than last time.
But even if it’s too commercial or “sell-out”… New England is still THE place to be for the Halloween season.
Face it, New England INVENTED freaking Halloween!
(Okay that statement is 75% mistaken… and the other 25 is a flat-out lie… but hopefully you know what I mean…)
You wanna know why Halloween in New England is the best? Because living around here… is like living in an actual horror film.
There’s a damn good reason that Steven King and H.P. Lovecraft set 95% of their stories in this region. Because it can get pretty damn creepy… and that’s WITHOUT specialized decorations or any effort at all.
Looking at the history of the United States (as an entity)… this is the oldest part of it. Yes, I know that the Native Americans were all over the place long before that… but this is where the silly Europeans first landed… and brought with them all the superstitions and religious fire-and-brimstone stuff that scared the piss out of them in the first place. The native tribes looked at us like we were slack-jawed “furr-en-ers” and decided not to clue us in on what we should and shouldn’t really be afraid of in nature. (So, we ended up getting some of the ideas flipped)
But silly ideas and superstitions are what made for good atmosphere… so we had witches and spooky nights almost from the get-go. So now New England has atmosphere in spades, moreso then probably any other area of the country… and I eat it up like a kid’s sugar-laden loot after a hefty trick-or-treating haul!
Speaking of which, the art of trick-or-treating seems to have declined. I consider them sad, almost tragic, stories when I hear of houses that “didn’t get many kids this year”… or in some cases, none at all.
The last time I went trick-or-treating was actually in Graduate School. I went with a bunch of friends in my Improv Group… we dressed up, grabbed pillow cases for sacks, and headed into the suburban neighborhoods and went trick-or-treating. The fact that we were all in our 20s (I was the oldest at 25) notwithstanding… we wanted our candy! (and the people were fine about giving it to us) I didn’t even care much about the candy, and I think I just threw a lot of it away in the end… but the experience of it was so much fun. It was a nice substitute for not being in New England that year.
Halloween is such an “overall” experience for me… I can’t just be satisfied with a one-night thing… it’s a full month-long celebration!
Every movie I see… I want it to be a horror film. I especially love the old ones… the black and white ones. They just help give me the “feeling” of Halloween so much more. And I’m not into the blood and gore (which I’ve talked about before), but the actual scary stuff. It’s annoying when studios make horror films and release them in August and September… but *rarely* in October. *That’s* when I want to see them! Not in the summer, or limbo-month! At Halloween! November? Why bother??
The books I read… have to be scary stories. I break out my scary story anthologies, and read them with the biggest smile on my face.
TV… I always try to catch the “Halloween Specials” that my favorite shows inevitably have. And thanks to DVD, I can watch them at MY schedule. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is always required viewing (I have to see that, or it’s guaranteed to be a bad Halloween that year)… if I watch The Muppet Show, I watch the episodes with Vincent Price or Alice Cooper. I always wanted The Simpsons Halloween Special to be a part of that tradition… but they always show the newest one AFTER Halloween. Like the November Horror movies… why even bother?
You see… for me, Halloween is a bit like male sexuality. It works best with a slow build-up… almost teasing. Gradually getting more and more intense and fun all the way up to the pinnacle, the climax… the coup-de-gras… Halloween night! And once that’s over… my interest COMPLETELY falls off. (A bit of an uncouth comparison… but an accurate one all the same)
Yep, as soon as it hits the morning of November 1st… I am finished with Halloween for the year. I don’t have much interest in eating Halloween candy… I’ve had my fill of horror movies for awhile… if I’m thinking of it, I *might* go to the store and get some discounted stuff to prepare for next year (but I rarely remember)… and all I care about is cleaning up and putting my attention to the upcoming Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday. (Basically going from one extreme to the next) Sure we can hang around a little and talk about how much fun we had… but when the calendar changes… I’m looking forward to what’s next.
As much as I love Halloween and horror… it isn’t my life. (Some may argue this) I just enjoy the season of “my” holiday, and like to get the most out of it. And that usually tides me over quite nicely until next year.
But for now… it’s only the beginning of October… and I’ve got lots of plans for the next few weeks. :)
Huzzah!
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horror. Show all posts
10.03.2008
7.25.2008
Talk Nerdy to Me
As you may know… I’m a proud Geek.
(I’ve also been told, in a loving fashion, I’m a Nerd. And I’ve also heard that I’m “a Dork… but in a good way!”)
That wasn’t always used as a badge of honor, though. When you’re young, awkward, and just wanting to be liked… and people are saying it with a sneer in their voice and a condescending look in their eye… you’d prefer to be anything BUT a Geek. Because then it sounds synonymous with Outcast, Aberration, Unliked, Unwanted, “Oh-My-God-Just-Go-Away-You-Pathetic-Piece-of-Nothing”, and so much else.
It’s hard to comprehend exactly WHY that is. Being a Geek is a trait connected to the attribute of Intelligence… and we are really the only species on this planet that actually *uses* our Intelligence to the degree we can. Our brains are larger, more defined than other animals… we have short-term and long-term memories, we can use reason and logic, we have a sense of morality… and it’s because of our brains and those functions, that enable us to live and adapt to almost ANY environment that we can encounter. As such, we are not slaves to Mother Nature, and can actually exist despite some of her harsher efforts.
It is an incredible achievement of Evolution, God, Fate, Luck, Buddha, or whatever you believe in… that we *can actually BE a Geek*. (Whoever is responsible… they done good!)
So, it’s odd that amazing achievement singles out some people over others… and not in a good way.
Don’t forget or ignore the fact that every human being on this planet can (and does) find pleasure solely in the acquisition of new knowledge.
That’s right… *everyone* has fun with facts. It’s obvious that when you meet someone that really likes Science Fiction or Film History… they’re going to know a lot about it. They’ll probably have a few hundred facts that you won’t give a damn about.
But exactly how different is it from the tough, jersey-wearing sports fan that knows all the names of all the players on his favorite football team? (Even the 4th stringers!) Or who’s leading the league in touchdown passes… or knows about all the college players that are up for the annual draft… AND has opinions on how they’ll adjust to the big leagues? Guess what? They got themselves a bunch of facts, numbers and statistics that the majority of the world doesn’t give a flying freeball about.
Or what about the person that spouts off memorized book and passage numbers from the Bible?
Or the Golf enthusiast who knows par for every hole and every course that Tiger Woods is playing on?
Or the guy that knows the name of every Playboy Playmate of every month from 1983 to today? (Actually… that one’s kinda creepy)
Or the tough-talking, tattooed grease-monkey mechanic that “knows everything about engines and cars”?
Or the gal that knows all the plotlines and episodes of Friends?
Are we allowed to get in a group and point at them, yelling:
“NNNNNEEEEEERRRRRRDDDDDD!!!!!!!!”?
What makes some subjects more “socially acceptable” than others? In America, someone who’s a fan of Doctor Who is considered a Nerd and a Geek, and maybe a bit shunned for being “weird”. Yet in several other countries around the world… the show (old version and new) is wildly popular. I hear Steven Spielberg himself, arguably the greatest filmmaker of the last 35 years, is a fan of Doctor Who. Would you call him a Nerd to his face? Or does the fact that he can buy and sell you 900 times over give him some leeway? Hell, I’ve seen intelligent, incredibly Hot women tell me how hooked they are on World of Warcraft.
We’re all Geeks. It just depends on exactly what you’re a Geek about. There is a subject that you know a lot about, that other people don’t (and don’t even care about)… but you derive a lot of pleasure from it. Doesn’t matter what it is… but that’s what you’re a Geek about. Even if your knowledge in it is limited… the pursuit of that activity/show/subject is enough to get your Geek on. I say… Embrace it. It’s healthy… it gives us an escape… a pleasurable option in life to relax within.
Me… I’ve got plenty of Geek to go around.
The aforementioned Doctor Who… I’m a fan. I watched the old series a little as a kid, but I was given a more thorough introduction in college… and I find it immensely fun. My favorite of “The Doctors” is Tom Baker… he had the big curly hair and the 13-foot long scarf. Sure, the acting wasn’t the best… but they were earnest, and had fun. Yeah, the sets wobbled… but the whole show has a “charm” to it… that just makes it endlessly watchable to me.
As for the new series… some of the best writing and effects I have ever seen on television. It’s absolutely genius!
Star Wars… I’ve talked about before. Admittedly, my enthusiasm for it has dropped off a bit… because sadly, the story *didn’t* end with the 6th movie… No, George Lucas is continually beating a dead horse… insisting there’s still milk in that teat. Cripes on Toast, man… just let it die! But the originals are just so great…
Harry Potter… I didn’t get into it until after the fourth book came out… and just before the first movie. It was my Graduate advisor, of all people, insisting that I read them… and once I did… I was hooked. Those books are like crack! I read the first four straight in a row. I ordered the fifth book, got it when it came out… but didn’t read it for about a month or two. Sixth and seventh books… read them the days they came out. I revel in most any opportunity to talk about and dissect that story… and my favorite character is actually Neville Longbottom… I was so glad he got to shine in the last book! (It’s not that much… but enough. He kicked ass! Hells yeah!)
Horror… well, I’ve also talked about this before. It still applies… I love it, but most of it sucks.
Science Fiction… a lot like Horror… there’s a lot of crap out there. But when it’s good… it’s brilliant! (And there’s quite of bit of underrated stuff out there) What makes most of it crap… is that the stuff they call science fiction, *isn’t really* Science Fiction. I may have to do a whole post on this sometime.
Theatre… probably my first official Geek label. It was really the first thing I found that got me on my way to actually finding an identity for myself… and even so, I think I’m a bit of an anomalous freak amongst Theatre Folk. For one: A lot are touchy-feely, and say, “I’m in Theatre, I don’t have a personal bubble”… but I do. I’ve been told several times over the years that I’m “not a typical theatre person”… whether they meant it as a compliment or insult, I’m not always sure. And while I usually know what I’m talking about… as I’ve been studying it about half my life, and even taught it for awhile… there’s STILL a lot I don’t know. (Musicals for one… I’m not *that* learned in.)
Movies… while I attain that I’m not a “film buff”… I do know what I like, and like to see it often... and I have opinions on it. When I worked on the fringes of the industry, and trying to get into it… I did learn a lot, and was exposed to a lot of older movies and shows that I wasn’t previously aware of. And whenever I watch a movie or a new show… usually right after, I hop on IMDB or Wikipedia and look up any trivia or notes they have about it… just to find out more about it. Hmmm… maybe that *would* make me a film buff… I just think that’s a silly title.
