October Rundown

Heyyy


Yeah, I'm still alive. I never get personal on this blog, but suffice it to say that this past month has been crazy. I started a new job three states away, been crazy busy, had trips to Denver, Cincinnati, and Rochester in there - it's a lot.

But ever since June 2009 this blog has had at least one post per month, and although my yearly pace is basically shot now, we need to go through some movies from the past few weeks. Now, it's tough because for a lot these my pre- and post-release hype would be very different. I was really eager for Venom. Then apparently it sucked. Oh well. Here is a list of notable crap I wanted to talk about in the past six weeks:

The House with a Clock in its Walls (2018): I don't know who this film was for - too childish for adults, too scary for children. Also, somehow a Goosebumps (2015)-esque Jack Black movie a month before an actual sequel to that movie came out? Also somehow directed by Eli Roth - this is a big case of "Why Aren't I a Studio Head" and could have just told everyone this wasn't going to work. It didn't have much of a splash, but did alright domestically all things considered.

Hell Fest (2018): Seemed to really try to be a catchy Fall Horror, but landed a little too soon and too soft. Also I saw Blood Fest (2018) this year, which was totally the same movie but way more satirical and clever.

Night School (2018): I actually expected this to be a little bit better - it seemed like a dream pairing of Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart. Is Kevin Hart getting old? The trailers looked pretty funny. Maybe it could be the comedy movie of 2018! Maybe I've been living in isolation the past six weeks (definitely true) and it did alright, but not a huge cultural force. Or I'm just too white.

Smallfoot (2018): What the fuck is this shit? This is literally all I know about this movie. That's how I heard it existed. This, Night School, and Clock in Walls literally all made $65-$67 million.

Venom (2018): Did surprisingly well! All things considered. Did it suck, though? I'm still excited and wanted to avoid spoilers. And this was me not really getting pumped until the trailers came out. Is it kind of lame? Ugh. I'm wondering if it really sucked or just critically sucked. From what I read about The Predator (2018), that movie seemed to genuinely miss a mark it was trying really hard to hit. I'm curious if Venom was similar, but in a vain PG-13 glory. Still, it seemed to have a nice cultural wave.

A Star is Born (2018): It's a really nice moment when a lovely drama makes a big splash and Brad Cooper, GaGa, and Dave Chappelle all killed it. I assume. There are probably other people in this, but Chappelle stood out. It's the Oscar presumptive right now and has a lot going for it. It's one positive thing we can rally behind, from memes, musicals, country stars, it's got a bit of everything. I haven't actually seen it, nor do I really care to, but I'm rooting for it.

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018): I did NOT know this existed - the aforementioned Goosebumps is actually super underrated as fine children's spooky fare. It looks like it has not done that well, and the sliced budget and shunted cast aren't doing it any favors. Also - Goosebumps were so totally 90s, man. This could be entertaining in that bored on an October Thursday Night so let's Netflix Some Crap sort of way. That's how I caught the first Goosebumps.

Halloween (2018): I also did not realize that there had been so many renditions of Halloween. Like I definitely forgot about that Busta Rhymes one. I guess on some level I'm aware that Michael Myers keeps coming back again and again, but the Rob Zombie one was 11 years ago! Holy crap! Feels like yesterday. This one is apparently pretty sweet and definitely the 2018 version of IT (2017) - nice Fall Horror that capitalizes on an ancient franchise that still has some life in it. It also had a monster opening. The Shape lives!

First Man (2018): More like First Bland! Nah, this probably has some merit, and it's crazy that Neil Armstrong has never had a biopic besides Kirk Lazarus in Moonshot (2007). It's just not quite what interests me. Damien Chazelle has had some great flicks, but is also now this ingratiated Oscar kid who seems to be checking boxes to get a Best Picture winner. Am I the only one to get that vibe?

Not listed here are BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) which I HAVE seen in theaters and will write up...one day. I've written about every film I've seen in theaters for the last nine years and can't stop now! I did see BlacKkKlansman in early September...I hope to remember it. It was memorable.

How was your October?

Halloween Night! 31 Days of This Shit!

Well folks, it's finally upon us - the hour to go ask strangers for candy is almost here, and with that it's time to go through what to watch during the last three days in October. Never mind that we only have five hours left in October - this is all you really need to know. As you gather your family close by the burning pile of tootsie rolls know this - you're never alone. Michael Myers is watching you.

