Five Alternative Scary Songs to Listen to for Halloween

FIVE ALTERNATIVE SCARY SONGS FOR HALLOWEEN

It’s pretty widely accepted that Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” is the Halloween anthem, pretty much worldwide. And deservedly so; the song captured the spooky spirit of the Halloween season in a catchy and influential way.

There are a number of other songs that we’ll call “the usual suspects” as well; songs that are pretty much always played at Halloween parties and show up on every other Halloween ditty compilation.

With that in mind, here is a list of five “alternative” Halloween songs. The only criteria is that they have to contain some of that creepy Halloween spirit that makes a great addition to the season, and they have to be, well, different…that is, you won’t find the likes of “Ghostbusters”, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or “Addams Family Theme” here.

What you will find, hopefully, are a few minstrels of the macabre, contributing chilling choruses to your autumn nights. And some of these are even danceable.

5) The Charlie Daniels Band – “The Legend of Wooley Swamp”

Pretty much everyone knows that “other” Charlie Daniels Halloween canticle, the one about the red fella who goes down to Georgia on a soul-stealin’ mission. But how about this ultra-creepy little carol, an ode to the ghost of a greedy old man by the name of Luious Clay? Clay, it turns out, is known to get up and walk around. After a group of bad guys dig up Lucius’ 13 mason jars full of cold hard cash and leave ol’ Lucius for the alligators, he retaliates from beyond the grave. And does so with a voice as loud as thunder, so we’re told.

And remember, if you ever go back into Wooley Swamp, well, you better not go at night. That’s the rumor, anyway.

4) Jan & Dean – “Dead Man’s Curve”

OK, so this song isn’t a little known secret or anything – it hit as high as #8 on the Billboard top 100 back in 1964 – but it isn’t one of the songs you hear ad infinitum every Halloween. Why that is isn’t entirely clear; it’s a spooky, extremely well crafted (co-written by Beach Boys melody genius Brian Wilson) and memorable ditty, after all. And it’s been covered numerous times, by artists as varied as The Carpenters and Blink 182. It’s generally more thought of as being part of the “Teen Tragedy” song boom of the time period, but it’s just as easily at home playing in the background of your hoppin’ Halloween hullabaloo (say that three times fast).

3) Alice Cooper – “Former Lee Warmer”

Alice is pretty much the king of Halloween music, in a way; his “Welcome to My Nightmare” is one of the most played three or four Halloween songs, in my estimation. You could choose any number of his songs for the list, including such melancholic, uplifting little ditties as “Years Ago” and “This House is Haunted”. But there’s something about this bizarrely lovely song. Former Lee appears to be the dirty little secret of his family tree, and one of the saddest, creepiest moments comes when Alice discloses that Former sometimes works up the nerve to look out the window and wave at his father’s grave.

Alice has stated that he doesn’t recall making the album Dada, home of this impressively unusual song. That makes it even a little more odd, perhaps. For a bonus Halloween treat, watch the fan-made video on YouTube one late fall night. Pretty nifty.

2) Tom Waits – “Oily Night”

This song might make some of your party-goers take pause for a moment and stare at the speakers. The best way to describe “Oily Night” is simply…weird. It’s full of strange sounds, odd percussion and a super deep voice repeating the refrain in a mantra of darkness. If you listen to it and think, “Whatever, this isn’t scary”…well, hey, at 3 AM, open the windows, turn off all the lights, lay on the couch and turn it up. Should make for a pretty memorable experience. Or just the strangest nap you ever took. So, either way.

1) Jim Stafford – “Swamp Witch”

Why this 1974 song isn’t played everywhere on repeat every October is beyond me. It’s got everything a Halloween fan would want; great, mysterious lyrics, steeped in folklore-ish atmosphere, spookified music and vocals. It’s brilliant. Stafford drawls out the story of Black Water Hattie and the Black Bayou with convincing ease; you might be reaching for the light switch or waking up your significant other by the time you get to this lyrical moment:

They never found Hattie and they never found her shack
And they never made a trip back in
'Cause a parchment note they found tacked to a stump
Said “Don't come looking again.”

Happy listening! And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Paul Counelis is a writer for Rue Morgue and Halloween Machine, and is an author. His newest release is Spook Sleuths: The Legend of Old Man Gooch and is available, along with five other new titles by other Fear Front Publishing writers, here at The Fear Front Publishing Website.

Hey New York post: Batman v Superman is no smarter than most Marvel movies, not even Deadpool

Huh. So, click-bait, right? Gotta be. I hope.

Note the super smart article about the size of Donald Trump's hands.

There's a piece running on the New York Post website by a fella who opines that Batman v Superman is just, like, WAAAAY too smart for Marvel fans. That's the ACTUAL headline (sorta). There can be no other reason to explain its crummy Rotten Tomatoes score of 29%, putting it behind The House Bunny, Donald Trump's approval rating, and season four of "Full House".