Graphic Novels… This is kind of intersecting with movies, these days. Normally referred to as “comics”… but I think this is more accurate. I haven’t collected actual comic books in several years… I wait until they collect several issues together and throw them in a trade paperback, otherwise known as “graphic novels”. Sure, maybe it’s a little more expensive… but I get a complete story… with a beginning, middle and end. And there’s no chance of missing a middle part of the story, by having that chapter sell out before I can get to it. Plus, there are a lot of stories made FOR the graphic novel format… and there’s nothing “comic” about them. There are a lot of darker, more adult-style stories out there. Hell, anything written by Alan Moore I’m willing to read… he’s just that good of a writer. Same with Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, and the Granddaddy master: Will Eisner (who is probably responsible for elevating the world of comics to Art).
But at the same time… every now and then, I like to kick back with an old Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comic (written by Carl Barks… without him, there would never have been Ducktales). They’re just so much fun!
RPGs… Yep… Role-Playing Games. No, I don’t mean Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft. This is not computer or video games… this is the actual and original meaning of Role-Playing Games… where you actually play a role. You have dice and character sheets, and actually sit around with friends and interact and engage your imagination in ways that video games can’t. It’s more social than computer pixels… and more interesting to me. If you have a problem or an obstacle in a computer game, it can only be solved by doing one of the solutions that has been pre-programmed in by the developers… which is limited, no matter how many options they give you. In a real pen-and-paper RPG… the options are whatever you can imagine. The inventor of the obstacle may actually have no idea HOW you’d get past it… just wants to see you try. It’s basically Co-operative Improvisation Storytelling… and I’m surprised more people in the Theatre/Filmmaking world are not involved in it. (Though it is gaining some credibility these days… as filmmakers and actors like Jon Favreau, Wil Wheaton and Vin Diesel have all talked favorably about their past involvements with the hobby) I actually credit this hobby for having a significant impact on my personal writing and storytelling skills. Don’t knock it till you try it.
And no… I’m not a Satanist, I don’t know how to do Black Magic, nor do I think I’m a Vampire. Sheesh… And for the record, I’ve never gotten lost in Steam Tunnels. (Okay, I have… but NOT for purposes of gaming)
Board Games… Because you wouldn’t put Monopoly in the RPG category, that’s for sure. I have myself a nice collection of board games. Hell, I’ve got almost 10 different versions/variations of the game Clue (my all-time favorite classic board game). Plus several horror-themed ones (perfect to pull out around Halloween)… some collectible games… and still have several games that I’ve owned for awhile, but haven’t had the chance to play yet. Yeah… this probably is the hobby that takes up the most room in my house. Ooch!
And my newest hobby:
Letterboxing… it’s very simple and very cheap to do. Since discovering it a short ways back… I think it’s just the Bee’s Knees… and can’t believe it took me this long to discover it. It’s like Geocaching… only you don’t need a GPS. All you need is a rubber stamp (either buy one, or make your own for cheap), and a logbook. Then you go to this website (www.letterboxing.org), and look for “clues” in your area. You follow the instructions on the clues (they can be very direct or very cryptic… mostly they lead you through public parks and hiking trails), where you eventually find a small box… and inside is ANOTHER rubber stamp and another log book. You use *your* stamp on that logbook… use that stamp on *your* logbook, sign and date it with a little message… and put it all back for the next person to find.
It’s basically a treasure hunt! How cool is that? When I was first told about it… I was intrigued, because I never heard of it before. So, I got a little book… made up a crude rubber stamp… and grabbed a clue off the website… and went to see for myself.
It was right there… just where it said it would be. And this particular one had been there for months. It was so neat… and I couldn’t believe that something like that could be there, and not be vandalized or taken away. I got such a kick out of it… I felt like I was Five! I loved it!
I’ve even made my book a little more elaborate. All you’re really supposed to do is stamp your book, write where you found it, and move on. Me… I’ve been adding photos of the locations and hikes to mine. Making it into a little art project/collage-type-thing… and gets me back doing a little photography. Gives it kind of a “storybook” feel to it… is an easy reminder of the experiences of getting each one… and also makes it easier to illustrate to others what exactly the hell it is I’m doing on my weekends.
More than anything… it’s a great little excuse to go for a hike, and get a little exercise. I think that’s a wonderful byproduct of a “Geek Hobby”. Plus, I’m having fun… so bite me.
So… that’s my Geekness (or at least a good portion of it).
How about you?
What are YOU a Geek about?
(I’ve also been told, in a loving fashion, I’m a Nerd. And I’ve also heard that I’m “a Dork… but in a good way!”)
That wasn’t always used as a badge of honor, though. When you’re young, awkward, and just wanting to be liked… and people are saying it with a sneer in their voice and a condescending look in their eye… you’d prefer to be anything BUT a Geek. Because then it sounds synonymous with Outcast, Aberration, Unliked, Unwanted, “Oh-My-God-Just-Go-Away-You-Pathetic-Piece-of-Nothing”, and so much else.
It’s hard to comprehend exactly WHY that is. Being a Geek is a trait connected to the attribute of Intelligence… and we are really the only species on this planet that actually *uses* our Intelligence to the degree we can. Our brains are larger, more defined than other animals… we have short-term and long-term memories, we can use reason and logic, we have a sense of morality… and it’s because of our brains and those functions, that enable us to live and adapt to almost ANY environment that we can encounter. As such, we are not slaves to Mother Nature, and can actually exist despite some of her harsher efforts.
It is an incredible achievement of Evolution, God, Fate, Luck, Buddha, or whatever you believe in… that we *can actually BE a Geek*. (Whoever is responsible… they done good!)
So, it’s odd that amazing achievement singles out some people over others… and not in a good way.
Don’t forget or ignore the fact that every human being on this planet can (and does) find pleasure solely in the acquisition of new knowledge.
That’s right… *everyone* has fun with facts. It’s obvious that when you meet someone that really likes Science Fiction or Film History… they’re going to know a lot about it. They’ll probably have a few hundred facts that you won’t give a damn about.
But exactly how different is it from the tough, jersey-wearing sports fan that knows all the names of all the players on his favorite football team? (Even the 4th stringers!) Or who’s leading the league in touchdown passes… or knows about all the college players that are up for the annual draft… AND has opinions on how they’ll adjust to the big leagues? Guess what? They got themselves a bunch of facts, numbers and statistics that the majority of the world doesn’t give a flying freeball about.
Or what about the person that spouts off memorized book and passage numbers from the Bible?
Or the Golf enthusiast who knows par for every hole and every course that Tiger Woods is playing on?
Or the guy that knows the name of every Playboy Playmate of every month from 1983 to today? (Actually… that one’s kinda creepy)
Or the tough-talking, tattooed grease-monkey mechanic that “knows everything about engines and cars”?
Or the gal that knows all the plotlines and episodes of Friends?
Are we allowed to get in a group and point at them, yelling:
“NNNNNEEEEEERRRRRRDDDDDD!!!!!!!!”?
What makes some subjects more “socially acceptable” than others? In America, someone who’s a fan of Doctor Who is considered a Nerd and a Geek, and maybe a bit shunned for being “weird”. Yet in several other countries around the world… the show (old version and new) is wildly popular. I hear Steven Spielberg himself, arguably the greatest filmmaker of the last 35 years, is a fan of Doctor Who. Would you call him a Nerd to his face? Or does the fact that he can buy and sell you 900 times over give him some leeway? Hell, I’ve seen intelligent, incredibly Hot women tell me how hooked they are on World of Warcraft.
We’re all Geeks. It just depends on exactly what you’re a Geek about. There is a subject that you know a lot about, that other people don’t (and don’t even care about)… but you derive a lot of pleasure from it. Doesn’t matter what it is… but that’s what you’re a Geek about. Even if your knowledge in it is limited… the pursuit of that activity/show/subject is enough to get your Geek on. I say… Embrace it. It’s healthy… it gives us an escape… a pleasurable option in life to relax within.
Me… I’ve got plenty of Geek to go around.
The aforementioned Doctor Who… I’m a fan. I watched the old series a little as a kid, but I was given a more thorough introduction in college… and I find it immensely fun. My favorite of “The Doctors” is Tom Baker… he had the big curly hair and the 13-foot long scarf. Sure, the acting wasn’t the best… but they were earnest, and had fun. Yeah, the sets wobbled… but the whole show has a “charm” to it… that just makes it endlessly watchable to me.
As for the new series… some of the best writing and effects I have ever seen on television. It’s absolutely genius!
Star Wars… I’ve talked about before. Admittedly, my enthusiasm for it has dropped off a bit… because sadly, the story *didn’t* end with the 6th movie… No, George Lucas is continually beating a dead horse… insisting there’s still milk in that teat. Cripes on Toast, man… just let it die! But the originals are just so great…
Harry Potter… I didn’t get into it until after the fourth book came out… and just before the first movie. It was my Graduate advisor, of all people, insisting that I read them… and once I did… I was hooked. Those books are like crack! I read the first four straight in a row. I ordered the fifth book, got it when it came out… but didn’t read it for about a month or two. Sixth and seventh books… read them the days they came out. I revel in most any opportunity to talk about and dissect that story… and my favorite character is actually Neville Longbottom… I was so glad he got to shine in the last book! (It’s not that much… but enough. He kicked ass! Hells yeah!)
Horror… well, I’ve also talked about this before. It still applies… I love it, but most of it sucks.
Science Fiction… a lot like Horror… there’s a lot of crap out there. But when it’s good… it’s brilliant! (And there’s quite of bit of underrated stuff out there) What makes most of it crap… is that the stuff they call science fiction, *isn’t really* Science Fiction. I may have to do a whole post on this sometime.
Theatre… probably my first official Geek label. It was really the first thing I found that got me on my way to actually finding an identity for myself… and even so, I think I’m a bit of an anomalous freak amongst Theatre Folk. For one: A lot are touchy-feely, and say, “I’m in Theatre, I don’t have a personal bubble”… but I do. I’ve been told several times over the years that I’m “not a typical theatre person”… whether they meant it as a compliment or insult, I’m not always sure. And while I usually know what I’m talking about… as I’ve been studying it about half my life, and even taught it for awhile… there’s STILL a lot I don’t know. (Musicals for one… I’m not *that* learned in.)