#29: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - Movie



I first saw Rocky Horror the way it was meant to be seen - alone in my parent's house late on a Saturday night while I was still in High School. Fuck that shit - Rocky Horror ought to only be seen when dressed up as a weirdo at midnight at some sketchy-ass theater with a few hundred people who know the film well enough to quote every line. It's an insane bit of pulp that's become the definition of a cult classic, and with its ghoulish send-up and frankly, now very progressive depiction of transsexual Transylvania, Rocky Horror is terrifying, hysterical, sexy, and wonderful at every turn. It's still niche enough that it's not truly mainstream - despite what anyone says, there aren't a lot of Rocky's and Frank-N-Furter's running around this season. It's the kind of film that you have to earn a membership with to really be considered a true fan, so hey - there's no time like 2016 to clue into this 41-year old movie. There's not a lot else out there that so combines the horror and goofiness inherent to Halloween, but boy does this number do it.

#30: "Thriller" - Song / Short Film / Album / Revolution



Even more so than the "Monster Mash," no Halloween is complete without "Thriller." Everything about this epic 14-minute long music video is spectacular. Not only did it launch the music video as an artform, but also the career of Michael Jackson. It's lost to history why exactly he decided to center his magnum opus around a Werecat / Zombie epic, but who's to get upset? Digging into this thing reveals a ton of stuff immediately that make no sense. What is he doing, watching an old movie from the 50s that also stars himself and his current girlfriend? Why did they go with werecat? Zombies haven't been around for 40,000 years, Vincent Price! Nothing has! That predates the pyramids by many thousands of years. Still, "the Fuck of 40,000 Years" just has a cherry ring to it, right? Also was Mikey really worried that we'd think he had a belief in the occult? People were crazy in '83. And what's with that ending? Is she really in a zombie house or a normal house? Is this all an elaborate mind game from Michael Jackson? Is he possessed by the spirit of the evil werecat he played in a movie from the 1950s? None of this narrative holds up! And I'm usually good at rationalizing and finding meaning in these things. I suppose it doesn't actually matter at all. It doesn't matter than nothing makes sense - look at him dance! And that beat is dope as hell! This is the mainstream Halloween pop epic jam that we've always wanted and needed - and even though there's really only about 3:30 worth of actual lyrical content, we got a 5:58 jam on the album Thriller, and a 13:42 piece of pop cultural excellence here. That really doesn't exonerate the homosexual pedophile, but this song is so damn good that it actually comes close, which is more insane than any Halloween ghoul.

#31: Fun Size (2012) - Movie

Speaking of Michael Jackson...

That's right. This is how you win the Troll Prize of the Year. Fun Size, baby! This is a spectacularly dumb but fun comedy from a few years back about Victoria Justice losing her kid brother on Halloween night that only gets better with age. I am going to try to keep typing with a straight face. Some might use the words "egregiously obnoxious" or "what the hell?" when describing this film which seems like it was intended for children except for all the sexual and adult situations. No one knows who this movie was made for and that's the point - we've already established that Halloween Mysteries are the most scary thing of all. Most importantly, though, this film united Johnny Knoxville and Jackson Nicoll, who would team-up the next year to make the immortal American Classic, Bad Grandpa (2013). This is definitely a guilty pleasure, in the sense that you feel guilty about really misusing the past 86 minutes of your life. Those are minutes that you could have spent looking at Facebook updates, reading Halloween Lists, or best yet, just sitting quietly. Minutes that you'll never get back.

And that's all she wrote, folks. Another Halloween passed, another horrible list of dumb things to do on Halloween to go with it. There will be many more great holiday moments to savor in the years and decades to come I'm sure, but for now, this should sate your fiendish appetites. Good night and have a GHOULSIHLY GOOD TIME! AHAHAHAHA!!!

Almost There: 31 Days of Horrorween Hallows!

As we close in on the big day here we have come at last to the unofficial Celebration Day for every insane drunken adult out there - even though we're two days out, no body's dressing as a slutty Ken Bone making out with Harley Quinns and Princes out there on Monday. In a few short hours the orgy of candy, fallgaritas, and blacklights will begin. in that honor, let's get through four more Halloween...things.

#25: Trick 'r Treat (2007) - Movie

This little gem seemed to come real quick and make no splash after its studio heavily delayed its release, but in the near-decade since, it's grown a nice little cult following. It contains a standard horror anthology of four inter-related flicks, which as this site says, is more Four Rooms (1995)-ish than standard compilations. It wins points around this time of year more than other horror anthos, though, due to its incessant and complete Halloween-ness. There's literally a little pumpkin-headed dude, who will really fuck up your day if you're not celebrating Halloween correctly. There are better horror movies out there, hell, there's better ones on this list, but this could be the most Halloween-one, and that's including one eponymous number coming up.

