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09.30.10 by Widge @ 3:29 am  You thought you had buried it. Perhaps far from the crossroads. Perhaps with a stake in its heart and a mouth filled with garlic. With maybe some wolfsbane and silver for good measure. But no. You can't keep a good franchise down (and in a lot of cases, a bad one is even harder to take out). Halloween returns and, unsatisfied with merely owning the month of October, it has invaded and claimed September 30th as its own. Thus: 32 Days of Halloween IV: The Final Chapter. That's right, we've done four years of this nonsense. No, we can't believe it either. Year one, we began the proceedings with Mickey. We brought you more Mickey in year three. But on even years, it's time for Looney Tunes. We did Bugs Bunny our second year, and now it's back to Bugs and the first appearance of Witch Hazel in "Bewitched Bunny." Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.31.09 by Widge @ 9:48 pm  We bid a fond farewell to 32 Days of Halloween with this final audio, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Hope you enjoy it. Thanks to everybody for listening and for all the feedback. You can download it directly here. And to subscribe to the 32 Days of Halloween audio feed, here you go. Now--it's available in iTunes. Check it out here. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.31.09 by Widge @ 7:00 pm  As our tradition here on the site, every Halloween night belongs to the George Romero film that launched a sub-genre and, with time, a crapload of careers. I regret the fact that I didn't get a chance to interview Romero after he cancelled at DragonCon, because I wanted to ask him what it was like to basically invent a sub-genre. Talking with Doc, we were able to come up with only a couple of other examples: Poe with the detective story and mayhap William Gibson with cyberpunk. So here we go. The one and the only, on the night that it owns. Hope you dig it. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.31.09 by Rob Levy @ 11:14 am  For twenty-five years Ministry's "Everyday Is Halloween" has taken a holiday of costumes and candy and replaced it with black boots and dry ice. Recorded in 1984 and then remixed to over ten and a half minutes in 1985, the song became an instant smash on dancefloors around the world in the mid 80s and early 90s. It arguably rivals New Order's "Blue Monday" as the most influential 12" single of all time. Not really a Goth record, it was nonetheless embraced by the Goth subculture as a call to arms. It's also not really a new wave pop record either. For one thing it's lyrical derision made it stick out like a sore thumb. Also, very few 12" records clocked in at ten minutes. Despite all of this "Everyday Is Halloween" oftentimes tore up dancefloors by getting the entire mix played in its entirety. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.31.09 by Widge @ 10:51 am  Wow. As always with these things, I can't believe we're nearing the finish line for 32 Days of Halloween PART III. It's our third year of doing this, so thanks to everybody for coming out--and for being receptive to the addition of all the daily audio bits. Yes, we've got one more movie to go this evening (three guesses as to what it is) and an audio finale I'll post later today. As always, on our way out the door with this, it's time for some lovely bits of miscellanea that we couldn't stick anywhere else. First up, it's quite possibly the most surreal and spoooky episode of The Dating Game ever. You'll quickly ascertain why. And check out that outfit. Seriously, WTF? And also--the bachelors are scarier than the special guest. Which takes work. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.31.09 by Widge @ 8:56 am  As a special bonus track for 32 Days of Halloween Audio, a new experiment in audio terror like you've never experienced it before. You can download it directly here. And to subscribe to the 32 Days of Halloween audio feed, here you go. Now--it's available in iTunes. Check it out here. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.31.09 by Aaron @ 8:22 am  What makes you think of Halloween? Pumpkins? Trick or Treat? Michael Myers? Try shamrocks and red-heads because once again, it's us Irish who started the whole thing. You're welcome. The Celts had four main festivals a year, mostly coinciding with changes in the season and farming. Imbolc at the start of February, Beltaine around the first of may, Lughnasadh in August and Samhain (pronounce the 'mha' as a 'w' and you'll get it right) on the 1st of November. Of course, we didn't have calendars back then so it was judged on lunar cycles and such but you get the idea. Since the Celts also broke the year up into two periods--the bright half and the dark half--Samhain also ushered the start of the dark half of the year. Our negative outlook on life means we typically start the year with the dark half...so Halloween is traditionally the Irish New Year. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.30.09 by Widge @ 7:55 pm  For my final original bit for 32 Days of Halloween Audio, it's another Something Else episode I've decided to title "Absolute Fitness." Enjoy. You can download it directly here. And to subscribe to the 32 Days of Halloween audio feed, here you go. Now--it's available in iTunes. Check it out here. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.30.09 by Widge @ 7:00 pm  So I think this is the first time we've ever had three different versions of the film on the site. We started back in 2007 with the Lon Chaney version from 1923. Then last year it was the 1939 version with Charles Laughton. Now we fast forward to 1956, for the first color film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, starring Anthony Quinn as Quasimodo. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.30.09 by Widge @ 3:44 am  So last year we did a bit on sequels and ostensibly we had more sequels two years ago as well. And so that brings around to the topic of bad sequels. And in general, sometimes bad movies are good. Sometimes bad movies are atrocious. Sometimes bad movies make you feel like not only did you get robbed of the price of a ticket (or a rental, or a whatever), but your time was robbed from you and suddenly you're looking at ninety or so minutes of your life you can never get back. The tragedy of it all. As discussed on today's Weekend Justice (showing up shortly), it doesn't have to be this way. But so often...it is. Here's some time-honored bits of crap, in keeping with the season. No parade of bad sequels can be complete without Jaws: The Revenge, which is the birth of the "Michael Caine Excuse." When asked why he did the film, he responded simply, and with refreshing honesty, "I needed a house." I hope it was a fine house. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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