Movies… while I attain that I’m not a “film buff”… I do know what I like, and like to see it often... and I have opinions on it. When I worked on the fringes of the industry, and trying to get into it… I did learn a lot, and was exposed to a lot of older movies and shows that I wasn’t previously aware of. And whenever I watch a movie or a new show… usually right after, I hop on IMDB or Wikipedia and look up any trivia or notes they have about it… just to find out more about it. Hmmm… maybe that *would* make me a film buff… I just think that’s a silly title.
Graphic Novels… This is kind of intersecting with movies, these days. Normally referred to as “comics”… but I think this is more accurate. I haven’t collected actual comic books in several years… I wait until they collect several issues together and throw them in a trade paperback, otherwise known as “graphic novels”. Sure, maybe it’s a little more expensive… but I get a complete story… with a beginning, middle and end. And there’s no chance of missing a middle part of the story, by having that chapter sell out before I can get to it. Plus, there are a lot of stories made FOR the graphic novel format… and there’s nothing “comic” about them. There are a lot of darker, more adult-style stories out there. Hell, anything written by Alan Moore I’m willing to read… he’s just that good of a writer. Same with Neil Gaiman, Kurt Busiek, and the Granddaddy master: Will Eisner (who is probably responsible for elevating the world of comics to Art).
But at the same time… every now and then, I like to kick back with an old Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comic (written by Carl Barks… without him, there would never have been Ducktales). They’re just so much fun!
RPGs… Yep… Role-Playing Games. No, I don’t mean Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft. This is not computer or video games… this is the actual and original meaning of Role-Playing Games… where you actually play a role. You have dice and character sheets, and actually sit around with friends and interact and engage your imagination in ways that video games can’t. It’s more social than computer pixels… and more interesting to me. If you have a problem or an obstacle in a computer game, it can only be solved by doing one of the solutions that has been pre-programmed in by the developers… which is limited, no matter how many options they give you. In a real pen-and-paper RPG… the options are whatever you can imagine. The inventor of the obstacle may actually have no idea HOW you’d get past it… just wants to see you try. It’s basically Co-operative Improvisation Storytelling… and I’m surprised more people in the Theatre/Filmmaking world are not involved in it. (Though it is gaining some credibility these days… as filmmakers and actors like Jon Favreau, Wil Wheaton and Vin Diesel have all talked favorably about their past involvements with the hobby) I actually credit this hobby for having a significant impact on my personal writing and storytelling skills. Don’t knock it till you try it.
And no… I’m not a Satanist, I don’t know how to do Black Magic, nor do I think I’m a Vampire. Sheesh… And for the record, I’ve never gotten lost in Steam Tunnels. (Okay, I have… but NOT for purposes of gaming)
Board Games… Because you wouldn’t put Monopoly in the RPG category, that’s for sure. I have myself a nice collection of board games. Hell, I’ve got almost 10 different versions/variations of the game Clue (my all-time favorite classic board game). Plus several horror-themed ones (perfect to pull out around Halloween)… some collectible games… and still have several games that I’ve owned for awhile, but haven’t had the chance to play yet. Yeah… this probably is the hobby that takes up the most room in my house. Ooch!
And my newest hobby:
Letterboxing… it’s very simple and very cheap to do. Since discovering it a short ways back… I think it’s just the Bee’s Knees… and can’t believe it took me this long to discover it. It’s like Geocaching… only you don’t need a GPS. All you need is a rubber stamp (either buy one, or make your own for cheap), and a logbook. Then you go to this website (www.letterboxing.org), and look for “clues” in your area. You follow the instructions on the clues (they can be very direct or very cryptic… mostly they lead you through public parks and hiking trails), where you eventually find a small box… and inside is ANOTHER rubber stamp and another log book. You use *your* stamp on that logbook… use that stamp on *your* logbook, sign and date it with a little message… and put it all back for the next person to find.
It’s basically a treasure hunt! How cool is that? When I was first told about it… I was intrigued, because I never heard of it before. So, I got a little book… made up a crude rubber stamp… and grabbed a clue off the website… and went to see for myself.
It was right there… just where it said it would be. And this particular one had been there for months. It was so neat… and I couldn’t believe that something like that could be there, and not be vandalized or taken away. I got such a kick out of it… I felt like I was Five! I loved it!
I’ve even made my book a little more elaborate. All you’re really supposed to do is stamp your book, write where you found it, and move on. Me… I’ve been adding photos of the locations and hikes to mine. Making it into a little art project/collage-type-thing… and gets me back doing a little photography. Gives it kind of a “storybook” feel to it… is an easy reminder of the experiences of getting each one… and also makes it easier to illustrate to others what exactly the hell it is I’m doing on my weekends.
More than anything… it’s a great little excuse to go for a hike, and get a little exercise. I think that’s a wonderful byproduct of a “Geek Hobby”. Plus, I’m having fun… so bite me.
So… that’s my Geekness (or at least a good portion of it).
How about you?
What are YOU a Geek about?
4.18.2008
Oh, the Horror!!
I love Horror movies. Always have. I honestly don’t know where this love comes from, as I hate real-life violence. I can’t stand needles, don’t like the sight of blood, and pain hurts me.
But sitting me in front of a horror film… I’ll be a happy camper. I like the adrenaline rush, the “what would I do in that situation” after-thinking, and I love watching it with a date that gets scared. I don’t mean that in a sadistic-I-like-people-to-suffer-in-fear kind of way. It’s actually a more practical reason. When a lovely young lady is scared in a movie theatre, ideally, she grabs onto your arm, squeezes up against you, and buries into your shoulder… coming to YOU for protection. In a testosterone kind of way, that’s a neat feeling… being a protector. She wants to cuddle up to me? I see that as a win-win situation… and I wish it happened more often. A good horror movie can do that.
Even though… well, face it. Most of the horror films and stories out there… suck. Majorly. There’s some wonderful diamonds in the rough… but strictly speaking… putting something in the “horror genre”, usually means you’re in for horrible effects, bad story, abysmal script, and embarrassing acting.
Yet, in the entertainment industry… Horror is a near-guaranteed moneymaker. The general consensus seems to be that its got an automatic built-in fan base, and as long as you put “Boobs and Blood” in a movie… it will sell. Personally, I think that’s half-right.
Sure, there’s a built-in fan base. I’m one of them. But it does take more than “Boobs and Blood” to make a good horror movie. Then again, those that are putting in the boobs and blood… aren’t exactly going for “good” in their pictures. Rather, they’re just going for something that will sell. Sadly, we keep buying. To be honest, when I was 13, I loved the whole “Boobs and Blood” thing… if you were a young boy just entering puberty, you would too.
But I’m about 20 years beyond that now… and I like to think my tastes are a little more discriminating.
For one… I hate nudity in films. ANY kind of film. Not because I’ve gone conservative, far from it. I always have been and always will be a big fan of the female form, in all its variations. If I’m in the mood to see nudity? There are plenty of films made for an audience old enough to rent them from the back room (or hell, just find it on the Internet for free). As a bonus, they don’t even TRY to have a plot to bog it down, and they show more naked body than any horror film would be allowed to. Or if I’m dating someone… I can see it in person (which is even better). If I want it… I can find it. Don’t bother going out of your way to throw it into a horror film. Most of the time… the filmmakers seem to be going out of their way to throw it in.
If it doesn’t make sense to the story… I don’t want to see it. I’m giving anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours (on rare occasion, more) to get involved in a movie’s story. Don’t bog it down with useless crap. Get on with it… and don’t say you’re “slowing it down a bit” so people can catch up. I don’t think people are that stupid. Treat them as if they’re intelligent, and they’ll like you more. This also applies to love scenes… rarely have I seen one that actually makes sense to the plot and story. Frankly, if I’m being chased by Werewolf-Zombie-Vampire hybrids, the last thing I’m doing is getting an erection… no matter how attractive my leading lady is. No, I’d need a few days and some therapy before I even think about that. But that’s just me…
So take out the sex/nudity, please. You should only keep it in if it makes sense to the plot and, more importantly, *drives the story forward*. If it doesn’t directly push you into the next scene, why is it in there? Take it out and make the movie a few minutes shorter. I’d much prefer that, as it lets me get on with my life. And if you do find a reason for a character to be nude? Think about something first: Does it really need to be *shown*? If you’re looking to be a little “sexy” with the scene, or show a little sensuality to the character… its usually more effective when you *don’t* see everything. Implication holds so much power in these instances. I don’t care how much of an “artistic statement” you think you’re making with it… it can be done without showing every nipple… and will often times be more effective for that. Every movie scene that I’ve heard be defended by a director saying it’s “vitally important” to the story… really hasn’t been. And every actress in those scenes that was agreeing with the director… “Really, it was artistically important for me to give him a real BJ on camera”… I just want to pull them aside and gently say, “Darlin, you’ve been conned.”
As for blood and gore… well, if you ask my Mom, she’d tell you that’s what I live for. She seems to think that if I’m watching a horror movie, I must *obviously* be loving it for that very reason. On the contrary… I respect and prefer the horror films that don’t use a lot of blood and gore, or use it very sparingly. If you spend an hour of a film effectively building up the tension and story, when you finally DO show a little bit of blood, it becomes so much more effective.
When I watched the first Saw movie, I was impressed and pleased to see that it wasn’t as gory as the reputation made me believe. It actually had a decent story, and was effectively done. Sure, there were some extreme parts… but I think it could have been a LOT more visceral than it was. I applaud the filmmakers for that. In fact, whenever I look at one of the big franchises… and actually watch the very first one, I’m often surprised to see it’s not as extreme with its blood effects as the sequels. Rather, they all rest on a pretty unique idea (especially for the time it was made), and do it pretty well. It just seems that any sequels automatically lose that novelty, simply by rehashing it with “bigger and more” opportunities for the squeamish to cringe.
Take A Nightmare on Elm Street. The sequels are VERY silly. Mostly because Robert Englund is majorly hamming it up with puns and over-the-top silliness. Granted, the scripts are nothing to shake a stick at. But each killing he performs tries to go too far out-of-the-way to be a unique and imaginative one, and ends up being a little too silly. Watching that schtick makes it easy to forget that the very first movie… was actually really unsettling. Essentially, he was just jumping out and saying “Boo”, then killing in a straightforward manner… it was the unique places he was jumping *out of*, that made it different and ultra-creepy. Plus, you never saw him clearly and well-lit. The sequels, you saw every little scar and ripple on his skin, every burn mark on his sweater. The original… you rarely saw it. He either was obscured by the dark, or moving too fast to be seen. The silhouette of him became much scarier than any gross make-up that would be put on him… because when you have to imagine it… when your mind is forced to fill in the blanks that you’re not seeing… that’s what makes people’s hair stand on end.