#26: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror - TV Show

Each year it gets a bit more difficult to watch every Treehouse of Horror - after all, there's 27 of them now. That's like nine hours without commercials. I have talked at various points at length about how these have become the definitive TV Halloween Special, and I'd agree more or less with these rankings to this day. We probably deserve a whole new ranking, although the top five certainly wouldn't change. I'd say X, I, XV, XIV have trended up to me lately, XXII, XVII, and XVIII are certainly down. It's amazing how much they seem to have bungled Kang and Kodos since "Citizen Kang." In terms of the four specials since 2012, XXIV outside the Guillermo del Toro opening is garbage, probably bottom tier, XXV and XXVI are decent, middle group stuff, and the latest, XXVII is a solid contender for worst ever. I know, this is impossible to remember just by roman numerals. I have given you the pain of looking all these up for yourself. Even the section titles can be tough to remember. Just....just trust the word of Norwegian Morning Wood here, folks. Fine, I'll throw together an updated ranking.

#27: "Monster Mash" by Bobby Picket - Song

Here's Halloween Trivia for whatever party you're headed to tonight: Who first released the "Monster Mash" and in what year? Bobby "Boris" Picket, 1962! That's got to be the lamest party ever if you're sitting around trading "Monster Mash" trivia. Here's a video of this dude - can you imagine, like, Kanye West doing this on national TV these days? This is the Halloween equivalent of "Jingle Bells," though - the perfect Halloween Carol if we've ever had one. Sung ostensibly from the viewpoint of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the song focuses on his monster rising from his slab, and starting a huge dance party. The lyrics are really insane though - apparently zombies, the Wolfman, and Dracula (as well as his son - what the hell?) all show up, Drac gets pissed because they left out his favorite dance, the Transylvania Twist, but then they rectify that somehow, including the Prince of Darkness in their band or whatever. And then Bobby "Boris" Picket includes himself in a weirdly toned "Tell them Boris sent you!" to invite everyone into the Graveyard Smash. And who the hell are the Crypt-Kicker Five? There are so many questions here. Of course, that's what adds to the horrifying Halloween mystery machine.

#28: Halloween (1978) - Movie

ooo la la Mikey1

Perhaps the grandaddy of all Halloween movies, and certainly of most modern slasher movies (although a solid case can be made for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974]), Halloween for all its glory demands viewing on its namesake holiday. For all this hyperbole, though, there's actually not all that much to do with Halloween in this film. Sure the change of seasons, incoming death, and naïve trick or treating play a big part, and wee lil' Mikey Meyers committing his first murder dressed in costume on Halloween carries significance according to whatever definition for his madness you can ascribe - evil possession, disassociative identity disorder, being a douchebag, whatever, but this feels like it could be a horror for all occasions rather than holiday specific. I mean, the Rob Zombie 2007 version came out in August for knife's sake. All this would make it seem like I'm trouncing the film, and in a lot of ways this probably shouldn't be ranked as high as it is, but there's still something definitively Halloween-ish in watching it this night, if only for tradition's sake.

Wait - what's that?

You thought we'd blow the whole wad up to #31 two days before Halloween! You're crazier than a machete-wielding Red Wings fan! You're going to have to wait until the day of Satan's Reckoning to see what our Top Three picks are and I will guarantee you that the #1 will be stupid enough that you never read this site again ever.

31 Additional Days of Hallow Treats: Earnest Scared Shitless!

Welcome again eager readers to our Halloween Countdown of All Things Scary! What's scariest of all is that we're totally disinterested in offering little bits of spooky cultural ephemera each day, but instead are rather content to blast huge chunks to you all at once. So today we have six more fun-filled gobtacular bits of pop culture to shove down your miserable throats. Let's jump back into the insanity pit:

#19: The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Movie

A few years back when The Cabin in the Woods was all over Netflix, this was an easier must check-off on the Halloween List, and even though it's not anymore, it's still a great time getting some meta-scares in during October. The trope-busting is reminiscent of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), but much more blatant in its postmodern treatment of classic creepy slasher conventions. Its ending is also the best ending of any horror film ever (well, the monster mash, at least. SPOILER Sigourney Weaver's blah blah Ancient God sacrifice is a bit forced), and a nice way to chunk in every (mostly modern) horror icon in one big go. Its bloody gory greatness is a sublime pay-off to a film equally stuffed with satire on bureacracy, horror, and teen dumbness. Defying genre at almost every turn, it's one of the best modern classics we got.