Look, this IS a ridiculous score for that film...but blaming people who paid to watch the movie for the combined ratings of a couple hundred critics is as ignorant as...as...I dunno, blaming people who paid to watch the movie for the combined ratings of a couple hundred critics. Of course, he also lists such infallible proof as "They use the word 'THE' before they say Superman!!" Whoa...MIND BLOWN.

He says that using the word "The" means ol' Big Blue is no longer our best-buddy-neighbor-help-guy, NOW, the rules have changed. NOW, he has a "complicated relationship with us mortals." This lends the film gravity, he says...never mind that Supes shacks up with a normal woman and has a GIANT STATUE commemorating our appreciation for his accomplishments in saving the world..."THE" is a GAME CHANGER.

Forget for a moment that Spider-Man (yeah, that dude from dumb ol' Marvel, who are little more than dopey jerks for sometimes adapting their comics into movies by adhering somewhat closely to the source material, which they seem to be almost not embarrassed by, unlike "Direct Competition") is OFTEN referred to as "The" Spider-Man. I mean, dude...it is IN his theme song ("Here comes THE Spider-Man...)
.
No, if we didn't know Superman was NOT like us in the first Superman movies when he was reversing time to save Lois Lane and launching Kryptonian super baddies into the heavens, THIS is the moment that superheroes get a "NEW dimension". Not when Marvel had the concept of not trusting superheroes as the basis of their entire giant label crossover Civil War. Not even when Superman is called THE Superman 38 years ago in Superman: The Movie.

But we press on.

Here is my favorite line: "“Batman v Superman” may be pretentious, but it’s far more mature and ambitious than these other films, and it’s even occasionally interesting."

Wow, that is HIGH PRAISE. Quick, get that out there on the Blu-Ray insert: "Pretentious, but  occasionally interesting." That's not even being a good apologist, for Clark's sake.

Further, how do intelligent people go about scientifically measuring which film is "more" ambitious than the other between such blockbusters as BvS, Avengers: Age of Ultron, with its amazing circular fight scene and an earlier scene that uses the magic of cinema to appear to roll without a cut; Guardians of the Galaxy, which attempts to tell stories about the same character on multiple planets, including earth; and Deadpool, a movie that treats its subject matter in the same manner as the comic it is adapted from, using stunningly clever narration and overt breaking of the 4th wall?

Deadpool being noted as dumb or juvenile and without ambition is pretty much a dead giveaway that the writer didn't put too much consideration into what he was writing about, aside from telling genital jokes (in the Post piece, the word "onanistic" is used as a negative description to describe the Marvel movies) or being OFFENDED by them in the Deadpool movie. Deadpool is extremely intricate from the AMAZING opening right on through, but it would take someone who knows what makes a movie ambitious to really be able to look past the content and to the CONTEXT of what the movie is trying to achieve.

Deadpool is, if nothing else (though it is a CONSIDERABLE deal more), a breakthrough for movies being able to tell their comic stories in ways that remain true to the stories, regardless of rating. If anything, DC threw a PARTY to see that Deadpool did so well at the box office, since they are always toying with the idea of making R rated films from some of their most popular comic stories.


No, BvS is apparently MORE ambitious, because it attempts to "consider the ramifications of super beings" more than most any story over the course of the nearly 80 year existence of the characters (Pssst...guess this guy, an expert on the 8 decades of BvS, has never read The Dark Knight Returns).

And that's only a comic that deals with the EXACT thing the BvS movie deals with. Marvel has pretty much based Spider-Man's angst on the notion that most people do NOT trust him, spurred on by newsman Jolly J. Jonah Jameson (MENACE). Further the X-Men are stand-ins for pretty much any type of racism or bigotry that has ever existed. Those comics and movies consider the ramifications of super beings EVERY SINGLE TIME. In fact, if the writer of that piece saw Avengers: Age of Ultron, he would have seen it dealt with RIGHT THERE; the collateral damage caused by the Avengers while they try to save the world. In short...dude. This is NOT a new concept. DC even did it before with The Watchmen (and just exactly who DOES watch them, huh??).


Being a Marvelite (AND DC fan...wrap your mind around THAT duality, NY Post), I thought about pointing out all the hilarious corn that peppers BvS throughout its runtime, but no...I'm not gonna do that. Because I LIKE the movie, for one, and for another...as stated before, the notion that Marvel fans are the reason that critics gave the film a poor score is just so, so...immature.