The old classic movies really knew this. Granted, the ratings board and system was very particular about what they’d let people get away with… and it wasn’t much. But when you look at the classics… Dracula, all the Frankenstein movies, The Wolf Man, The Mummy… the filmmakers managed to do quite a lot with very little. One of my all-time favorite movies is The Haunting… the original B&W one from the early 1960s. It has no blood, no flashy special effects… just atmosphere and story all the way through. It’s freaking brilliant. (Please, avoid the remake at all costs)
Yet, I think if I were to pick a point where Horror started to go wrong… it would be at the tail-end of the period where those Universal Classics were made. After a while, they started mixing and matching. Sounds like a good idea on paper… Wolf Man was popular… Frankenstein was popular… let’s put them together and be TWICE as popular! Let’s add in Dracula, too! Hollywood Gold!
That idea may have worked for Chocolate and Peanut Butter… not so much in this case. I don’t think the Monster-Mash movies ever really worked, frankly. Sure, I love The Monster Squad… but when it comes down to it, the idea behind it doesn’t exactly mesh. (That movie in particular isn’t a horror, it’s a kid’s adventure movie. A supernatural version of The Goonies) Mainly because of the Frankenstein Monster, and Dracula. You see, a major part of the story and existence of Dracula owes itself to the notion that “God exists”. Crosses repel him, Holy Water hurts him, etc… so for that to actually make sense, it must serve as concrete proof that God does indeed exist. No problem, right? Well… then you add in the Frankenstein Monster… whose very existence is concrete proof that God does NOT exist. Which was the point of the story. (If only God can create life, the fact that a scientist created life himself invalidates the notion of God… therefore, there is nothing man is not meant to know, and he is answerable to no one but himself, with no ill consequences when we’re gone. Essentially… it’s the fear of “No Hell”) One is solid proof of God existing, the other is solid proof of God NOT existing. In either story, we’ll go along with it… that’s our suspension of disbelief (no matter what religion you are). But mashing the conflicting arguments, and saying that both are absolute fact… doesn’t make sense. And as an audience, we’re lost. We can’t be scared in that instance, because subconsciously, we’re too confused. At best, the Monster Mash movies are more “adventure-thrill-rides” than actual horror movies. Excuses for neat special effects and some referential in-jokes.
That’s a reflection on the nature of Horror as a whole… where a lot of movies and stories seem to go wrong, I think. They don’t play to the metaphor. In too many ways, we’ve lost the meaning to many of the classic monsters and fears.
One of my biggest annoyances in horror concerns Vampires. Too often I’ll hear interviews about a Vampire Movie where the actors or the directors talk about how “Vampires have always been metaphors for Sex”.
I want to track them down, tie them to chairs and beat them severely about the head and shoulders screaming why they are certifiably WRONG in that. Vampires have not “always been about Sex”. If anything, Sex was only briefly introduced just over 100 years ago, and only gained real prominence in the last 25 years.
Look at what we call a “Zombie”… a walking corpse trying to eat people. (Technically, that’s not a Zombie. A zombie is a Voodoo slave… and not even really dead.) But 1,000 years ago… that image was what they called a Vampire. This was due to a little thing called The Black Plague. It rotted your skin, made you pale, deathly-looking, and when you were kicked out of your town because you were going to infect everyone else, you shambled over the countryside, trying to get help. To others, you’re a disgusting-looking monster trying to eat them. Hence, the origin of “Wampyre”. Now, this directly ties into the age-old methods of Vampire dissuasion… Garlic is healthy for you; An old home remedy for curing sickness and “whatever ails ye”. If something medically mystified people back then, they turned to their local priest, who brought in God to cast away the evil demonic sickness… hence, crosses and holy water and most anything connected to God, are now vampire-fighting weapons.
Vampires are metaphors for Disease. That’s how they are ingrained into our subconscious. Look at some of the vampire literature from the Victorian era… where it started to really bloom. People want to make Dracula into the “definitive sexual example” of vampire fiction. Now, I love that book… I won’t argue its greatness. And yes, there are sexual ELEMENTS… but you also need to look at them in context. In 1898, in England at the time (where the book was written), there was an outbreak of syphilis. It was considered to be on an epidemic proportion. Syphilis… can be spread sexually. So now the images of rape and (very heterosexual) intercourse are a bit on the obvious side. Again… a symptom, not the origin. One of the side-effects of Syphilis? Insanity: Renfield is in an insane asylum, not to mention Jonathan Harker feeling like he’s going insane and trapped in Dracula’s Castle. Look at the symptoms of syphilis, and the events of the book… you might realize a whole other angle you’ve never seen before. Especially when you see that Dracula is moving around in the daylight, and other normal vampire stereotypes aren’t exactly fitting to the book. Those were all elements that Hollywood inserted in… often just “making them up”.
Side note: H.P. Lovecraft… long considered one of the greatest horror writers of all time, suffered from syphilis. Most, if not all, of his stories deal with extreme insanity and his characters are always going crazy. Cause he himself was.
There is a slightly earlier vampire tale, by Sheridan Le Fanu, called Carmilla. Some have pointed to that as being “obviously” a metaphor for sex. The story of a young female vampire seducing a young girl. Plenty of lesbianism to go around… eat that, blog boy! Not quite. Yes, the homosexuality is abundant… but remember that it was written during a time where homosexuality was considered a *disease*… and a curable one at that. Sorry to spoil it… but it’s got a happy ending, with the vampire being vanquished, and the young heroine surviving, and going on to lead a normal life, evermore.
Fast forward to the early 1970s… to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Written in 1973, published in 1976. Right around that time, in the medical community, a little something was starting to pop up. Wouldn’t be given full publicity until the late 70s, early 80s… but groups of people were already starting to be affected. This little something would eventually be called HIV/AIDS. And the largest demographic group being affected? Gay men… especially in the San Francisco area, the largest hub of Gay Culture imaginable… where Anne Rice was living and writing her books. “Gee, I wonder why there’s so much Homoeroticism in these stories… Hmmmm?” She has even said that the character Claudia is based on her daughter who died of leukemia in 1972. Again.. disease.
1987… Near Dark, the first “southwestern Vampire movie” (before it became a trend). The Vampires are shown as people “from the wrong side of the tracks”, the kind of people that are often considered “a disease on society”. That one, is a very neat twist… and works wonderfully.
Disease. Do I need a pie chart to make it clearer?
Werewolves are also metaphors for disease… but in a different way from Vampires. Vampires are physical diseases. The common “condition” associated with Werewolves is “Lycanthropy”. And Lycanthropy IS an actual medical disease. It’s not a person who turns into a wolf… it’s someone who THINKS they’re turning into a wolf. It’s a mental disease. One of the earliest illustrated depictions of a “werewolf” is of a farmer who “turned into a wolf and ate his children” while his shocked wife looked on. But the man… doesn’t have a snout or tail. If you look closely, he’s just on all fours, with an overgrowth of hair and beard, with his kid in his mouth, chomping away. Definitely not normal… but look at the circumstances. This was from back in the day where a large portion of the world was not civilized. This depiction is just a farmer out in the middle of nowhere… probably only makes the long slow trip into a village maybe once every 4 months, and his only company is his wife and very small children. The guy just went stir crazy… he was seeing the SAME people every day, cooped up… effectively cut off from civilization. It’s called Cabin Fever… and some people do just snap and kill their families. Sometimes, they just lose it, and think they themselves are wolves (one of the animals they were seeing on a frequent basis, and fighting off)… hence, the mental disease of Lycanthropy.
An American Werewolf in London… in my humble opinion, the best werewolf movie there is, puts a lot of focus on the main character’s feelings of going crazy. His dream sequences, which truly are maddening, are the scariest parts of that movie. Even the classic Universal picture The Wolf Man spends a large part having Lon Chaney Jr. say, “I’m going crazy! I’m mad, I tell you!” Dog Soldiers, deals with special ops soldiers fighting off werewolves. Makes for great action… and gives you a nice appreciation when you think of the condition “Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder” or “Shell Shock”, which you see these characters are definitely going to have when they’re through… if they survive, that is.
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… its metaphor? Alcoholism. That one may be hard to see at first. But notice how Dr. Jekyll drinks his “formula” and becomes a different person? Yet, he feels he can control it? So, he keeps drinking the formula, becoming Mr. Hyde… then soon, he needs the formula to STOP from becoming Mr. Hyde, that’s when he realizes he’s in deep doo doo. Bring that basic explanation to any AA meeting, and I’m willing to bet you get a lot of knowing nods.
Godzilla… the original movie was a Japanese Horror film. His metaphor? He’s the walking embodiment of nuclear terror. From a country that was still recovering from having Fat Man and Little Boy dropped on them, causing mindless destruction in its wake. So that movie freaked the living hell out of them. Can you blame them?
We’re missing the metaphors these days. Too many movies and books are churned out without giving us those hooks that really connect us to it… and that’s what really scares us.
A few years ago, I picked up a book… a Vampire book. It looked interesting, it had won the “Bram Stoker” award the previous year, and had a lot of praise written on the back. So I got it, and read it. That book… was the biggest pile of SHIT that I’ve ever read in my life. Narrative-wise… it was atrocious. The very beginning and the very end of the book were one plot… which the entire middle had NOTHING to do with. I only fought my way to the end of the book, hoping to the Almighty that it would redeem itself with a great ending. Nope. If anything, the ending was the worst part. Some interviews praised it for its “honest sexuality”… so an elderly man’s fantasy about a pubescent-girl’s body is “honest”??? I seriously thought the guy was rubbing one out while he was at the typewriter. I don’t call that “honest sexuality”… I call it pathetic masturbation fantasies. Useless references to incest (added nothing to nowhere)… introducing “major characters” 4/5 of the way through the book… casually doing away with the creepiest villains of the story with nothing more than a “oh, I killed them” side note… languishing too long on the uninteresting parts… and all-too-quickly-glossing-over of what would have been the most interesting parts. I hate that book and author with the fury of a thousand suns… and no longer have any faith in the “Bram Stoker Award”, because they apparently give it out to utter crap. When I found out that this was one of the author’s last books, and he had died about a year earlier… I felt bad… because now I couldn’t personally lambaste him for being the worst hack I’ve ever read. I really hope that guy didn’t die of natural causes. I won’t even honor it enough to mention its name on this blog. My blood is actually boiling, and I read this several years ago.
