Tag Archives: Halloween

Episode 113. Stayin’ Alive: Black Christmas (1974) and Halloween (1978)

We’re live from Toronto to celebrate our 10th anniversary! This episode revisits the films of our first-ever episode to explore whether our opinions on two horror classics have changed. We dig into the evolution of slashers and the conservative monsters that came to life during a wave of social change while we try to find the sherry. 
 
Thank you to everyone who came out and contributed to the $2500 we were able to donate to Sistering Toronto. Learn more about the organization and their work at sistering.org.
 
 

REQUIRED READING

Black Christmas. Dir Bob Clark, 1974. 
Halloween. Dir John Carpenter, 1978.
 

EXTRA CREDIT

Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Andrew Tudor’s examination of expert characters within the genre and how their usefulness has changed. 
 
“Recurrent Monsters: Why Freddy, Michael, and Jason Keep Coming Back.” Paul Budra’s essay from the collection Part Two: Reflections on the Sequel that examines slasher monsters and their staying power. 
 
“A History of Co-Ed Ivy League Schools.” An overview of the co-ed movement in the most prestigious American schools. 
 
The Gift of Fear: Gavin de Becker’s self-help book on how the power of intuition can predict interpersonal violence. 

“Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher film” (1987). Carol Clover’s journal article that set the foundation for her 1992 book, Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession. Alice Bolin’s essay collection on the true crime phenomenon of beautiful dead girls.

LISTEN

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From My Cold Dead Hands: Halloween (2018)

It’s a funny thing seeing a film at TIFF’s Midnight Madness (the horror/genre programming section of TIFF). The audience is bananas. The energy is palpable and the audience participation is through the roof. At last night’s world premiere of David Gordon Green’s Halloween (2018), the audience was primed, Jamie Lee Curtis was in the house and various Michael Myers were stalking the Elgin Winter Garden venue. I’ve spoken about my love of slashers on this podcast multiple times and I’ve been on other podcasts speaking about my love for Halloween: H20 (1998) and why I think that film is a successful end to Laurie Strode’s story. I was trepidatious going in to the screening last night because I wanted to love the film, but I wasn’t convinced that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green were the team to bring something new to the franchise. I’m generally wary when a new team is brought in and says, essentially, “fuck the original franchise, we know better.” Gordon Green and McBride have made arguments in the press that the notion that Michael is Laurie’s brother isn’t as scary as some random guy killing people, to which I would like to say: fear is AHEM relative. BUT the mood was right last night and without further ado – let’s dive in to Halloween “2”018.

Set 40 years after the events of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and ignoring all subsequent sequels and remakes the film begins on the eve of Michael Myer’s ill-advised October 30th transport from a psychiatric hospital to a supposedly Orwellian nightmare jail. Meanwhile, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has been waiting for Michael’s escape and living in fear as a survivalist putting a strain on her relationship with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Of course, the transport carrying Michael goes awry and he’s on the loose once again. Without the guiding principal of Laurie being Michael’s sister, hence his intent on killing her and anyone related to them, the film can’t decide on Michael’s MO – does he kill indiscriminately or like to wait for elaborate set ups to strike certain victims? Is his murderous rage triggered by the holiday itself, his mask, his older sister Judith or Laurie herself? Who knows? Certainly not the film. Halloween skirts the edges of saying something but then backs down in favour of comedy, creating a frustrating 90 minutes where characters speak in exactly their motivations and intents with no subtext but when the film could say something about trauma or lived experience it cuts to a goofy non-sequitur.

“I don’t remember these things being so goofy.” – Martin Crane

McBride and Gordon Green seem hell-bent on telling their audience that they have seen the original film but only through visual cues and mentions of the “Boogeyman” without context for what the “Boogeyman” means to the film, and I struggled to take away any meaning from it other than a celebration of nostalgia. I would be interested to know what someone who hasn’t seen the original film could take away from it as the film swings from one callback to another.  As the filmmakers behind efforts like Pineapple Express (2008), Your Highness (2011) and Vice Principals (2017) Gordon Green and McBride can’t get out of their own way, insisting on injecting talky comedy every few minutes causing the film to flounder in its pacing and creating one of the most tonally inconsistently films I have ever seen. The film feels so indebted to these factors that it feels less like a film and more like an exercise. Filmed in mostly close-ups and medium shots I could never establish a sense of space to this new Haddonfield. One of the elements I appreciate most about Carpenter’s original is the emptiness of his new American small town, the notion that the place that was supposed to be the safest in America was also its most sinister.

 

On film Twitter, I’ve seen near universal praise for the film and its female led ending, and while I didn’t hate it, the film doesn’t earn it. There will never NOT be a day where I don’t want to see Jamie Lee Curtis be a badass and other women be badasses with her, but because the film spends so much time keeping these characters apart and deviating into subplots that go nowhere, the ending feels rushed and confused but hey, I got to see JLC cock a gun a few times.