#20: Ernest Scared Stupid (1991) - Movie

This is probably the most horrifying moment of my childhood on this entire list. A lot of really dumb shit scared and scarred me for life in my formulative years, and Trantor the Troll is about at the top of that list. That motherfucker who sucked the life out of boys until they became wooden dolls still scares the stupid out of me. Was that whole thing a metaphor for abuse? With Ernest P. Worrall at the helm, most likely. Ernest was such a flash in the pan cultural touchstone, which seems completely bizarre now. Somehow there were a whopping nine Ernest films, five of which were released theatrically. There's almost no cultural memory of the doofy hick janitor, though, which seems weird in the least. I suppose none were all that effective, and who the hell knows what Jim Varney is up to now. Ernest for President! Anyway, Ernest Scared Stupid is at least the third best of the films, probably after Camp (1987) and Jail (1990). Did Ernest get raped in prison? These are the questions we may never know the answer to.

#21: Scream Queens - TV Show

So, like American Horror Story, I just had a huge bit about this show, which is my ultimate guility pleasure. Both Season 1 and the current Season 2 have largely centered around Halloween; this season in particular has used the holiday as a supreme focal point. There's not really a better show that has captured the spirit of Halloween to such an extreme degree that it bleeds into some actual bleeding - murder, mystery, and ghouls galore! From its endless trash and insane over-the-top characters, Scream Queens screams Halloween like a dream.

#22: "A Nightmare on Facetime" from South Park - TV Show

There are a couple television shows that just consistently do Halloween episodes right. The Simpsons is the obvious paradigm, but from The Office to Parks and Recreation, year in and year out, the stuff works. "Bolloween" from Outsourced was also totally that show's best episode. Yes, I watched Outsourced. That show was terrible. But South Park is a show that really gets the combination spooky and doofy, from "Pinkeye", "Korn's Groovy Ghost Pirate Mystery", and "Spookyfish" all the way to the beautiful "Hell on Earth 2006." I might go rogue here, though, and name "A Nightmare on Facetime" as my favourite South Park Halloween episode. From the spot-on 2012 costumes that make it a perfect time capsule (all Avengers and Psy) to the brilliant melding of Blockbuster and The Shining (1980) into a damned good Randy episode that also finds room for a lot more of the regular cast of characters.

#23: "Who Got Dee Pregnant?" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - TV Show

It may just be that this episode dropped at the perfect time in my life, but for a while, I lived a lot of Halloweens like the one depited here. "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre" gets big points for actually owning a few genuine horror-tinged elements, but for a real twenty-something bar-hopping Halloween nut, "Who Got Dee Pregnant?" takes the cake. It follows the gang as they try to piece together a series of inter-connected drinking brown-outs into a singular story of what happened one Halloween night where Sweet Dee was knocked up. It's exactly every Halloween I had from 2008 to...uh...shit. Present. Still going strong. It's that element that's missing from most standard specials: Halloween as one of the top drinking days of the year!

#24: An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Movie

Turning away from television and back to movies for a second, this is the last Horror film on this countdown that doesn't have anything explicitly to do with Halloween. It's just scary, gruesome, and likely the best werewolf movie of all time, even if it faces stiff competition from The Howling (1981),  and to a lesser extent Silver Bullet (1985), Bad Moon (1996), and the recent old blind man werewolf epic Late Phases (2014). In fact, you could make a pretty coherent argument that every subsequent werewolf movie has gotten worse since London, which is more frightening than any man-canine lurking in the dark. John Landis mixes terrifying horror with great gore, decomposing corpse-ghosts, a dash of humour, romance, and tourism, and the single best werewolf transformation ever committed to film. Awoooo!! Roped into this is really Warren Zevon's 1978 single "Werewolves of London" (somehow the Adam Sandler cover in the best), which also blends silliness into mutilation. Why are werewolves way funnier than Frankensteins or Mummies? I suppose we just like puppy doggs. But "Werewolves of London" has also found its way into Halloween Soundtrack proceedings.

Wanna go for a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's?

There's the latest installment for you. As you can tell, we're really getting deep into the All Hallow's Eve Spirit by know. There are assuredly some great films, songs, television shows, and feature-length music videos to get through - Halloween is just that kind of fantastic holiday! Stay tuned for more this week as we break down the next two installments of this Big List of Halloween Junk!