I really hope that’s not what the world of Horror is heading towards. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the current “Torture Porn”… and frankly… You’re preaching to the choir.
While I did enjoy the first Saw… it was novel and different. Anything after that… is old hat. So, I don’t even need to see the movies whose only selling point is the extreme violence. That’s not a story. (Same reason I didn’t see The Passion of the Christ… I already knew the story, and the violence isn’t an attraction, so why bother?) The gore IS the story, not a tool for the story. Now, I could be wrong on that… maybe there are very intelligent metaphors that inspired those stories, I don’t know. Honestly… I haven’t watched them. But when the focus by the media and filmmakers is all about “look at the gross stuff we can do”… I have no interest to even look for a good metaphor. Gross-out stuff will only disgust me, but it won’t actually *scare* me.
I wanna be scared.
I’ve only been scared by one movie. I’ve jumped at a few, but only one that actually crawled under my skin and really frightened me: The Blair Witch Project.
It was the last movie I saw right before I moved to California…. I saw it with my best friend. The entire theatre was packed with young folk aged 16-19… the age group that you’d definitely consider to be the rowdiest, loudest and most obnoxious theatergoers of all.
The place was so silent, you could hear a pin drop. Love Blair Witch or hate it… most people hit one of those extremes… it was definitely original. It’s worth seeing it for the marketing campaign alone… And that experience of seeing it was one of the most unique ones I’ve ever had in a theatre.
Why did it scare ME so much? Possibly because all the stupid crap those characters were doing: Finding old graveyards, exploring old condemned houses in the dark, etc… My friends and I have actually DONE that crap ourselves. I have seen an abandoned house in northern New Hampshire… that has black handprints on the walls. (No, it wasn’t the same house in the movie) Once the movie finished, I turned to my best friend and said, “You know… in retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t have done all that creepy, stupid shit through college”. She said, “yup”… and neither of us slept that night.
I think Horror can get better. For all the crap out there… we do find some really good stuff every now and then. Once in a while, a new classic will be born… one that really hits us where it counts, and makes us scared again… and then 1,001 bad knockoffs will instantly be born.
Which is probably the scariest thing about it. *shrug*
But sitting me in front of a horror film… I’ll be a happy camper. I like the adrenaline rush, the “what would I do in that situation” after-thinking, and I love watching it with a date that gets scared. I don’t mean that in a sadistic-I-like-people-to-suffer-in-fear kind of way. It’s actually a more practical reason. When a lovely young lady is scared in a movie theatre, ideally, she grabs onto your arm, squeezes up against you, and buries into your shoulder… coming to YOU for protection. In a testosterone kind of way, that’s a neat feeling… being a protector. She wants to cuddle up to me? I see that as a win-win situation… and I wish it happened more often. A good horror movie can do that.
Even though… well, face it. Most of the horror films and stories out there… suck. Majorly. There’s some wonderful diamonds in the rough… but strictly speaking… putting something in the “horror genre”, usually means you’re in for horrible effects, bad story, abysmal script, and embarrassing acting.
Yet, in the entertainment industry… Horror is a near-guaranteed moneymaker. The general consensus seems to be that its got an automatic built-in fan base, and as long as you put “Boobs and Blood” in a movie… it will sell. Personally, I think that’s half-right.
Sure, there’s a built-in fan base. I’m one of them. But it does take more than “Boobs and Blood” to make a good horror movie. Then again, those that are putting in the boobs and blood… aren’t exactly going for “good” in their pictures. Rather, they’re just going for something that will sell. Sadly, we keep buying. To be honest, when I was 13, I loved the whole “Boobs and Blood” thing… if you were a young boy just entering puberty, you would too.
But I’m about 20 years beyond that now… and I like to think my tastes are a little more discriminating.
For one… I hate nudity in films. ANY kind of film. Not because I’ve gone conservative, far from it. I always have been and always will be a big fan of the female form, in all its variations. If I’m in the mood to see nudity? There are plenty of films made for an audience old enough to rent them from the back room (or hell, just find it on the Internet for free). As a bonus, they don’t even TRY to have a plot to bog it down, and they show more naked body than any horror film would be allowed to. Or if I’m dating someone… I can see it in person (which is even better). If I want it… I can find it. Don’t bother going out of your way to throw it into a horror film. Most of the time… the filmmakers seem to be going out of their way to throw it in.
If it doesn’t make sense to the story… I don’t want to see it. I’m giving anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours (on rare occasion, more) to get involved in a movie’s story. Don’t bog it down with useless crap. Get on with it… and don’t say you’re “slowing it down a bit” so people can catch up. I don’t think people are that stupid. Treat them as if they’re intelligent, and they’ll like you more. This also applies to love scenes… rarely have I seen one that actually makes sense to the plot and story. Frankly, if I’m being chased by Werewolf-Zombie-Vampire hybrids, the last thing I’m doing is getting an erection… no matter how attractive my leading lady is. No, I’d need a few days and some therapy before I even think about that. But that’s just me…
So take out the sex/nudity, please. You should only keep it in if it makes sense to the plot and, more importantly, *drives the story forward*. If it doesn’t directly push you into the next scene, why is it in there? Take it out and make the movie a few minutes shorter. I’d much prefer that, as it lets me get on with my life. And if you do find a reason for a character to be nude? Think about something first: Does it really need to be *shown*? If you’re looking to be a little “sexy” with the scene, or show a little sensuality to the character… its usually more effective when you *don’t* see everything. Implication holds so much power in these instances. I don’t care how much of an “artistic statement” you think you’re making with it… it can be done without showing every nipple… and will often times be more effective for that. Every movie scene that I’ve heard be defended by a director saying it’s “vitally important” to the story… really hasn’t been. And every actress in those scenes that was agreeing with the director… “Really, it was artistically important for me to give him a real BJ on camera”… I just want to pull them aside and gently say, “Darlin, you’ve been conned.”
As for blood and gore… well, if you ask my Mom, she’d tell you that’s what I live for. She seems to think that if I’m watching a horror movie, I must *obviously* be loving it for that very reason. On the contrary… I respect and prefer the horror films that don’t use a lot of blood and gore, or use it very sparingly. If you spend an hour of a film effectively building up the tension and story, when you finally DO show a little bit of blood, it becomes so much more effective.
When I watched the first Saw movie, I was impressed and pleased to see that it wasn’t as gory as the reputation made me believe. It actually had a decent story, and was effectively done. Sure, there were some extreme parts… but I think it could have been a LOT more visceral than it was. I applaud the filmmakers for that. In fact, whenever I look at one of the big franchises… and actually watch the very first one, I’m often surprised to see it’s not as extreme with its blood effects as the sequels. Rather, they all rest on a pretty unique idea (especially for the time it was made), and do it pretty well. It just seems that any sequels automatically lose that novelty, simply by rehashing it with “bigger and more” opportunities for the squeamish to cringe.
Take A Nightmare on Elm Street. The sequels are VERY silly. Mostly because Robert Englund is majorly hamming it up with puns and over-the-top silliness. Granted, the scripts are nothing to shake a stick at. But each killing he performs tries to go too far out-of-the-way to be a unique and imaginative one, and ends up being a little too silly. Watching that schtick makes it easy to forget that the very first movie… was actually really unsettling. Essentially, he was just jumping out and saying “Boo”, then killing in a straightforward manner… it was the unique places he was jumping *out of*, that made it different and ultra-creepy. Plus, you never saw him clearly and well-lit. The sequels, you saw every little scar and ripple on his skin, every burn mark on his sweater. The original… you rarely saw it. He either was obscured by the dark, or moving too fast to be seen. The silhouette of him became much scarier than any gross make-up that would be put on him… because when you have to imagine it… when your mind is forced to fill in the blanks that you’re not seeing… that’s what makes people’s hair stand on end.
The old classic movies really knew this. Granted, the ratings board and system was very particular about what they’d let people get away with… and it wasn’t much. But when you look at the classics… Dracula, all the Frankenstein movies, The Wolf Man, The Mummy… the filmmakers managed to do quite a lot with very little. One of my all-time favorite movies is The Haunting… the original B&W one from the early 1960s. It has no blood, no flashy special effects… just atmosphere and story all the way through. It’s freaking brilliant. (Please, avoid the remake at all costs)
Yet, I think if I were to pick a point where Horror started to go wrong… it would be at the tail-end of the period where those Universal Classics were made. After a while, they started mixing and matching. Sounds like a good idea on paper… Wolf Man was popular… Frankenstein was popular… let’s put them together and be TWICE as popular! Let’s add in Dracula, too! Hollywood Gold!
That idea may have worked for Chocolate and Peanut Butter… not so much in this case. I don’t think the Monster-Mash movies ever really worked, frankly. Sure, I love The Monster Squad… but when it comes down to it, the idea behind it doesn’t exactly mesh. (That movie in particular isn’t a horror, it’s a kid’s adventure movie. A supernatural version of The Goonies) Mainly because of the Frankenstein Monster, and Dracula. You see, a major part of the story and existence of Dracula owes itself to the notion that “God exists”. Crosses repel him, Holy Water hurts him, etc… so for that to actually make sense, it must serve as concrete proof that God does indeed exist. No problem, right? Well… then you add in the Frankenstein Monster… whose very existence is concrete proof that God does NOT exist. Which was the point of the story. (If only God can create life, the fact that a scientist created life himself invalidates the notion of God… therefore, there is nothing man is not meant to know, and he is answerable to no one but himself, with no ill consequences when we’re gone. Essentially… it’s the fear of “No Hell”) One is solid proof of God existing, the other is solid proof of God NOT existing. In either story, we’ll go along with it… that’s our suspension of disbelief (no matter what religion you are). But mashing the conflicting arguments, and saying that both are absolute fact… doesn’t make sense. And as an audience, we’re lost. We can’t be scared in that instance, because subconsciously, we’re too confused. At best, the Monster Mash movies are more “adventure-thrill-rides” than actual horror movies. Excuses for neat special effects and some referential in-jokes.
That’s a reflection on the nature of Horror as a whole… where a lot of movies and stories seem to go wrong, I think. They don’t play to the metaphor. In too many ways, we’ve lost the meaning to many of the classic monsters and fears.
