Two more days til' Halloween: My October reading and viewing

Two more days 'til Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en, Hallowe'en ....

It being so close to October 31, I thought I would share my good and interesting October journey.

Let's talk October reads first. 

Just finished Renn Graham and Jeannette Arroyo's Blackwater. Originally a web comic, it is a YA queer romance horror, sort of a mash-up of Stranger Things (though not retro), Heartstopper and Teen Wolf with alternating art styles! Crushing on supporting goth character Marcia, a slightly under-realized young black woman of size. Perhaps another story with more of her, and protags, jock Tony Price and German kid, Eli Hirsch? There's room for all that, and I'd read it.

Also Adam Cesare's Clown In A Cornfield, which marries old-and-new-school slashers, moving at a good clip. As it is YA horror (which I only discovered after reading the novel), Cesare is often borderline satirical in depicting townies, and any grown-ups, who are alternately inept or menacing for the most part. But this view of townies grows more sympathetic as protagonist Quinn widens her view of Small Town, Missouri. She and her dad Dr. Glenn Maybrook have a shared requisite tragic backstory. Their sudden relocation from Philadelphia to Kettle Springs allows for new-school/old-school, big-city/small-town comparisons and juxtapositions, granting Cesare the ability to tell the story like an old-school slasher in a contemporary setting. Jock Cole Hill, her romantic interest, also grapples with grief, but his story of loss is shown instead of told. It is a curious choice, considering that whole Cole character is a means to digging into the town's quandaries and past. Quinn, on the other hand, remains the main character and should have agency or at least a background deserving of equal attention.

In some ways, Clown is a variation on the Scream franchise themes, but with compelling characters, action and small-town spicing, courtesy of Kettle Springs, Missouri. Only recently did I learn it is YA. With its level of gore and dismemberment, though, it is a closer descendant of the Netflix Fear Street trilogy than Stranger Things.

For a good laugh, I am slowly working through Grady Hendrix and Will Erickson's riotously funny Paperbacks From Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction. It remains a mood up-lifter of the most ridiculous sort.

I realized I never saw all of John Carpenter’s 1981 effort, The Fog, and rented it. It remains immersive 1980's horror, with tough-sensitive guy Tom Atkins, Curtis shimmering as free-wheeling hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley. Loved Janet Leigh, saucy 1978 Halloween alumni Nancy Kyes, cool lighthouse deejay Adrienne Barbeau. All that said, some shots, in fact many, and the music remind me of Halloween. In fact, director Carpenter is really cribbing himself for much of the tense scenes, when he isn’t busy showing the beautiful seaside before the fog rolls in in and the fog machine really starts gunning in-town. The '76 Ford LTD Country Squire is also a close cousin to Michael Myers' ride, the '78 Ford LTD Station Wagon in Halloween. Perhaps Carpenter got a deal on these station wagons, or simply owned one?

Also viddied queer director James Whale’s The Invisible Man (1933); The Old Dark House (1932, also a Whale film). The first is mercilessly dark and twisted, and campy and the second, well, the second is the same, sans a Universal Studios monster. In House, Whale also nods, winks and leers at the queer viewer, passing off strikes as balls, or queer jokes as straight clap-trap, and they’re a joy to detect, each and every one of them.

As well, I quite enjoyed Tom Seeley and Michael Moreci's Revealer, pairing a stripper and religious zealot in Chicago during the rapture. This impressive cosmic-horror endeavour works hard, delivering a great story and performances despite Covid shooting limitations.

Watched Dave Grohl's Studio 666, a predictable but loving tribute to horror cinema. Like seeing Kiss in the classic 1979 rock-cheese feature Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, one must appreciate the rock band the Foo Fighters hamming up every scene to a rather kick-ass soundtrack and crop of cameos including ... Lionel Ritchie?

Blade from 1988 still remains kinetic. Wesley Snipes kicks fanged-fiend butt, but with some power-level discrepancies and Stephen Dorff remains a fine Jack Nicholsonesque antagonist. Kris Kristofferson as cranky old Whistler is still as endearingly irascible as ever.

George A. Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead still wields power over the viewer, as does John Landis’ 1981 An American Werewolf in London, although I still maintain it suffers from a simplistic and fatalistic third act. While Night’s ending is a kick to the stomach, American Werewolf’s remains abrupt and unsympathetic to the point of sarcasm.

The last two are revisits. Still hankering to revisit It Follows, one of my all-time contemporary favourites. My case for It Follows is here in previous blog post.

Also watching Shudder’s Queer For Fear. The documentary series traces the lineage of queer or LGBTQ1+ influence on horror and gothic literature and cinema from its earliest days, from Mary Shelley penning A Modern Prometheus and kickstarting the gothic and horror genre and onward. While it features an uneven third episode, Queer is at its best when focusing on a particular actor, a film or film series (Anthony Perkins in Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s portrayal of gay men) or a particular genre trend (the endless list of exploitative lesbian vampire films in the 1970’s) or juxtaposing overtly campy or sexual sound bites into the thesis breakdown.

In between all that, trying to finish a review of a sci-fi collection for U.S. magazine and trying to revise an autumnal story about a traveling roadshow of horror writers who are down on their luck, and turning to dark means in their desperation.