31 Days of Halloween Stuff: Cartoons, Zombies, and the Best of Burton

Once again we bring you an irregular series of posts purportedly tied into the 31 Days of Halloween, which exists as a marketing gimmick as much as any sort of real thing. But still, October is Creep Month, and although Creep (2014) isn't on this list, we still have #7-12 of cultural junk I specifically ingest to get in the mood for the season. So let's jump in to this issue of madness:

#7: "Spooky" from Conker's Bad Fur Day - Video Game

To offer some background, I'm a complete Rareware nut, dating back in the Super Nintendo / N64 era in the 1990s. I've played the series of Donkey Kong games and their spin-offs endlessly. Conker's BFD was in many ways the last hurrah of that specific era, superficially just another cutesy platformer, but in actuality dripping in ironic adult postmodernism. I've talked about my love of this game in two separate posts from 2009. Needless to say, while I've played my share of creepy games, this one takes the cake. Oh, it does! Maybe it's the limited controls (that are daresay...realistic?), or the simple fact that it's a crazy left turn from where the game seemed to be going, but the nonstop onslaught of zombie squirrels is way more panic-inducing than it has any right to be.

#8: "Sugar Frosted Frights" from Rocko's Modern Life - TV Show

Alright, deep cut from my childhood. Again. When I was a wee lad, this episode of the surreal children's show scared the hell out of me. With trepidation I re-watched it this week only to discover that it's really...not scary at all? It's certainly bizarre, though. You can watch it yourself totally legally on this totally legal site right here. I don't know why this haunted me so. Maybe it's actually that the structure and sequence of the episode really throws you off - when you expect the biggest scare you get this weird moment of camaraderie that blatantly doesn't make any sense (even Filburt is thrown for a loop). Essentially when the big bad, the Haunted Hessian is going in for the kill the episode flashes forward a year where he relives the "goofy moments of yesteryear" with the principal cast. Still, who took those pictures?!

#9: Stranger Things - TV Show

Here's just about the most contemporary installment on this list, but still a goodie. It's probably too recent in our memory to really necessitate a re-showing in October, but 1) If you haven't seen it yet, solve that, and 2) in years to come this will certainly be a Halloween viewing requirement, if we can get over the fact that it feels SO Summer '16. Season 2 I'm sure will leave us equally indebted to creepy throwback child horror, and if it debuts anywhere near Fall, all the better. All in all, despite the addictiveness, in the end it'd be nice if there was a bit more pay-off to the lot, and it's assuredly an ironic combination of nostalgia and recency that puts it on this list. Hopefully it has staying power. You know Barb does. #1 Halloween Costume of 2016.

#10: The Walking Dead - TV Show

I've had a long and tormented history with The Walking Dead. After reading the comics I was pretty amped for the show, which delivered with aplomb for the first two or three seasons, then a solid hate-watch season, then around the time the Governor died I completely lost interest. Joe Bernthal, who's brought his tortured masculine intensity from Shane into his new role as the Punisher on Daredevil, remains the best character the show has ever had, and although its "anyone can die at any time" philosophy does wonders for its visceral and merciless world-building, it really fucks with its narrative reasons to keep watching. It's still a Halloween staple, though, and apparently everyone else is still pretty into the trite shit it's become. I've also written about this before.

#11: "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" from The Angry Beavers - TV Show

This is one that I really got into for a while. The Angry Beavers was a really surreal show in an age of constant surreal kid's shows. It was subtle and stupid and more often than not made no sense, even with adult eyes. "The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up" presents the pinnacle of this assertion and the show itself. It's as if The Mist (2007) took place as a B-Movie spoof in a 90s cartoon starring Beavers. It aggressively makes no sense, but all the little boys wanted to dress as Oxnard Montalvo back in '98. It's such a specific bit of culture to parody - I'm at a loss understanding why it was a priority. The results, though, is built more for adult stoners than small children. I have no issue with this.

#12: Ed Wood (1994) - Movie

For a while this made its way on my October must-watch list by virtue of it being one of the only slightly creepy movies in my DVD collection. It's not out and out horror, of course, but its focus on the film career of B-Movie...well, probably C-Movie (D-Movie?) legend Ed Wood who specialized in the macabre (or attempted macabre) makes for a fine Halloween time. The flick certainly stands out as being better than any film Ed Wood actually made and for definitely being Tim Burton's best work. It lacks the out and out fantastical creepiness of his other more overt Halloween-outings, but for whatever reason I never actually got into those. I really dig creepiness, but for some reason none of his other twisty, Danny Elfman-infused movies ever clicked for me. I suppose that's because he tends to be creepy, but also really family friendly, which kind of disarms the horror. But Ed Wood is still golden.