One of my biggest annoyances in horror concerns Vampires. Too often I’ll hear interviews about a Vampire Movie where the actors or the directors talk about how “Vampires have always been metaphors for Sex”.
I want to track them down, tie them to chairs and beat them severely about the head and shoulders screaming why they are certifiably WRONG in that. Vampires have not “always been about Sex”. If anything, Sex was only briefly introduced just over 100 years ago, and only gained real prominence in the last 25 years.
Look at what we call a “Zombie”… a walking corpse trying to eat people. (Technically, that’s not a Zombie. A zombie is a Voodoo slave… and not even really dead.) But 1,000 years ago… that image was what they called a Vampire. This was due to a little thing called The Black Plague. It rotted your skin, made you pale, deathly-looking, and when you were kicked out of your town because you were going to infect everyone else, you shambled over the countryside, trying to get help. To others, you’re a disgusting-looking monster trying to eat them. Hence, the origin of “Wampyre”. Now, this directly ties into the age-old methods of Vampire dissuasion… Garlic is healthy for you; An old home remedy for curing sickness and “whatever ails ye”. If something medically mystified people back then, they turned to their local priest, who brought in God to cast away the evil demonic sickness… hence, crosses and holy water and most anything connected to God, are now vampire-fighting weapons.
Vampires are metaphors for Disease. That’s how they are ingrained into our subconscious. Look at some of the vampire literature from the Victorian era… where it started to really bloom. People want to make Dracula into the “definitive sexual example” of vampire fiction. Now, I love that book… I won’t argue its greatness. And yes, there are sexual ELEMENTS… but you also need to look at them in context. In 1898, in England at the time (where the book was written), there was an outbreak of syphilis. It was considered to be on an epidemic proportion. Syphilis… can be spread sexually. So now the images of rape and (very heterosexual) intercourse are a bit on the obvious side. Again… a symptom, not the origin. One of the side-effects of Syphilis? Insanity: Renfield is in an insane asylum, not to mention Jonathan Harker feeling like he’s going insane and trapped in Dracula’s Castle. Look at the symptoms of syphilis, and the events of the book… you might realize a whole other angle you’ve never seen before. Especially when you see that Dracula is moving around in the daylight, and other normal vampire stereotypes aren’t exactly fitting to the book. Those were all elements that Hollywood inserted in… often just “making them up”.
Side note: H.P. Lovecraft… long considered one of the greatest horror writers of all time, suffered from syphilis. Most, if not all, of his stories deal with extreme insanity and his characters are always going crazy. Cause he himself was.
There is a slightly earlier vampire tale, by Sheridan Le Fanu, called Carmilla. Some have pointed to that as being “obviously” a metaphor for sex. The story of a young female vampire seducing a young girl. Plenty of lesbianism to go around… eat that, blog boy! Not quite. Yes, the homosexuality is abundant… but remember that it was written during a time where homosexuality was considered a *disease*… and a curable one at that. Sorry to spoil it… but it’s got a happy ending, with the vampire being vanquished, and the young heroine surviving, and going on to lead a normal life, evermore.
Fast forward to the early 1970s… to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Written in 1973, published in 1976. Right around that time, in the medical community, a little something was starting to pop up. Wouldn’t be given full publicity until the late 70s, early 80s… but groups of people were already starting to be affected. This little something would eventually be called HIV/AIDS. And the largest demographic group being affected? Gay men… especially in the San Francisco area, the largest hub of Gay Culture imaginable… where Anne Rice was living and writing her books. “Gee, I wonder why there’s so much Homoeroticism in these stories… Hmmmm?” She has even said that the character Claudia is based on her daughter who died of leukemia in 1972. Again.. disease.
1987… Near Dark, the first “southwestern Vampire movie” (before it became a trend). The Vampires are shown as people “from the wrong side of the tracks”, the kind of people that are often considered “a disease on society”. That one, is a very neat twist… and works wonderfully.
Disease. Do I need a pie chart to make it clearer?
Werewolves are also metaphors for disease… but in a different way from Vampires. Vampires are physical diseases. The common “condition” associated with Werewolves is “Lycanthropy”. And Lycanthropy IS an actual medical disease. It’s not a person who turns into a wolf… it’s someone who THINKS they’re turning into a wolf. It’s a mental disease. One of the earliest illustrated depictions of a “werewolf” is of a farmer who “turned into a wolf and ate his children” while his shocked wife looked on. But the man… doesn’t have a snout or tail. If you look closely, he’s just on all fours, with an overgrowth of hair and beard, with his kid in his mouth, chomping away. Definitely not normal… but look at the circumstances. This was from back in the day where a large portion of the world was not civilized. This depiction is just a farmer out in the middle of nowhere… probably only makes the long slow trip into a village maybe once every 4 months, and his only company is his wife and very small children. The guy just went stir crazy… he was seeing the SAME people every day, cooped up… effectively cut off from civilization. It’s called Cabin Fever… and some people do just snap and kill their families. Sometimes, they just lose it, and think they themselves are wolves (one of the animals they were seeing on a frequent basis, and fighting off)… hence, the mental disease of Lycanthropy.
An American Werewolf in London… in my humble opinion, the best werewolf movie there is, puts a lot of focus on the main character’s feelings of going crazy. His dream sequences, which truly are maddening, are the scariest parts of that movie. Even the classic Universal picture The Wolf Man spends a large part having Lon Chaney Jr. say, “I’m going crazy! I’m mad, I tell you!” Dog Soldiers, deals with special ops soldiers fighting off werewolves. Makes for great action… and gives you a nice appreciation when you think of the condition “Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder” or “Shell Shock”, which you see these characters are definitely going to have when they’re through… if they survive, that is.
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… its metaphor? Alcoholism. That one may be hard to see at first. But notice how Dr. Jekyll drinks his “formula” and becomes a different person? Yet, he feels he can control it? So, he keeps drinking the formula, becoming Mr. Hyde… then soon, he needs the formula to STOP from becoming Mr. Hyde, that’s when he realizes he’s in deep doo doo. Bring that basic explanation to any AA meeting, and I’m willing to bet you get a lot of knowing nods.
Godzilla… the original movie was a Japanese Horror film. His metaphor? He’s the walking embodiment of nuclear terror. From a country that was still recovering from having Fat Man and Little Boy dropped on them, causing mindless destruction in its wake. So that movie freaked the living hell out of them. Can you blame them?
We’re missing the metaphors these days. Too many movies and books are churned out without giving us those hooks that really connect us to it… and that’s what really scares us.
A few years ago, I picked up a book… a Vampire book. It looked interesting, it had won the “Bram Stoker” award the previous year, and had a lot of praise written on the back. So I got it, and read it. That book… was the biggest pile of SHIT that I’ve ever read in my life. Narrative-wise… it was atrocious. The very beginning and the very end of the book were one plot… which the entire middle had NOTHING to do with. I only fought my way to the end of the book, hoping to the Almighty that it would redeem itself with a great ending. Nope. If anything, the ending was the worst part. Some interviews praised it for its “honest sexuality”… so an elderly man’s fantasy about a pubescent-girl’s body is “honest”??? I seriously thought the guy was rubbing one out while he was at the typewriter. I don’t call that “honest sexuality”… I call it pathetic masturbation fantasies. Useless references to incest (added nothing to nowhere)… introducing “major characters” 4/5 of the way through the book… casually doing away with the creepiest villains of the story with nothing more than a “oh, I killed them” side note… languishing too long on the uninteresting parts… and all-too-quickly-glossing-over of what would have been the most interesting parts. I hate that book and author with the fury of a thousand suns… and no longer have any faith in the “Bram Stoker Award”, because they apparently give it out to utter crap. When I found out that this was one of the author’s last books, and he had died about a year earlier… I felt bad… because now I couldn’t personally lambaste him for being the worst hack I’ve ever read. I really hope that guy didn’t die of natural causes. I won’t even honor it enough to mention its name on this blog. My blood is actually boiling, and I read this several years ago.
I really hope that’s not what the world of Horror is heading towards. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the current “Torture Porn”… and frankly… You’re preaching to the choir.
While I did enjoy the first Saw… it was novel and different. Anything after that… is old hat. So, I don’t even need to see the movies whose only selling point is the extreme violence. That’s not a story. (Same reason I didn’t see The Passion of the Christ… I already knew the story, and the violence isn’t an attraction, so why bother?) The gore IS the story, not a tool for the story. Now, I could be wrong on that… maybe there are very intelligent metaphors that inspired those stories, I don’t know. Honestly… I haven’t watched them. But when the focus by the media and filmmakers is all about “look at the gross stuff we can do”… I have no interest to even look for a good metaphor. Gross-out stuff will only disgust me, but it won’t actually *scare* me.
I wanna be scared.
I’ve only been scared by one movie. I’ve jumped at a few, but only one that actually crawled under my skin and really frightened me: The Blair Witch Project.
It was the last movie I saw right before I moved to California…. I saw it with my best friend. The entire theatre was packed with young folk aged 16-19… the age group that you’d definitely consider to be the rowdiest, loudest and most obnoxious theatergoers of all.
The place was so silent, you could hear a pin drop. Love Blair Witch or hate it… most people hit one of those extremes… it was definitely original. It’s worth seeing it for the marketing campaign alone… And that experience of seeing it was one of the most unique ones I’ve ever had in a theatre.
Why did it scare ME so much? Possibly because all the stupid crap those characters were doing: Finding old graveyards, exploring old condemned houses in the dark, etc… My friends and I have actually DONE that crap ourselves. I have seen an abandoned house in northern New Hampshire… that has black handprints on the walls. (No, it wasn’t the same house in the movie) Once the movie finished, I turned to my best friend and said, “You know… in retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t have done all that creepy, stupid shit through college”. She said, “yup”… and neither of us slept that night.
I think Horror can get better. For all the crap out there… we do find some really good stuff every now and then. Once in a while, a new classic will be born… one that really hits us where it counts, and makes us scared again… and then 1,001 bad knockoffs will instantly be born.
Which is probably the scariest thing about it. *shrug*
11.01.2007
Reflections on Hallows Eve...
I love Halloween. I always have… people that know me would not be surprised by this. Yet, for some reason, I don’t think I’m enjoying Halloween as much as I used to. Now, the last 2 Halloweens have flat-out sucked for me… but through no fault of anyone’s, really. One was surrounded by personal drama, and the other, I just didn’t get much of a chance to do anything for it. Oh well… c’est la vie. I’ve had bad Halloweens before, so I always just looked forward to the next year.
