Halloween 2019: Preamble

“Soon, my love.”

A couple of weeks ago, I got up in the morning and threw open my bedroom curtain. Over the previous week, a series of heavy storms had prematurely ended the sweltering dog days of late August. It was suddenly in the low seventies outside and I was loving it. On that particular morning, I looked out over my front lawn and saw that the big tree in my yard had shed its leaves all over the grass. Summer wasn't quite officially over yet but Mother Nature went ahead and made up her mind anyway. Fall had arrived, a few weeks early. And we all know what that means, don't we?

“Soon, my love.”

I think, by now, I've written enough about the Halloween season – which most people now accepts goes on for at least two months, making my six week celebration seem rather quaint these days – for anyone reading to this to know how much it means to me. My appreciation of the holiday has grown from a fun celebration of everything spooky, to a inspirational festival that connects me to the rest of the world. Halloween is basically my religion. These dark and dreary autumn months, and every spooky image it creates and evokes, fills me with the kind of spiritual fulfillment I imagine good church-going folk get from singing a hymn or reading the gospel. The Halloween season is my joy. It is what drives me through most of the year.

And this year has been one of incredible change. I am in a serious relationship for the first time in a long time and it's great. I have a new, exhausting job. After being fat my entire adult life, I've lost about eighty pounds in the last ten months. During these sometimes hard months, when I felt my mental endurance starting to bend and strain, I would suddenly see, feel or think of something spooky. Maybe a little uncanny. Maybe evocative of Halloween in only the vaguest of ways, that only makes sense to me. And I would whisper to myself: “Soon, my love.” Which was my acknowledgment of the world's promise that, as long as I could make it to Halloween, everything would be okay.

Well, I made it. We made it, one and all. It's Halloween.

This, I am sure, must seem like a hugely melodramatic way to introduce a horror movie marathon that won't be read by more than a few people. No doubt, it is. Yet in the ten years I've been doing the Halloween Horror-fest Blog-a-thon – yes, it's officially been a decade now – nothing symbolizes my love of the season more than dedicating six weeks to watching as many horror movies and TV show episodes as I can. Some people say Hail Marys, burn incense, or sacrifice goats. I overdose on monster movies. We've all got our way of honoring our gods.

So how did I intend on honoring the High Lords of Halloween in 2019? Since the end of the late, maybe-not-so-great Bangers n' Mash Show, I can watch whatever I want during September and October. However, I still like to break my marathon into various series. I'm finally going to sit down and review the Poe Cycle, those wonderfully atmospheric Edgar Allen Poe adaptations made by Roger Corman in the sixties and usually starring Vincent Price. I was surprised to discover that, though I've reviewed the two entries directed by Wes Craven, I had never actually reviewed the other “A Nightmare on Elm Street” sequels before. So I'm definitely getting to do that this year.  I've also, rather randomly, decided to watch most of the film adaptations of Jack Ketchum, an author whose work I've enjoyed. (Insomuch as Ketchum's intense, visceral novels can be “enjoyed.”)

On the TV side of things, I'm going to continue my watch-through of “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” and “Forever Knight,” picking up where I left off last year. I've also decided to throw in some choice episodes from a number of other horror anthology, perhaps as a way to sample series I may want to explore in more detail later in the future. And who knows what else I'll find myself watching before October 31st rolls around?

Aside from that, I'm just going to try and squeeze in as many spooky adventures as possible. JD and I will be making our yearly pilgrimage to Monster-Mania in Hunt Valley, MD. (Though, aside from Bruce Campbell, this year's guest list is seriously underwhelming.) I'm hoping I'll get to visit a haunted attraction, eat way too much candy, gawk at all the cool Halloween stores, maybe see some trick-or-treators, carve a pumpkin, and generally try to live this gloriously spooky season to its fullest.

But what about the rest of the film-going world? How are they celebrating Halloween? Its become increasingly common for mainstream studios to put out horror movies as counter-programming to summer blockbuster fair, which led modest pics like “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” or “Ready or Not” to reasonable success in the last three months. Hollywood kicked off the spooky season on the 6th with the horror event of the year, “IT: Chapter Two.” (Which I'll be reviewing in a few days.) I guess the release date proximity to that film is probably why Mike Flanigan's next Stephen King adaptation, “Shining” sequel “Doctor Sleep,” is being held back until November 1st. Aside from that, it seems the multiplexes will largely be sitting the Halloween season out. The only releases resembling horror movies going wide this October are the CGI reboot of “The Addams Family” and long-in-development zomedy sequel “Zombieland: Double Tap.” I'll probably be seeing both of those.

As is usually the case, the indie scene offers many more opportunities. The upcoming film I'm most excited is Robert Eggar's “The Lighthouse,” which I'll hopefully get to see and review. The Halloween season is bringing us new films from horror auteurs like Larry Fessenden (which I've already covered), Rob Zombie, Joe Begos, Franck Khalfoun, and Patrick Brice. We are getting – count 'em! – three low budget Halloween-themed slasher movie this season: “Haunt,” “Trick,” and “Candy Corn.” Whether or not any of those will be worth watching remains to be seen. Stuff like “Satanic Panic,” “Little Monsters,” “Girl on the Third Floor,” “Mary,” and “Extra Ordinary” all sound varying degrees of promising. Whether or not I'll actually get to any of this stuff, I don't know, as there's a lot of other new releases from the last eight months I want to catch up with.

And so, it beings. Soon, my love. Soon, no more. We are finally here, in the motherly bosom of the Autumn Country once again. Breath in that fresh fall air. Chew up those chocolate skulls and witch's teeth. Embrace the werewolves. Walk with a zombie. Fly with the vampire bats. Rattle those ghostly chains you've got in your hands. Halloween only comes once a year and I want this spooky, scary season to last as long as possible. Six weeks. Let's make 'em count. The Halloween Horror-fest Blog-a-thon starts here.