Also Gender Identity Progressive

So now we're over a third of the way through our Halloween List to End All Lists. Stay tuned throughout the week as we blast through more insane things from childhood and normal life to wrap our ghoulish little balls around. Kick back with a Fallgarita and enjoy the Death of the World!

31 Days of Halloween Lists: The Only List for Halloween Priorities

It's the time of the year for creeps and tricks and general horrific nonsense all around, which means it's a great opportunity for a bit of listology, too. Now, there are lots of ways to go about this. I could have cited 31 movies, one each day, or 31 creepy movie scenes, or the best Halloween Episodes, but I think we can be a bit mor grandiose than that.

And 31 is obviously the magic number here - virtually all of October qualifies as Pure Fall - the slow death of the seasons that looks gorgeous while a chill runs through the air sapping all hope and joy from the excess of summer. So I'm going with an October checklist, if you will. Here is a list of priorities to go through each October Season to get you in just saucey enough of a mood for the revelry of Samhain that comes at months' end. This is my personal list, and it gets pretty personal - but in just five easy installments for the rest of the month, we're going to cover it all. So, neglecting any sort of day-by-day posting, let's get through our first SIX THINGS TO LIST FOR HALLOWEEN.

1. JAWS (1975) - Movie.

JAWS gets its place here from being an immortal horror movie, but it's also totally more a summer film than a Halloween film. There hasn't been a better monster movie since, and I still jump when Brody chums some of that shit into the water and Bruce rears his head. There's a reason why this kicks us off, though - nothing about it feels October-relevant, but as a bridge from Summer to Fall, this is a nice combo of daylight beach-time horror. That will be about the last we see of that, though.

2. The Shining (1980) - Movie

Here we get a bit closer, but The Shining is really to winter horror what JAWS was to summer. I'll freely call this the scariest movie ever made, from the steady dreadful strings that make up its score to shocking suddenness of all its big scares. There's something in this whole film that makes it unsettling, whether it be the abstract, impossible geography, constant haunted feel, or eeriness. It's still not quite Halloween, but a great subtle fear-monster.

3. Ghostbusters (1984) - Movie

Trending in the opposite direction, Ghosbusters nailed the horror-comedy in ways that no one has been able to achieve since (including the 2016 version). There are still parts of this that feels more like a summer movie, though, probably just due to its blockbuster-ness. Its theme song has luckily made its way on to every Halloween Party playlist ever, though, so it gains a lot of points for Ray Parker alone.

4. Fallgaritas - Drink

Stay with me here, but back in 2010 I started sucking down these bad boys as soon as the wind turned cold. I distinctly remember pouring my first during a rousing viewing of Harry Brown (2009), and each and every October since then I get sauced off these treats. Jim Beam and Cider with a rim of caramel and a Kit Kat or Reece's garnish is a delectable treat to make bad Halloween decisions to.

5. Lowcountry - Short Story

Stay with me here, because I said this was personal. We do have a little-known sister site for prose, unwrites.blogspot.com. There, also back in 2010 I committed to the screen Lowcountry, an epic tale of forbidden love between Mummy and Frankenstein. It's certainly stupid; some would say extremely stupid, but I try to give it a re-read every time things get creepy. If you're looking to waste a good hour, I highly recommend as well!

6. Sleepy Hollow - Story / Horrible Movie / Worse TV Show

There are a lot of classic Halloween tales out there, but to me, it's all about Sleepy Hollow. It's the Halloween version of A Christmas Carol, passed down and re-told for each generation. It's really all about the pumpkin-toting Headless Horseman, who is underrated as far as classic ghouls go. That could be because he lacks a definitive classic portrayal. Sure, Chris Walken went nuts as the mad Hessian in Sleepy Hollow (1999), and the Nichole Beharie / Tom Mison show which used the Horseman...of the APOCALYPSE (wha-hey!!) as a jumping off point for a completely bonkers supernatural historical procedural. It's still nearing that golden Halloween-ness we're looking for, and so it's fitting to leave on for now.

What does he do when it rains? Does it just go down the neckhole?

I hope that saits your Halloween List appetite for now. We've got quite a bit more to cover - twenty-five more...THINGS for Halloween, so stay tuned, folks. It's gonna get weird and terrible and I love it.