Happy Halloween

As I've mentioned before, October 1st starts the unofficial Halloween season for me and to celebrate I read a scary book or two and watch some scary movies from my DVD/Blu Ray collection. Unfortunately, this year I was slacking. I didn't get to read a scary book this month, although I did read A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. No, it wasn't scary and I love A Song of Ice and Fire, but it is kinda scary how all the good guys are punks in the books and how misogynist the series is. And, no, it's not because of the time period.

Regardless, I did get to read two excellent YA creapfests not too long ago--THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH and POSSESS--so that might make up for me missing the scary read this month. I did redeem myself, though, by seeing THE THING prequal in the movie theater and watching my DVD of the classic made-for-TV horror flick, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK.

Yes, the 1973 original that I saw as a kid in syndication and it scared the bejeezus out of me. My son is big on Halloween (mainly because of the costumes and candy--like most kids), and wants to watch scary stuff, but it's scary cartoons and he still gets nightmares. The closest I got to being scared of a cartoon was the Grinch, and I was much younger than him. The benefit (or the curse?) of having much older siblings is that they exposed me to all the stuff they watched as teens, including the horror flicks. So when I was my son's age I was terrified by some scary stuff. Then there was the Son of Sam thing so I had TV and real life to traumatize me. But everything paled in comparison to 1979 when ALIEN came out.

I was 7 and although I was too young to see the movie, my brother did and told me all about it, which scared the heck out of me. A young masochist, I asked for the Alien 18" figure the following May as a Communion gift (ironic, no?) and after I got it I immediately regretted it. That thing stalked me throughout the house. My cruel brother used it against me, putting it in the doorway of my room at night which trapped me in my bed under the covers until someone came and got me in the morning. I eventually asked my pops to destroy it, which I thought he did. Instead, he put it in the shed and I stumbled upon it sometime later and never went neer the shed again. Those two years were essentially Halloween everyday.

So Happy Halloween everyone.