The 35th Precinct

I found these through sf_drama's creepypasta Halloween post and thought I would share them. They're a pair of short films by a team of independent filmmakers.

Cleansed. Warnings for blood and references to domestic violence. A crime-scene cleaner enters the site of a horrific murder and finds more than blood on the walls.

Bedfellows. No warnings here, just a creep factor of ten. Have fun sleeping tonight.

These same filmmakers have an entire Youtube channel full of these films. Some of them are mediocre, but a few of them pack a wallop.

For Halloween films of the feature-length variety, I recommend these:

-the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film has an undeserved reputation as a gorefest, but aside from a few scenes, there is very little blood or gore. This movie isn't a splatter flick; it's an unrepentant mindfuck, and there are parts so disturbing that to dwell on them for long invites a bout of the screaming memes.

-the original Halloween. The later sequels devolved into hokum, but the first two are unnerving. Houses and hospitals are supposed to be sanctuaries, but they're not.

-Session 9. Oh, dear God. A deeply-unsettling picture that raises the question of internal versus external evil. If Gordon wasn't insane when he went into the asylum, he was when he came out.

-The Blair Witch Project. Yes, the acting was often histrionic, but the symbols in the woods and the final scene were so haunting that I slept with the lights on for a week after my first viewing.

-the American version of The Ring. The TV. Oh, God, the TV.

For more child-friendly fun, you can't go wrong with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island or Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost.

For a scary read, I recommend ""Lunch at the Gotham Cafe". Eeeeeee. Eeeeeee.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Just a little treat with which to kick off the Halloween season.

The elders of the Sooper Sekrit Crip Cabal have located my exam and delivered it unto my instructor, so there be one crisis averted. I'm sure three more will wing their way to my doorstep before the semester ends. In the meantime, I have a response blurb to write on Waiting for the Barbarians for Wednesday. Huzzah!

As for tomorrow, it is my tentative plan to watch S4 of The X-Files tomorrow, or a few movies from my formidable horror flick stash. For a good scare, might I recommend Session 9? It's a little-known Canadian indie that stars David Caruso, but it's disturbing as hell. Or The Blair Witch Project. Yes, it was overacted in places, but its use of setting and imagery scared the ever-loving shit out of me, and my Roomie can attest to the fact that I slept with the light on or not at all for a week after the first viewing.

This sounds horribly uncharitable, but I'm hoping there aren't many trick-or-treaters tomorrow. There's no bigger moodbreaker while watching horror movies than to be interrupted by some sticky-fingered, diaper-dragging child panhandling for candy. I don't keep candy in the house often, and when I do, you can bet your sweet ass it's for me. Call me Scrooge, but I have no inclination to dole out free sugar crack to the same rude little cretins who point at me on the bus in between bouts of noisy mouth-breathing, and if I were to do so, it would be laced with Ex-Lax.

...

Not really. I'm too cheap to buy brand name. Maybe Smooth Move instead.

It's a shame I've gotten so cynical. The kids in my complex are cute-tiny Asian toddlers smaller than the bags they're holding out. It's the older kids from the surrounding neighborhood that bother me. Most of them are too old to be begging for candy, and they're snotty entitlement whores. You give them Smarties or Hershey bars, they bitch it's not what they wanted or not enough. Well, kiss my asymmetrical ass, you sniveling shit. You want Blo-Pops? Pony up yourself or find another door. Asswipes.

...

Whew.

In less cantankerous news, I received my prompt for spn_holidays and will hop to it as soon as Mac has had his say.

Bupkus going on today. I'm only posting so I don't fall out of the habit. Fall is finally settling in here, and the thirteen crates of British tea aculeatus sent for my birthday will serve me in good stead as the temperatures plummet and my feet freeze and turn alarming shades of blue and purple. I'm sipping some now, in fact.

Four days before Halloween, and once again, there has been a dearth of Halloween programming. AMC has its Monsterfest, and Sci-Fi is doing its best, but the networks are a bust. At least I have a treasure trove of DVDs that will fill the bill wonderfully.

When I was a kid, Halloween was a cause celebre. The stores had costumes and decorations out the wazoo, the schools had parties, and TV was rife with slasher flicks and spooky tales. I never went trick-or-treating because my mother was too busy trying to keep her tenuous grip on her sanity and the bills, and even if she hadn't been, there was always the looming threat of razors in the apples and cyanide in the candy. Plus, there weren't that many costume selections for those who came with wheels. Personally, I think I would have made a ripping tea trolley.

Even though I never participated, I enjoyed the vicarious thrill of knowing that they were happening, that there were scary movies to be watched. It was the last deep breath before the mad rush and commercialism of Christmas. There was something organic about Halloween, a recollection of the shared past that resonated in the bones and made you want to gather around a fire and swap scary stories or go exploring in the graveyards when the moon was high.

Now, we jump from summer to Holiday Shopping Season, and it sucks. I want my ghouls and goblins and wee, leggedy beasties. I want to spend a night or four peering fretfully over the covers and wondering just what is lying in wait beneath my bed. I want Pumpkin Jack and the Bell Witch and Springheel Jack, the Jersey Devil and Bloody Mary.

Where did they all go, and who stole them? Humorless, unimaginative cunts. Being a child was usually a miserable, terrifying lesson in "for your own good". Halloween was one of the bright spots.

I wouldn't be a child now for all the tea in China.