Good god, do I hate summer. Don't mistake me for some misanthropic goth kid decked out in zippered black parachute pants or anything, but I genuinely detest humid days that go on forever and the endless flood of garbage movies that lap at our nations collective door. This summer's offerings in particular have been most tiresome. The big deal blockbuster of the season, Iron Man 2 was sort of enjoyable at first, but upon reflection was a grating, jingoistic screed that wasted Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke while hinging on a predictable Downey Jr. performance that made me wish he'd have a cocaine relapse and do something interesting again. Toy Story 3 was well done and had the most powerful single sequence I've yet witnessed in a film aimed at children, but even that couldn't hide the fact that it was essentially part 2 all over. To think, I was under the impression that Pixar was above such laziness. Oh well, bring on Cars 2 I suppose.
Most of the summer was overstuffed with hi-fiving men on a mission type movies that wore on my frayed nerves like a talkative drunk at a sports bar. Self congratulatory and poorly edited train wrecks that forgot the importance of character development and cohesively staged action. Then of course came the juvenile, degrading experience of Piranha and the less said about that, the better. I will however reassert my belief that all the supporters of that film are going to have an ugly morning after when they try to sit through it again on home video.There were standouts though. Inception, Scott Pilgrim and Machete varied from dumb fun done right to hallucinatory art film made touching comic gold to downright goddamn modern masterpiece. So I shouldn't be so hasty in cursing these last few months. Oh wait, I forgot about Get Him to the Greek. Yeah, fuck last summer.
The point is, through some curious, blessed meteorological mystery, my beloved home state of Minnesota underwent a one-day transformation into Fall. The hateful yellow orb lost its potency seemingly overnight and cool, clean, fresh Fall air started blowing through town. The days instantly felt shorter and the descending gray chill signaled something deep in my reptile brain that Halloween was upon us. Nothing (aside from this scene from my favorite show EVER) encapsulates the feeling and meaning of nostalgia for me like Halloween. It was a fateful sleepover on that most wondrous of all Holiday's in 1985 that cemented my genre fandom forever. After a particularly successful bout of trick or treating, my friend and I retired to his safe, suburban home to gorge on candy and watch festive films edited for television. In succession I took in Halloween 2 and Night of the Living Dead and was irrevocably altered. It had something to do with how Rosenthal slyly inserted the opening graveyard scene from Romero's classic into his slasher sequel and my nascent, burgeoning understanding of the connective tissue and tropes of the genre. I was hooked.
Even before that epochal evening, I had been for some time spending my Saturday nights watching Universal Monster classics on our local Fox affiliates horror host show, Count Dracula presents, which featured a hammy local actor playing the titular bloodsucker with aplomb on dry ice shrouded sets amidst cardboard coffins and papier mache tombstones. I would drift off to dreamland, enthralled by the fog covered moors that made up Talbot's stomping grounds and the impossibly arcane laboratory in which Colin Clive plied his ghoulish trade. I was for some reason especially fascinated by the Lon Chaney Mummy films. No doubt something to do with the blunt, angry physicality he brought to the role.
In any case, time willing and entirely dependent on my inspiration not waning, I plan on having an old school Universal throwdown this coming weekend and should like to relate the affair in no small detail on the hallowed, rarely visited cyber-pages of this here blog. If you'd like me to watch and write up a certain film, respond below and I'll try to work it in providing I have it in my collection and I end up completing this self appointed task in the first place!
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