Consider the scores given to other DC projects as of late. The Nolan Batfilms got some great scores, even that hilariously ambitious pile of apocalypto that was The Dark Knight Rises. The Nolan films got mostly good reviews even though they were MUCH more intricate in plot and execution than the new BvS movie (which I personally enjoy more than the TDK film series). Marvel fans understood the films quite easily. They understood the BvS precursor Man of Steel well enough, since it scored higher than BvS. And did you realize that even Superman Returns notched a "fresh" rating on the apparent Marvel fan scale of RottenTomatoes.com?

Come on, man. If you HAVE to write click-bait, at least give a bother to write something less silly. I mean, yeah, you can still be as pretentious and as you wanna be, but give us an opinion piece that is "even occasionally interesting".


EXCELSIOR! ;)

Supes is rollin' over in his grave reading this stuff.

SUPERMAN might not be the hero we WANT, but he just may be the hero we NEED: Sorting out Batman v Superman

"What's with all the skyscrapers on the set of '300'?"

WARNING: SPOILERS. 

I've been thinking about this for a while now, some of it WAY before I saw Zack Snyder's new DC film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I don't want to write a review per se, but I feel the need to sift through my thoughts on the film in order to get to the nitty gritty of this particular entry.

For starters, I went in fully aware that this IS a Zack Snyder flick (and, importantly, at least somewhat playing in the sandbox established by Christopher Nolan in the Batflicks). He isn't going to all of a sudden do a 180 degree turn and be Jon Favreau. You should have some idea going in of what you're going to be looking at, if not in specifics, at least in general artistic choices and style. And that's what he should do, make HIS movie, because he was hired for this job, presumably, based on the things he has done before. You know upfront that you will get a lot of loud, abrasive, chest pounding action (with odd intervals of what resembles wrestling theme music inserts), varying degrees of color (lots of brown...dark blue...black) and not a lot of humor, as well as stylized scenery and a slick coolness that perhaps doesn't always lend itself to warm crescendos that send kids happily inspired out into the playgrounds to mimic their heroes (though to be fair, Legend of the Guardians might come close, and he actually MADE that with kids as the target audience).

Now, lest you think that is fanboy criticism, let me preface this entire blog with one very important point: I could NOT film this script. I would have ZERO idea where to start. In fact, 99.9% of the world's population would not be capable of turning out a cohesive narrative based on a script this ambitious, in terms of both effects and beats, and stuffed with the MILLION things DC needed for what is pretty much a "setup" movie in their fledgling cinematic universe. In short, I couldn't make this film, and neither could you. Unless Guillermo del Toro or Joss Whedon is somehow reading this blog, in which case, you are part of the .1% I referred to before. This movie is, at the very least, EPIC in feel and tone.

That out of the way, let's get on with it...because, look...I have been not only reading comics and books, seeing movies and TV shows according to the ground rules DC has laid out for these characters over the past 40 years or so, but I have presumably gained some insights and a bit of a tuning to my moral compass, at least at the age of 6-17 or 18, over the course of seeing my heroes make decisions based on their held integrity and by virtue of the very reasons WHY they decided to do what they do in the first place. So while I refuse to say things like, "Batman wouldn't act like that!", I do feel qualified to know in my heart if this is a further adventure of the characters I know and love, or just a remix of some familiar themes and people.

The answer, fittingly, is likely somewhere in the middle. As a comic fan, that doesn't delight me. As a movie fan, I can accept it...but I'm still not always thrilled about the results. Most importantly, how does the script (by David Goyer, among others) hold up to its own rules and logic on the DC Universe's own terms, which are partially possibly given invite to scrutiny more than a more "silly" comic book film might by the insistence of DC's head honchos to keep everything realistic?

Hmmm...not necessarily great. But more on that later.

So it was that I was a LITTLE surprised by the opening, which is a really restrained, emotional grounding that a movie like this calls for, but which isn't always given.

I felt stirred by the look back at little Bruce Wayne and his now famous but tragic origin story. It was a great way to incorporate what people who don't know Bats' backstory NEED to know (yes, I assume there are still a few people out there who haven't EVER seen a Batman movie or read a Batman comic) while simultaneously giving us a protagonist to pull for, possibly even some sort of an emotional attachment to. It was extremely effective and low key, right down to the small fade-in of the movie's title, with no blockbuster-y fanfare.

The early scenes of the film also give us a look into why exactly Wayne feels that Supes is a "menace", with the oft overlooked "collateral damage" aspect, of which Marvel REALLY has taken a look at in previous comics and films, it must be mentioned...the Marvels comic by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross gives a bystander's viewpoint, the Avengers movies cover it (and newspaper Easter eggs on the walls of news offices in the Netflix Daredevil series), and the entire Civil War storyline is actually based on the damage heroes do while doing what heroes do. So it's not COMPLETELY new ground we are on in BvS, but still used less than many comic book tropes.

