Happy Halloween

Halloween was as gloriously tranquil and uninterrupted as I'd hoped. No panhandling kiddies to interrupt my immersion in manufactured grue. I watched Shutter and that old holiday favorite, the original Halloween. Watching Michael Myers dispatch grating, unlikeable teens like so much indiscriminately fornicating knife fodder never gets old. It's like putting on a flannel nightgown and some tatty slippers and shuffling around the house while you scratch that bothersome spot just above the crack of your ass. It's homey, and I know that's odd given the subject matter of the film, but it's so much a part of the pop culture fabric of my life that I can't imagine a Halloween without it.

Shutter was remarkably good, a quietly tense story that was atmospheric and creepy without bogging down in belabored eeriness like The Grudge did. Most American remakes of Japanese horror films lack the building unease of the original because the director becomes bedazzled by the high-gloss matte finish present in so much of American films. They substitute star power for substance. This, however, was a refreshing instance of the remake capturing the spirit of the original while making it accessible to an American audience. Well worth the Wal-mart bargain bin price tag.

Prom Night 2009 was an absolute snorefest, so ploddingly wretched that I'm tempted to write the production company and studio responsible and demand a refund. What a bland, flaccid travesty. Ninety minutes of Jonathan Schaech ineffectually dry-humping pathetically gargling scream queens with the blunted pointed of his prop knife. ZZzzzz.

Still, candy and two out of three ain't bad. Happy Halloween.