I’m not saying I had a BAD Halloween this time around… it was actually okay. For the first time since 1998, I’ve been in New England for Halloween. And in my opinion it’s the absolute best place to be at this time of year. For one, the Autumn leaves are all changing colors, lots of orange, red, yellow leaves around… and it is very pretty. There is a reason people come to see the leaves change, and it’s a good reason. But it also helps provide a nice backdrop to the idea of “Halloween”… there are many areas throughout the whole 6-state region where you actually feel like you’re living in a horror film. There is a VERY good reason why Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft set most of their stories in New England.
This year… I went with some friends to Salem, Massachusetts. Now, logic would tell you that it is the perfect place to be for Halloween. The site of the Salem Witch Trials… all that creepy history… what would be better? Well… this time around… “Logic” is arguable. I think it depends on what you want out of Halloween to figure out if Salem is a great place to go or not. Cause I’m not so sure it’s the place for me anymore.
I’d been there once before… back in 1998… my last Halloween in New England before moving to California. The friend I went with back then had her boyfriend coming into town that night through Boston… so we didn’t stay THAT long in Salem before heading out to South Station to pick him up. But there were literally hundreds of thousands of people all walking around in costume. They shut off all traffic through several streets because there are so many people walking around. It really is a sight to see. The other place I would say is comparable to it is Halloween in West Hollywood… with probably just as many people walking around in costume. The primary difference is that in West Hollywood… most of the costumes are people in Drag.
The only personal qualm I have with THAT has nothing to do with the fact that they’re in Drag… it’s the fact that most of the people there dress in Drag *anyway*… you know, they’re practicing transvestites… so doing it for Halloween is redundant, and just an excuse to do what they do on a normal night out… just with more participants. Halloween is more than that, frankly. I’ve always seen it as an opportunity to dress as something DIFFERENT. To look how you normally wouldn’t look. And preferably… it should also be scary. While dressing in drag might make you scary in several parts of the Midwest… I myself think you can try a little harder. But that’s just me. Anyhoo…
One of the first things we encountered, was the creepiest thing we saw all day or night... I thought. The parking lot attendant. No… he wasn’t dressed in costume. Just an older gentleman sitting by a sign that advertised $10 dollar parking. We pulled in, and he approached us saying meekly and with a very wobbly voice, “You guys know that we charge for parking here?” No problem with that… we knew as we were pulling in… but then I noticed that he had that “just off the medication” look in his eyes and was constantly, blatantly ogling the females in our group… most of whom were dressed pretty conservatively. Hell, they could be dressed as Eskimoes, and this guy still would have been overly-excited. THAT creeped the hell out of me. *shudder* Eww….
Salem was very much like the last time. Roads closed off… hundreds of thousands of people… vendor kiosks all over the place… police driving around these nifty little scooters (okay, they didn’t have *those* last time, but they were neat.)… generally speaking, it was one big party. It kinda surprised me how many stores there were with the “Witch” or a Spooky theme to them… and I’m not talking about the temporary kiosks that people put up… I mean the PERMANENT stores and fixtures. Sweet Jeebus, there were a lot of them… and I *was* expecting several of them, but by gum, that was a LOT. I also know there are several places where practicing Pagans and Wiccans and whatnot gather for their own little ceremony, to pay tribute to all those that were victims in the Salem Witch Trials, etc.
Now… something about that bugs me. Really just on a conceptual level. For one… if you want to talk history… back then, the spot of what is now Salem, Massachusetts… all the way up to around Meredith, NH… (a good 100 mile stretch or so)… that was ALL “Salem, Massachusetts”. So the place where we think the Trials took place… most likely they DIDN’T take place right there. Secondly, I’ve yet to see any evidence that showed that anyone who was executed as a witch from that time… was ACTUALLY a witch. You see, back then… if you accused someone of being a witch, and they were convicted… you got their land. And they pretty much had a 100% conviction rate… due in large part to the “court of public opinion” (all too influenced by gossip)… so if someone said you were a Witch… face it, you’re screwed with no way to defend yourself. So, if some guy was eyeing a nice piece of real estate, and the young widow/single woman didn’t react to your advances for marriage… you call her a Witch, you get her farm. And not just women… men too. No one was safe, quite frankly. If they WERE witches… you could at least say, “Well, it was against the law to be a witch, so they were just acting in accordance to the law.” In which case, you simply say, “The Law Blows”, and we say, “Yeah, they figured that out… that’s why they changed it.” But if they were never breaking any law to begin with… well, that seems a little more heinous to me.
Either way, it’s pretty F-ed up, I’m sure everyone will agree… but now looking at today… with the majority of the town industry being BASED around the perception of these trials (not even the facts)… just seemed kind of… I guess “Sell-out” would be the term. Even all these “spiritual tributes” from modern-day witches (as nice as the idea behind them is)… seems kind of pointless if the accused were never even witches themselves. But I’m always willing to be wrong.
I guess I was expecting/hoping to see something that basically said, “Yeah, our town has this bloody history… so once a year we break it out on Halloween night and try to have a fun time. You know, turn a negative into a positive. Why Halloween? Well, it seemed appropriate.” But to realize that people are trying to cash in on this every day of the year… Yeah, that’s where I start to think “Sell-out”.
But having the Halloween celebration there, despite all this… is not a bad thing. Hell… *I* went. Twice. And it is really a sight to see… so many people in costume. Just the logistics of the gathering is worth seeing. And a lot of people do put some imagination into their costumes… some go all out with the blood and gore, etc… and others… not so much.
You know, on one level, there is *nothing* wrong with “Sexy” costumes… dressing as a sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy firefighter, sexy army girl, sexy cowgirl, sexy cabaret dancer, sexy schoolgirl, sexy sexy, sexy Nintendo character, sexy hand-lotion… whatever. The (large) part of me that appreciates the female form will admire happily… but I will STILL make one complaint: Not scary.
Though what IS scary is when parents who are accompanying their children to things like this… Letting their 7 year old dress as a sexy/slutty nurse… is F-ing wrong. Just flat-out. I believe that as a general rule for ANY girl whose outfit title contains the word “Sexy”… they shouldn’t wear it unless they’re old enough and big enough so that if they aim for the genitals of sexual assailant… they will double him over, not annoy him. Hell, there should just be a plain test for women… you’re not allowed to wear a slutty outfit, unless you know how to throw a solid punch. Because while freedom of fashion is important… it WILL eventually bring unpleasant consequences… so unless you’re equipped to deal with those consequences, don’t go asking for trouble. Common sense, people!
Alright, alright… coming off the soapbox…
Kids dressing as sluts… it’s like the creepy parking attendant… scary in the wrong way. And Halloween has to be about SCARY. I truly believe that.
I love horror movies… I always have. Truth be told… I hate real-life violence. I’m not crazy about the sight of blood. I don’t like needles. I generally avoid fights, and I’m more apt to put a spider outside than squash it. But I’m fascinated by horror stories and horror films. I think its because it’s a “safe violence”… an artistic expression that helps get frustrations out. Its such a powerful form of art, because someone ELSE can feel expressed or cleansed from witnessing a presentation of that art… the art of horror. If you’re pissed off about something… so much so that you feel the need to hit something… sometimes watching a violent or horror movie can relieve that. It gives and performs the revenge that we wish we could give ourselves… and no one really gets hurt in the end. And all you have to do… is sit and watch it. It releases an “active” urge in a “passive” way.
It can also actively engage your imagination… by NOT showing you certain things. The great filmmakers always knew this. They let your mind fill in the blanks, and next thing you know, you’re in an adrenaline rush of fear… and you never physically moved. Your heart is pumping, you’re breathing quicker… experiencing the thrill of an adventure and danger you’ll thankfully never have yourself.
Some of the best horror movies… are the ones that do just this… and they DON’T show you any blood or gore. One of my favorites, and what I think is one of the best horror movies every made… is The Haunting (the b&w original from 1963). There’s not a drop of blood anywhere in that movie… just story and atmosphere all the way through.
And I think that’s what was missing for me from Salem… Atmosphere. A dark, ominous, moody background… a set stage for a good scary story. Salem is… well… commercial. Stores, kiosks, sausage and pizza vendors, port-o-potties and TOO many people. Really… it was overwhelming. We even left fairly early, and it was getting hard to walk there. And when I think of my favorite horror movies… it was always involving small groups of people… even singular people. It plays on the theme of isolation… being all alone. 400,000 people walking around 1 town at the same time… conceptually doesn’t seem very “isolated”. No real spooky Halloween-type horrors can happen to you when you’re surrounded by people. Even obnoxious drunk ones.
Which becomes ANOTHER qualm of mine. St. Patrick’s Day is for drinking… it was a whole holiday set aside for getting blitzed. So people that use Halloween as just another excuse for getting drunk… doesn’t impress me. Its like the excuse to dress “sexy”. Nothing wrong with it, whatever gets you your Slack. Go for it… Free Country. For me personally… I like to think there’s *more* to it. You can get drunk anyday… this is a day to get “Scared”.
Maybe I consider Halloween to be a chance to actually BE in a horror film… to experience that type of amazing extreme adventure that we can’t get in this world. Not only a chance to imagine going against the fantastic and unknown… but to act out being in it.
That could be why I have such a hard time making Halloween costumes for myself. I didn’t even dress up this year. I put on a “Day of the Dead” shirt I have, loaded up my camera, and just wanted to be a spectator and people-watcher. I always LOVE doing decorations… and being in and making environments to walk through and experience… but dressing up… that won’t scare ME. And if I were in those extreme supernatural situations… I wouldn’t be wearing an annoying, cold, constrictive costume with smelly cream makeup on my face… I would be… Me.
Maybe that’s it… I don’t want to scare. I want to BE scared.
I think the best Halloween I ever had… was very simple. While I did dress up that year, I kept it very simple… and I sat around with a small group of friends, and we told scary stories. I was in undergraduate college… and its one of the fondest memories I have. Even though I was asked to read the most stories (being the “actor”)… telling them was still a way to live through them… and experience those stories like all of those friends that were there to listen. I loved every second of it.
So, I don’t think Salem is for me. Maybe I’ll go back next year… who knows? But right now, I know what I’d prefer… a cloudy night, with the moon peeking through… sitting by candlelight with a select few… reveling in the gloom… savoring the chills up your spine… feeling the heartbeat increase ever so slightly… and then laughing in relief along with good companions.
Yeah… simplicity is what it’s all about.