 

I think nostalgia is a tricky thing, this film, which I’m sure will do very, VERY well and based on the reactions of those in the theatre around me and on Twitter, will be almost universally beloved, to me doesn’t understand what a threat like Michael Myers means today. There is talk about the original events but the filmmakers can’t quite bring themselves to take it into the realm of the violence, deadly tragedies (particularly from gun violence) that occur on a regular basis in America. McBride and Gordon Green seem to want to say that America’s violence hang-over causes people to become desensitized to lived violence until they themselves are faced with it. I’ve been watching the Netflix series Follow This about Buzzfeed journalist deep-diving into a variety of subject matters and one of the best episodes is about Black Survivalists, black folks who have taken it upon themselves to learn how to survive in unthinkable circumstances. The episode clearly lays out that for these groups they are not only marginalized but the government doesn’t care about their safety forcing them to take it into their own hands. Halloween once again skirts this issue with Laurie. What does Laurie’s self-imposed/forced survalist lifestyle say about our society? The film certainly doesn’t know or doesn’t want to say.

 

Prior to last night’s screening, there was a brief intro from the creative team then the lights went down and the audience cheered in anticipation of the film. The screen remained dark and the Halloween theme music began to play. From the side of the stage someone dressed in a Michael Myers costume walked on and stood there staring at the audience while a thousand or so phone cameras flashed. Then the music stopped and “Michael” unceremoniously wandered off stage. To me this “nod” to the audience indicated that the visual checklist of a Halloween film was more important than any illuminating thematic weight. Looking at this moment in retrospect, it felt like an arbiter of what was to come.  Halloween 2018 believes in the iconography of Michael Meyers but doesn’t want to understand why he became and has remained a horror icon.

 

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Alex’s 31 Days of Halloween Horror

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Hi gang! I’ll be kicking off the list taking the first 16 days of October with a curated day-by-day breakdown and Andrea will follow up with her list for the second half of the month shortly.

My list is focused on horror films that veer more towards fun and that evoke an autumnal sense of terror in me (hence films like Black Christmas, The Thing and Inside are saved for winter). I hope you enjoy this list, I can’t wait to read Andrea’s and please comment with what your favourite Halloween movies are. Enjoy… if you DARE!

October 1: Prom Night (1980), starting things off nice and breezy with this early slasher featuring Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis. Prom Night takes a lot of now infamous slasher tropes and blends them nicely together for an entertaining thriller-chiller that takes itself about as seriously as that dance sequence.

October 2: Wake Wood (2009), slightly off the beaten track of contemporary horror films, Wake Wood provides an interesting analogue to the classic Pet Sematary while adding another film to the list of great British folk horror.

October 3: The Dead Zone (1983), terrified of the upcoming American presidential election? So are we! Now is the time to revisit Cronenberg’s under-appreciated classic meditation on life, love and liberty.

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October 4: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), a rare horror classic that swept the Oscars! Sit back, relax and remember a time when Anthony Hopkins tried to act in films rather than just show up in them.

October 5: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), I know I may be as alone on this one as Paul Rudd is in the actual film, but I love the silliness of it. It exemplifies everything horror audiences were getting tired of before Scream re-leveled the playing field rendering H6 a wacky, borderline parody.

October 6: Mr. Jones (2013), an underappreciated gem of a horror film which develops a really great mythology. And, if we’re being honest, it’s what I wish Blair Witch would have been like.

October 7: Ginger Snaps (2000), Ginger’s first period coincides with a werewolf attack – womanhood ensues.

October 8: Pontypool (2008), Canadians win at horror again with Bruce MacDonald’s nervy, claustrophobic and fresh take on the zombie apocalypse.

October 9: House of the Devil (2009), Ti West’s debut and best to date in my opinion. The film offers the slowest of burns that leaves you with an unsettled feeling that lasts for days.

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October 10: Pet Sematary II (1992), I went from saying this was my guilty pleasure to out and out loving it to the point where I currently wave my PS2 flag loud and proud. It’s a terrific sequel that incorporates the original without becoming subservient to it.

October 11: Candyman (1992), adult and supernatural all at the same time. One of the best films about urban legends that manages to be academic and supernatural without losing elements of either.

October 12: Creep (2014), another underrated found footage gem, but this one situates the horror firmly in the real world.

October 13: Eyes Without a Face (1960), lyrical, beautiful and a great grandparent to the New French Extremity movement.

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October 14: Blair Witch Project (1999), if there’s something more autumnal than getting lost in the woods and being terrorized by a witch, I don’t want to know about it.

October 15: The Loved Ones (2009), a near perfect balance of humour, terror and a pop song.

October 16: Trick ‘r Treat (2007), I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to not watch this movie in October.

**Bonus round: I add a sprinkling of all the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes throughout the month**

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

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Episode 1. Halloween (1978) Vs Black Christmas (1974)

black christmas

Join horror journalists and occasional academics Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West as they discuss the seminal Canadian proto-slasher Black Christmas, as well as John Carpenter‘s immortal classic Halloween.

REQUIRED READING

Black Christmas. Dir. Bob Clark. 1974. [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Halloween. Dir. John Carpenter. 1978. [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

LISTEN

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