This sequence, with Wayne racing toward the rubble caused by Supes and his pal Zod in the events of Man of Steel, got me to thinking immediately of the way I felt when I was a kid watching Superman 2. Zod and his cronies take over the White House. When it becomes apparent that Superman might not be able to do anything to STOP them from essentially taking over the world, that is as helpless a feeling as I ever wanted to have as a little boy watching a superhero movie.

Again, presumably, that is what the filmmakers wanted to convey with MoS, and the notion was definitely that if Zod and company were not stopped, collateral damage, while important, would be the least of our planet's worries. Surely Bruce Wayne, being an EXTREMELY intelligent man (his detective work in BvS is actually explored here in MUCH more satisfying fashion than in the Nolan films) and someone who after fighting crime in the Gotham streets for decades likely has seen SOME sort of innocent bystander injuries, would be able, with the rest of the world who have come to honor Superman for saving the entire globe, to at least have some semblance of understanding that MUCH of the damage done was out of Big Blue's control. But alas, just as in the dumbed down world of modern politics and the tactics employed by candidates looking to make generalities more abstract, we are torn from the subtlety of any kind of "grey" area by a singular, though harrowing, anecdote from Wayne's personal experience.

But ok, we have to have a reason why Bats will turn suspicious of Supes, so let it ride. I'm in. Plus, the scene with Bruce running to the rescue has a haunting and moving poetry; I admit to tearing up when the little girl points at the building where her mother is. The parallels of a generation who grew up under the shadow of 9/11 are also hard to ignore in that scene, being that we are, in essence, at ground zero of the Superman/Zod aftermath. It's effective. Very much so.

Of a much higher cinematic umbrage is the notion that the ENTIRE plot of this picture hinges on the fact that Batman IGNORE Superman's plea to listen to him. That's right...one single conversation could render Lex Luthor's (sorta stupid, come on) plan useless, and the two extremely intelligent and at least somewhat reasonable men realize that they are being manipulated (over and over) by Luthor. Superman goes fully into the fray completely aware that Lex is manipulating his moral code, for example, and that's troublesome.

Side note: this DID bother the side of me that rooted for Chris Reeve as an engrossed youth; the idea that Superman would knowingly go in for the kill of someone who he knew was at least acting on good intentions, regardless of what was at stake. How many times could Chris have just ripped Luthor Hackman in half? These corners that the writers paint Superman in leave him little choice but to go senselessly into VICIOUS battle. HOWEVER, we are judging this film, at least partially, on the established rules of the modern DC movies, and our new Supes ended the happy and uplifting Man of Steel by not using his brain, but his brawn. So I can wrestle with whether or not I PERSONALLY approve of the writing all I want, but I have to accept this direction as either the way this new Superman will react in future films, or (PLEASE) the actions of a Superman who has not yet matured into trying to discover a way around the obvious (beating and killing everything he can't immediately figure out a way to stop).

One more QUICK note here...while it may be true that Superman did similar things in the comic books, those were WAY isolated events in the 75+ years of stories written about him, enough to where it would be a JARRING thing for Superman to actually have to kill...Doomsday.

Jumping back to the overview, what it is that really gets under my skin in virtually ALL the DC films (possible exception being Batman Begins) are what I feel are two HUGE, glaring issues. The first is that the filmmakers seem to be trying to distance themselves from the source material in such a way as to almost be embarrassed of them; this is evidenced by the obvious, in some cases...what the heroes look like and the design of the characters. Less obvious, in others...the refusal to utter the word "Catwoman" even ONCE in The Dark Knight Rises.

Of course, this is still in line with the consistency of the established rules, so while it may hurt fan feelings, it is what it is. But the second, and again more troubling side for me, is that the villains in these films seem to play the protagonists like fiddles. Luthor in BvS is no different. In fact, in the Nolan Batman trilogy, Batman really doesn't ever outsmart any of those guys, or even STOP them on purpose. He basically loses over and over; his biggest contribution being simply to survive and exist. Think about it.

If Nolan laid the rules out, this here is still Snyder's movie, and he thankfully does give us some things to squeal about, none the least of which is that super cool Batmobile. Wonder Woman is also treated to a cool fanfare, showing up in that Snyder Sucker Punch style amid a barrage of super heroic modern music, clearly able to hold her own, and with one hell of a will to jump into the fray. Ok, so it doesn't LOOK like the orthodox Wonder Woman we're all used to, but dagnabbit, when that magic lasso wraps itself around Doomsday, I wanted to hop out of my seat for the first time in the whole flick. There is also the absolute triumph of Ben Affleck's Batman being able to fight. What a welcome series of sequences to see; when season 1 of Marvel's Daredevil aired, I told my wife, "I wish someone would make a movie where Batman could fight like that." Thanks, Zack. Ironically, after seeing Affleck's Daredevil movie, I thought that it would be cool if Warner would make a Batman movie that dark. Happily, Nolan went beyond that.