I’m not saying I had a BAD Halloween this time around… it was actually okay. For the first time since 1998, I’ve been in New England for Halloween. And in my opinion it’s the absolute best place to be at this time of year. For one, the Autumn leaves are all changing colors, lots of orange, red, yellow leaves around… and it is very pretty. There is a reason people come to see the leaves change, and it’s a good reason. But it also helps provide a nice backdrop to the idea of “Halloween”… there are many areas throughout the whole 6-state region where you actually feel like you’re living in a horror film. There is a VERY good reason why Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft set most of their stories in New England.
This year… I went with some friends to Salem, Massachusetts. Now, logic would tell you that it is the perfect place to be for Halloween. The site of the Salem Witch Trials… all that creepy history… what would be better? Well… this time around… “Logic” is arguable. I think it depends on what you want out of Halloween to figure out if Salem is a great place to go or not. Cause I’m not so sure it’s the place for me anymore.
I’d been there once before… back in 1998… my last Halloween in New England before moving to California. The friend I went with back then had her boyfriend coming into town that night through Boston… so we didn’t stay THAT long in Salem before heading out to South Station to pick him up. But there were literally hundreds of thousands of people all walking around in costume. They shut off all traffic through several streets because there are so many people walking around. It really is a sight to see. The other place I would say is comparable to it is Halloween in West Hollywood… with probably just as many people walking around in costume. The primary difference is that in West Hollywood… most of the costumes are people in Drag.
The only personal qualm I have with THAT has nothing to do with the fact that they’re in Drag… it’s the fact that most of the people there dress in Drag *anyway*… you know, they’re practicing transvestites… so doing it for Halloween is redundant, and just an excuse to do what they do on a normal night out… just with more participants. Halloween is more than that, frankly. I’ve always seen it as an opportunity to dress as something DIFFERENT. To look how you normally wouldn’t look. And preferably… it should also be scary. While dressing in drag might make you scary in several parts of the Midwest… I myself think you can try a little harder. But that’s just me. Anyhoo…
One of the first things we encountered, was the creepiest thing we saw all day or night... I thought. The parking lot attendant. No… he wasn’t dressed in costume. Just an older gentleman sitting by a sign that advertised $10 dollar parking. We pulled in, and he approached us saying meekly and with a very wobbly voice, “You guys know that we charge for parking here?” No problem with that… we knew as we were pulling in… but then I noticed that he had that “just off the medication” look in his eyes and was constantly, blatantly ogling the females in our group… most of whom were dressed pretty conservatively. Hell, they could be dressed as Eskimoes, and this guy still would have been overly-excited. THAT creeped the hell out of me. *shudder* Eww….
Salem was very much like the last time. Roads closed off… hundreds of thousands of people… vendor kiosks all over the place… police driving around these nifty little scooters (okay, they didn’t have *those* last time, but they were neat.)… generally speaking, it was one big party. It kinda surprised me how many stores there were with the “Witch” or a Spooky theme to them… and I’m not talking about the temporary kiosks that people put up… I mean the PERMANENT stores and fixtures. Sweet Jeebus, there were a lot of them… and I *was* expecting several of them, but by gum, that was a LOT. I also know there are several places where practicing Pagans and Wiccans and whatnot gather for their own little ceremony, to pay tribute to all those that were victims in the Salem Witch Trials, etc.
Now… something about that bugs me. Really just on a conceptual level. For one… if you want to talk history… back then, the spot of what is now Salem, Massachusetts… all the way up to around Meredith, NH… (a good 100 mile stretch or so)… that was ALL “Salem, Massachusetts”. So the place where we think the Trials took place… most likely they DIDN’T take place right there. Secondly, I’ve yet to see any evidence that showed that anyone who was executed as a witch from that time… was ACTUALLY a witch. You see, back then… if you accused someone of being a witch, and they were convicted… you got their land. And they pretty much had a 100% conviction rate… due in large part to the “court of public opinion” (all too influenced by gossip)… so if someone said you were a Witch… face it, you’re screwed with no way to defend yourself. So, if some guy was eyeing a nice piece of real estate, and the young widow/single woman didn’t react to your advances for marriage… you call her a Witch, you get her farm. And not just women… men too. No one was safe, quite frankly. If they WERE witches… you could at least say, “Well, it was against the law to be a witch, so they were just acting in accordance to the law.” In which case, you simply say, “The Law Blows”, and we say, “Yeah, they figured that out… that’s why they changed it.” But if they were never breaking any law to begin with… well, that seems a little more heinous to me.
Either way, it’s pretty F-ed up, I’m sure everyone will agree… but now looking at today… with the majority of the town industry being BASED around the perception of these trials (not even the facts)… just seemed kind of… I guess “Sell-out” would be the term. Even all these “spiritual tributes” from modern-day witches (as nice as the idea behind them is)… seems kind of pointless if the accused were never even witches themselves. But I’m always willing to be wrong.
I guess I was expecting/hoping to see something that basically said, “Yeah, our town has this bloody history… so once a year we break it out on Halloween night and try to have a fun time. You know, turn a negative into a positive. Why Halloween? Well, it seemed appropriate.” But to realize that people are trying to cash in on this every day of the year… Yeah, that’s where I start to think “Sell-out”.
But having the Halloween celebration there, despite all this… is not a bad thing. Hell… *I* went. Twice. And it is really a sight to see… so many people in costume. Just the logistics of the gathering is worth seeing. And a lot of people do put some imagination into their costumes… some go all out with the blood and gore, etc… and others… not so much.
You know, on one level, there is *nothing* wrong with “Sexy” costumes… dressing as a sexy nurse, sexy cop, sexy firefighter, sexy army girl, sexy cowgirl, sexy cabaret dancer, sexy schoolgirl, sexy sexy, sexy Nintendo character, sexy hand-lotion… whatever. The (large) part of me that appreciates the female form will admire happily… but I will STILL make one complaint: Not scary.
Though what IS scary is when parents who are accompanying their children to things like this… Letting their 7 year old dress as a sexy/slutty nurse… is F-ing wrong. Just flat-out. I believe that as a general rule for ANY girl whose outfit title contains the word “Sexy”… they shouldn’t wear it unless they’re old enough and big enough so that if they aim for the genitals of sexual assailant… they will double him over, not annoy him. Hell, there should just be a plain test for women… you’re not allowed to wear a slutty outfit, unless you know how to throw a solid punch. Because while freedom of fashion is important… it WILL eventually bring unpleasant consequences… so unless you’re equipped to deal with those consequences, don’t go asking for trouble. Common sense, people!
Alright, alright… coming off the soapbox…
Kids dressing as sluts… it’s like the creepy parking attendant… scary in the wrong way. And Halloween has to be about SCARY. I truly believe that.
I love horror movies… I always have. Truth be told… I hate real-life violence. I’m not crazy about the sight of blood. I don’t like needles. I generally avoid fights, and I’m more apt to put a spider outside than squash it. But I’m fascinated by horror stories and horror films. I think its because it’s a “safe violence”… an artistic expression that helps get frustrations out. Its such a powerful form of art, because someone ELSE can feel expressed or cleansed from witnessing a presentation of that art… the art of horror. If you’re pissed off about something… so much so that you feel the need to hit something… sometimes watching a violent or horror movie can relieve that. It gives and performs the revenge that we wish we could give ourselves… and no one really gets hurt in the end. And all you have to do… is sit and watch it. It releases an “active” urge in a “passive” way.
It can also actively engage your imagination… by NOT showing you certain things. The great filmmakers always knew this. They let your mind fill in the blanks, and next thing you know, you’re in an adrenaline rush of fear… and you never physically moved. Your heart is pumping, you’re breathing quicker… experiencing the thrill of an adventure and danger you’ll thankfully never have yourself.
Some of the best horror movies… are the ones that do just this… and they DON’T show you any blood or gore. One of my favorites, and what I think is one of the best horror movies every made… is The Haunting (the b&w original from 1963). There’s not a drop of blood anywhere in that movie… just story and atmosphere all the way through.
And I think that’s what was missing for me from Salem… Atmosphere. A dark, ominous, moody background… a set stage for a good scary story. Salem is… well… commercial. Stores, kiosks, sausage and pizza vendors, port-o-potties and TOO many people. Really… it was overwhelming. We even left fairly early, and it was getting hard to walk there. And when I think of my favorite horror movies… it was always involving small groups of people… even singular people. It plays on the theme of isolation… being all alone. 400,000 people walking around 1 town at the same time… conceptually doesn’t seem very “isolated”. No real spooky Halloween-type horrors can happen to you when you’re surrounded by people. Even obnoxious drunk ones.
Which becomes ANOTHER qualm of mine. St. Patrick’s Day is for drinking… it was a whole holiday set aside for getting blitzed. So people that use Halloween as just another excuse for getting drunk… doesn’t impress me. Its like the excuse to dress “sexy”. Nothing wrong with it, whatever gets you your Slack. Go for it… Free Country. For me personally… I like to think there’s *more* to it. You can get drunk anyday… this is a day to get “Scared”.
Maybe I consider Halloween to be a chance to actually BE in a horror film… to experience that type of amazing extreme adventure that we can’t get in this world. Not only a chance to imagine going against the fantastic and unknown… but to act out being in it.
That could be why I have such a hard time making Halloween costumes for myself. I didn’t even dress up this year. I put on a “Day of the Dead” shirt I have, loaded up my camera, and just wanted to be a spectator and people-watcher. I always LOVE doing decorations… and being in and making environments to walk through and experience… but dressing up… that won’t scare ME. And if I were in those extreme supernatural situations… I wouldn’t be wearing an annoying, cold, constrictive costume with smelly cream makeup on my face… I would be… Me.
Maybe that’s it… I don’t want to scare. I want to BE scared.
I think the best Halloween I ever had… was very simple. While I did dress up that year, I kept it very simple… and I sat around with a small group of friends, and we told scary stories. I was in undergraduate college… and its one of the fondest memories I have. Even though I was asked to read the most stories (being the “actor”)… telling them was still a way to live through them… and experience those stories like all of those friends that were there to listen. I loved every second of it.
So, I don’t think Salem is for me. Maybe I’ll go back next year… who knows? But right now, I know what I’d prefer… a cloudy night, with the moon peeking through… sitting by candlelight with a select few… reveling in the gloom… savoring the chills up your spine… feeling the heartbeat increase ever so slightly… and then laughing in relief along with good companions.
Yeah… simplicity is what it’s all about.
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