Tag: halloween

My Top 10 Halloween Season Movies

Well, I’m still trying to find my camera so that I could bring you the behind the scenes piece on Monster Mash-Up 2011.  So instead, here are my top 10 Halloween Season movies, in absolutely no particular order:

Halloween.  All of ’em, pretty much, though Season 3 tends to leave me cold.  The Rob Zombie remakes are great (well, the first one is great, the second has moments of brilliance and moments of bizarreness, so go where you will).  And I’m particularly fond of H20.  There’s something about it that just gives me the Halloween Warm Fuzzies.

Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean, come on.  How much more in the twisted, spooky vein do you need to get?  Frankenstein’s monster, zombies, sluts and aliens all in one.  😀

Nightmare Before Christmas.  Though I’m semi-tempted to put this on the Christmas list.  But Halloween mostly wins.  “This is Halloween”: damn song will get stuck in your head for ages.  Bell, Book and Candle could also be said to be a cross-over, all about witches but set at Christmastime.  Go figure.

Corpse Bride.  “A wedding, we’re going to have a wedding!”  It’s a fun little romp through the land of the dead.  If you haven’t gone down this movie road, you really should.  And for a corpse, the bride is pretty hot.

Wizard of Oz.  It’s on the lighter side, and yet so funly marvelous.  Scary witches and flying monkeys, what more can a girl ask for?  Right, teally great shoes.

Sweeny Todd.  Still in the land of musicals, we are, but moving back to the blood and the gore.  Nasty death galore, but with songs.  How lovely.

Zombie movies.  Yeah, okay, so this was cheating, but seriously, how do you pick your best?  There’s the classic Night of the Living Dead and the modern mocking of Shaun of the Dead & Fido.  28 Days Later will freak you with their super-speed and the nasty commentary on humanity.  Zombieland should be issued as a teaching video.  Resident Evil has given me nightmares (gah, stuck with the red queen in my dreams, was most disturbing). And the list could continue.

Evil Dead & co.  Don’t read from the book!   hehehe.  This one more so for me after seeing the live play version.

Hmmm, combining a bunch together has made these last two slots much harder.  I’m racking my head, but it’s a bit hard.  My head, that is.

Exorcist movies are certainly a decent choice.  The original will always be marvelous and I rather like Lost Souls which I tend to think of in the same general vein.  But they’re not overly Halloweenie, just scary.  Still, they fill a spot on the list.

Oh, if only I owned it, I’m sure I would watch it.  Puff’n’stuff.  Damn, that would make a fine Halloween movie, don’t you think?  Witchypoo can’t be beat.

And finally, the Wicker Man.  Perfectly classic.

On a different day I might give you a different list, but today, this is my top 10 (uh, 11) Halloween Season movies.

So what do you watch in preparation of the season?

~Abysmal Witch

Samhain Memories

Okay, yes, I’m a little slow, but hey, I have at least one silly story and some fun pictures to share.  Like this one

It was a fabulous night.  I and my covenmate got together early in the day, where early still means afternoon.  After all, I’m just not that much of a morning person.  Our first stop of the night was to pick  up meal, snack and mead provisions.

I will say now, the mead didn’t make it.  It was my first attempt.  Our eyes glistened with sadness.  It was horrible.

Okay, phew, got that hard part over with.

While most of what we did I won’t be sharing (sshhhh, it’s a coven secret LOL really most of it was only interesting to us), the start of the night was sharably entertaining.

As twilight fell we attempted to leave my apartment to go visit Grandma Willow and do our first ritual of the night.  Yes, attempted to leave. We were a tad inebriated.  It was fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but it led to a few false starts.  But I’m slightly ahead of myself.

We bundled up, all nice and cozy and warm for an evening of walking.  I’ve got my long, black wool diva coat on (others have described it that way, it’s not my own label! lol), my Wicked (TM) witch hat (I adored that musical) on and some funky make-up.  My covenmate was in her robes.  We’re headed out the door and as we walk through it I commented “You know, for most people it’s come as you aren’t night.”

It took her a second and then we were both laughing.  She made a fabulously witty comeback which I’m so ashamed to say escapes me now and we headed to the elevator.

But shit! We’d forgotten the offering of mead.  Back in we went, filled a small tupperware container with some mead which went into my coat pocket since neither of us were carrying a bag and then we were back at the door.  I looked at her, at the door, and what did I say?  “You know, for most people it’s come as you aren’t night.”  We both snicker as she says her fabulously witty comeback and head back to the elevator.

Ah, crap.  No gloves.  The giggling has already started as we head back through my front door.  I’m falling over as we get back to the door, gloves in hand and I have to say “You know, for most people <snicker> it’s come <snort> as you aren’t night.”  My covenmate can barely talk as she gets our her rebuttal and we flee to the elevator.

We’re at the elevator and I have that horrible moment, “You know, I forgot–”

“Don’t even say it.”

We didn’t go back again.  I don’t think we could have lived through it.  We wouldn’t have been able to breathe.

Out the door and off to Grandma Willow (yes, the same one in my Grandma Willow post).  Unfortunately, the lid came off the tupperware and by the time we arrived we only had half of the offering left to give.  And I spent the rest of the night reeking like an English pub.  Made me thirsty.  From there we went on a meandering walk back to my place, through the side streets filled with trick-or-treating kids and decorated houses.

And a lot of people with little dogs.

Every time I saw one of those, I cried out “Damn you, Toto!  It was your fault!  I know it was.”  That made for a lot of laughter on my side and on theirs.  The dogs didn’t seem to care.

On one house there was a large video screen stretched out from the balcony railing to roof playing The Blob, entertaining the adults while the kids went up to the house.

We passed a particularly friendly fellow and I insisted that my covenmate get her picture taken with him.

There was this one apartment building near my place where a group of residents had gotten together and done a wonderful set up in their front lawn.  Though the best part was the very movie style zombie wandering up to two blocks away who would come towards you with brain stealing intensions clearly written on his empty face.

And my final picture for you is of the “Smash Me” pumpkin.  I can’t help but wonder, did it survive the night?  What do you think?  What are the odds?

 

We spent some time in a coffee shop chatting about all kinds of wonderful things and then it was back home to cook dinner for us and the anscestors and watch some Halloween classics:  the original Halloween and Wizard of Oz.  In and amongst that was more ritual.  What more can be said than:

Happy New Year to all!  And to all a Good Night.

~The Abysmal Witch