The Batman dream sequences recalled in me Roger Ebert's axiom that movies relying on multiple dream sequences to further the plot are in trouble. Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, among others, might seem to bear that out. Further, Bats' "dream within a dream", according to Ebert, would make it doubly so. The exceptions to a rule like that mostly include the character Freddy Krueger, but he aint here, so make of that what you will. As an excuse for Batman to dress up in that super cool trenchcoat and whoop ass all over the place with a gun, it works.

There is PLENTY of illogical corn, it must be said...how many in the audience bought that Batman is dumb enough to toss aside a weapon made of Kryptonite, for instance? And how bizarre to see the Batsignal on the apparent tiny island of Gotham visible in the night sky from Metropolis? How much distance were we dealing with when Lois heroically goes back for the Krypto-sword?

There is more, MUCH more, to be said about Batman v Superman, particularly what I consider to be a very brave (and again, poetic) ending, and the way Snyder beats us over the head even more with this movie than in MoS with the religious "overtones" (that are now COMPLETELY spelled out) but the basis for the conception of this particular piece has been set by what I have said.

Over and over and over, I read on social media how "Superman sucks. Superman is boring. Superman is a goody-goody." I sometimes counter, when I have the will to debate for hours on Facebook, with how very challenging and awesome Superman is as a character, both because of his powers and because of his inevitable status as an outsider. Virtually all Superman stories have to deal with Clark Kent having to adjust to "real" life, for instance, and he often struggles to do so. Part of what makes it believable for Kent to put on glasses and change his hair a little and not be recognized is that Clark has to lead a double life; he has to be someone he is not, to some extent, on both sides of his dual personality. BvS doesn't deal with that as much, choosing to have Henry Cavill and Amy Adams' Lois Lane be pretty open about his humanity and lack thereof (which is interesting in a different way).

Here is my OWN anecdote, in the spirit of the entire driving plot behind BvS. When I was a kid, I saw Superman: The Movie. I was VERY young, and I saw it at a drive-in. I saw Star Wars the year before. The world was still a tough place all in all; dark and scary, but just like Luke Skywalker the year before, Superman was not. He was everything that was good, an outsider who still defended all that was good and moral, and the thought that he was "boring" or a "goody-goody" would have never even occurred to me. He was someone to look up to, someone who always tried to do the right thing. He sacrificed his own happiness for the greater good. I had a wardrobe of pretty much Superman and Star Wars shirts. I was Superman for Halloween (yes the classic Ben Cooper vinyl costume).

I was a teen when Tim Burton's Batman came out in 1989. On opening day, my dad and I had to drive around (and eventually out of) the city to get tickets to see it. For us, it was TOTALLY worth it; we watched Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson satisfyingly embody the IDEALS of the characters, if not a complete take on the characters themselves. On that point, I feel the newer DC movies differ...but that is digression. When the movie was over, after Papa and I went home, I ran around outside that night, acting like Batman, trying to talk a friend into being Robin so we could fight crime together.

Consider this sliver of an aside: my dad grew up with George Reeves and Adam West as Supes and Bats. He welcomed the new take on those characters in the form of Reeve and Keaton, because they were essentially the same characters in terms of morality and ideals. The agendas behind the films were to tell the best possible stories about pre-existing characters, which they mostly succeeded at, with the charms of the respective eras taken in context. When someone who grew up watching Adam West as Batman turns to you during screening of Batman v Superman and says, "Michael Keaton will always be Batman to me," that tells you something. OK, he said, "Birdman will always be Batman to me," exact quote...but the sentiment is the same.

When I saw The Dark Knight Rises with my 15 year old son, he was depressed when we left the theater. He walked out in cold silence after watching Bruce Wayne basically survive in some weird (hella ambitious), 3 hour dystopian nightmare of a movie in which Batman had his ass beat repeatedly. I asked him what was wrong. "That wasn't fun at all," he replied. Bummer.

When I saw BvS with my dad and my 16 and 14 year old daughters, my 14 year old bawled her eyes out for most of the last 15 minutes of the movie. She was quiet on the car ride home. No excitement over watching superheroes battle it out on a huge screen (in 3D, no less!), though she did like it, and became more animated when discussing certain aspects (yay, Wonder Woman! Batmobile! Batman beating up the bad guys!). My 16 year old was also wiping away tears.

I'm not saying that its bad to have a "grown-up" superhero film, even if trailer commercials are everywhere and toys and marketing make kids completely interested. Heck, Marvel was even ballsy enough to give Deadpool the "R" rating so parents would know it aint for kids. Comic book stories deal with dark themes, and making them look and feel realistic is a worthwhile undertaking.

But in the context of today's world, should the ambiguity of the morality of arguably the greatest superhero of them all really be in question? Sure, its just a movie, just escapism, after all...but consider the actual world we live in right now. I don't need to run down the laundry list of the daily things we are dealing with, I'm sure. Suffice to say that I am writing this from Flint, Michigan and that should be example enough.

Why do YOU think my little girls were crying when Superman was killed? Was it because of the emotional attachment to icy Henry Cavill (though he is a hunk) from this movie or MoS? A little...I'm sure the scenes of Lois and Clark at home and abroad, and their undeniable love for each other had something to do with caring about his particular fate. How about the dual Marthas? Yes, that was a sweet touch...I gulped a little when Lois screamed "That was his mother's name!" at Batman...very moving moment that I'm sure affected my smart and intelligent young ladies.

But the BIGGEST reason is that my daughters, my sons, me, my wife, my dad, my mom...probably most of my entire family over the age of 10 go into these movies ALREADY loving Superman. We love him because we grew up with him. Christopher Reeve catching Lois after her fall from a skyscraper, his bright red cape waving defiantly in the night sky. Standing on the side of a building watching criminals try to break into a building ("Something wrong with the elevator?"). We love him because he figures out a way to stop General Zod from becoming the president.

"Is a bird showing off when it flies?"

 And not just because of the movies, but because of the TV shows, Lois and Clark, Smallville...we have repeatedly seen this character fleshed out from babyhood to boyhood to manhood (alienhood?) and our prior knowledge of how he will react, what he has been through, the mythology that surrounds him...that all works toward our caring about this fictional character in a way that might be uncool to admit to ourselves in such a dark, cynical world. Or even in the midst of a dark, somewhat cynical film that tries to distance itself so much from the character's inclinations that it's Batman who delivers the "There is good in the world" narration.

After all, Superman, the character who has generally embodied the good in the world in nearly every incarnation for decade upon decade, was willing to bring Batman's head to the obviously villainous and openly manipulative Mark Zuckerberg to save his mother (who would SURELY have disapproved of this had she known, the way Kevin Costner wanted no part of Clark sacrificing others to save him in the previous film).

Sigh.

And we love him because of the comics. As stated before regarding the films, they are not always consistent from writer to writer; even Superman himself. I read the silliest Superman comics in the world when I was growing up, "The Superman Family". I was reading about his best pal, Jimmy Olsen, that unlikely helpful sidekick. I read about his gruff but sorta lovable boss, Perry White. His cousin, Supergirl. Hell, I read full, standalone stories about Superman's DOG.

My feeling is that this is the world climate that is in need of Superman as any ever has been. The idea of believing in a pure hero, someone who is fallible, but TRIES to make the right decision no matter the cost. Not an anti-hero who stumbles into doing the right thing because it's available on the way to his own self-serving agenda. Not even Batman, who has to hide in the night, and thrives on his own regret and instilling of fear in others to function as a weapon for the greater good.

When I saw Deadpool, like most others I felt like it was a triumph of embracing the source material. It was funny, modern, violent yes, but with tongue FIRMLY in cheek. And as mentioned before, it was rated R. It revels in cynicism at times, but that can and often does lead to a different kind of catharsis than what a Superman movie might bring. Deadpool correctly represents what that character has always represented. It might be telling, then, that my first thought upon leaving the packed theater was, "I hope they (movie studio execs) don't think this movie succeeds BECAUSE of its R rating."

The more people say that Superman is "boring", the more brave I think it is to ensure that his presence as a doer of good wins out, because as silly as it might sound, as uncool as it may seem, our cinematic hopes and dreams are a direct reflection of the society around us. We sometimes need escapism in the form of our established myths and heroes in a way that nurtures our own well being, especially kids. Superman is different than other superheroes because he already embodies qualities that transcend any one movie. Any new mass released story is merely building on what we already know, and is able to play off of our foreknowledge and affection for the character.

Look, Batman is an INCREDIBLE comic book and movie character. He has a deep story that leaves room for mystery and personal growth while making us intrigued by scenes in which Bruce Wayne has to engage in his "playboy" persona. He is adept at playing hunter and measuring his own dramatic entrances, because he is built on the idea that criminals are a "cowardly lot", and he can use a dark flair for the dramatic to his own good. He will punch a criminal into telling him what he needs to know, and even though he has his own highly tuned sense of morality (much like Spider-Man, who also had to learn the lesson the hard way), he is not like Superman.

Superman stands for the light, in a way, though he has his own tragedies and demons. Unlike Batman, he does not allow those demons to control his actions. He is not world weary or of the belief that he may not be making a huge difference, whereas Batman states in BvS that he is fighting a losing battle. Superman will save a cat in a tree for a sad kid; he knows that makes a difference to at least ONE person (and one cat). Superman really believes that there is good in the world. He opines that if there isn't, or if there is somehow LESS or DECLINING good in the world, then he will do what he can to make the world a better place.

We sometimes feel as if we SHOULD do the right thing, but we don't know if its worth it, or we feel like we might be wasting our time. And that's why, even in our moments of entertainment and escapism, we seek representations of either or both of those ideals.

That's why there is a Batman AND a Superman.

A Horror Fan's Defense of THE WITCH (even though it doesn't NEED it)

By now, most die-hard fans of horror movies have heard about THE WITCH, if not seen it. Of those fans, most have formed an opinion (even some who haven't seen it, but who are going in with preconceived notions or bias based on the perception of hype). First off, let's get it out of the way right at the top...that's not a fair way to judge a film - how many people involved with horror like the movie, or how many creative ways Stephen King found to say "it's scary". Pretty much completely irrelevant aside from marketing.

But...because this has now sorta become one of the main issues of horror over the past several years (based on the success of "art house" horror like the masterpiece The Babadook and the extremely interesting and unique It Follows), and with so many horror fans citing "It didn't live up to the hype" as a "reason" to dislike what are AT THE VERY LEAST films whose ideas and settings have not been regurgitated ad nauseum, let's just agree to disagree on that point (that is, IF we disagree...if we agree, just nod your head in satisfaction).

See, here's the thing that these folks might not have considered: there is a CHANCE that casual fans of horror will actually enjoy this film...and that's because
A) They aren't hardened to the "scares" by years of watching virtually hundreds of horror movies of all types, and
B) They likely haven't been waiting the months it took for The Witch to go from festival favorite to mainstream theater.

For people who generally or mostly enjoy films of other genres aside from horror, the pace of The Witch will not seem unusual. The time spent establishing the environment and the way the characters interact will not be all that radical. The most crucial aspect of The Witch, in my opinion, is the atmosphere and the way first time (!) filmmaker  Robert Eggers allows the New England family of the 1630s to feel completely and wholly enveloped in a cocoon of claustrophobic proportions, and with no viable means to escape. That in itself is pretty impressive, in an era where having a damn cell phone in a horror movie has to be explained right away in order to allow the next events to unfold in an effective manner.

There will be a few spoilers in the coming paragraphs, so if you haven't yet seen The Witch, please bookmark this article, run to the theater, then come back and finish reading.

Done? Ok. Here goes.

Let me just be blunt: first off, you have never seen another movie quite like The Witch. Just admit it. Don't try to give a list of historical or cult inspired flicks and pretend they are like The Witch. They aren't. Not really. Much in the same way that no other film REALLY resembles The Babadook or It Follows. That does not mean you have to LIKE those films, of course, or ignore what you consider to be flaws, but let's acknowledge that these filmmakers at least tried to give us something we have never seen before. With that established (come on, stop mumbling or dreaming up a response for the comments section and roll with it here), let's explore that point a tiny bit further with a bit of a caveat: BUDGET.

The estimated production budget of The Witch is between 1 and 2 million dollars; $3.5 total. That's a lot of money to most people (aside from Donald Trump, who considers it a "small loan"), but in the world of mainstream film, that aint much. Let's look at what some comparative budgets in the horror world have given us:

THE UNBORN - $15 Million
THE FOG (2005) - $14 million
HOUSE OF WAX (2005) - $30 Million
DREAMCATCHER - $68 Million (really)
EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC - $14 million (in 1977, no less)

You get the idea. There are dozens - DOZENS - more examples just like those. Now, I don't want to pick on those specific films, and that's not to say I didn't enjoy anything about those films (ok, except Exorcist II; even God dislikes that movie), but let's be realistic here...The Witch was made for a fraction of that, and again, even if you think you HATE the movie, its instantly more memorable than any number of these generic larger budget films. That's partially because they tried to craft a movie based on more than just effects or dimly executed jump scares with loud musical cues.

Thinking back to the very first complaint that many horror folks have leveled at this super interesting, dark folk tale, "It didn't live up to the hype," it now seems ULTRA silly, because the hype was caused by people who saw this movie in previews and festivals and couldn't believe that a movie that cost a couple million to make could be SO effective, could get SO far under their skin, that they could still be thinking about it months after their initial viewing. That's a triumph for a low budget horror film from a first time (!) feature director.

In comparison, a flat out genre phenom that crossed over is presented here for your consideration: Sharknado. That's right, the first installment of that SyFy mega-hit was made for near the same budget of The Witch. Can we acknowledge the unlikelihood that Robert Eggers was able to make a really dark, somewhat disturbing, image laden story for less than the amount of money that the ghastly CGI-informed, irrepressibly silly Sharknado cost? That's pretty crazy. If you don't believe me, give it a try yourself (that's right, I just played the "Could you make a movie better than that for that price?" card).

This is not a review of The Witch, though I suspect that at some point, I will have to delve into a much longer exploration of this bizarre film that has thoroughly intrigued me and gotten under my skin with its paranoiac themes, maybe even warranting its own volume. I watched the climactic moment of The Witch with a kind of giddy glee, a super and unexpected payoff for my patience through that seething, nightmarish ditty.

No, this is just a call to my friends and brothers-and-sisters-in-arms of horror who ceaselessly downgrade movies like The Witch, The Babadook and It Follows unfairly to reconsider before you rattle off stuff like "I believed the hype" or the even more questionable "It's not scary".

Let me ask you this, then...so what? Do horror movies really "scare" you when you've been consuming nearly every release for the past few decades? I know we all WISH that every movie had the impact of the first time we saw Halloween or A Nightmare On Elm Street, but that just ain't gonna happen...partially because that already happened, years ago when you saw those first movies.

Now, instead, its time to appreciate the creativity and cinematic triumph that some of these low budget horror directors exhibit when they try so hard to craft something of worth for us with less money than many 90 second car commercials cost. You have to put it in perspective. It's a minor MIRACLE that these movies are somehow finding their way into mainstream theaters...you should AT LEAST celebrate that fact. Look, its fair to plunk down your 8 bucks to see The Witch and then decide you didn't like the film. I have no qualms with that.

But if you're a realist, you will at least have to admit that, hey, that was one hell of a good try. Good on you, Mr. Eggers. That was a super ambitious undertaking for a couple million bucks. Or, you can just flip over on your TV remote and watch Sharknado 4, whose ad campaign lets you decide whether or not the main character of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No lives or dies.

And if you choose that film over a shadowy, diabolical study of unhinged delusion and paranoia that takes place in inescapable thickets and groves under the watchful eye of the halcyon moon, well, not to be a snob, but I guess you sorta get what you deserve.
 

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? I will guide thy hand.

Five Scary Movies You Can Watch With Your Kids

Scary movies are communal at the core, often best experienced with others for the optimal effect (yelling and screaming at the screen, laughing, hugging at terrifying moments). Many adults who embraced horror at a young age did so because of watching that one special flick with mom or dad, older sibling, younger sibling, or all of the above; in my case, my love of horror was DIRECTLY influenced by my parents, whether it be watching A Nightmare on Elm Street with my mother and a group of friends and family or seeing the immortal Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein with my dad one amazing Sunday morning.

For that reason, we offer FIVE movies that might be a blast to watch with your own little boils and ghouls ANY time of year. And who knows? You might even make a special memory. Now, some of these movies will be TOO scary for very little ones, so please take that into consideration before blasting your four year old with Dracula. Ratings included for a BIT of clarity, but watching something TOO scary with a little one can have the opposite affect for a youngster.

THE MONSTER SQUAD: I rented this VHS 35 times or more one summer.

5. The Monster Squad (1987, PG-13) – Fred Dekker’s comedic clash of the classic monsters is a perfect bridge from the more mild, “Scooby-Doo” type prepubescent material to a bit more sophistication – but only a bit. The fun stuff stays. The Monster Squad is entertaining from start to finish, featuring appropriate updates of the Universal Monsters, a great cast of kids, memorable lines, and Michael Sembello’s relentlessly catchy ode to eighties synth cheese “Rock Until You Drop”. You’ll be slapping your head for weeks trying to get that little ditty out of your mind.

4. The Gate (1987, PG-13) – The Gate is the other great family horror film from 1987, but with somewhat less comedy and a more heightened sense of spooky. A group of kids accidentally unleash demons from a hole in the backyard, and now they gotta save the world. Stephen Dorff made his theatrical debut with this little gem, remembered by many children of the nineties as the first time they liked a scary movie.

3. The Witches (1990, PG) – Child literature visionary Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) penned The Witches, an atmospheric, creepy look at a group of witches who want to rid the world of children. The catch is that the one person who knows about the plan is a young orphan boy that the witches have turned into a mouse. It’s somewhat dark and very entertaining, with a memorable turn by Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch.

2. Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981, Made for TV) – Widely considered by many horror fans to be one of the best TV movies ever made since its release just before Halloween of ‘81, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is both a scary visual treat and an engrossing story full of pathos. A mentally ill man named Bubba is erroneously hunted down by a group of angry townspeople after a tragedy involving a little girl. In the most effective climactic scenes, a scarecrow stalks Bubba’s attackers one by one, the apparent victims of a paranormal vigilante. It is a thoughtful and creepy movie for younger and older viewers alike. “Bubba didn’t do it!”

1. Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, PG) – Classic stories from the TV series are revisited by four big-time directors with somewhat mixed results, but the overall package of Twilight Zone: The Movie is entertaining and eerie, with arguably the most memorable moment occurring during the John Landis directed prologue. “You wanna see something REALLY scary?”

HAPPY VIEWINGS!