Skip to main content

HALLOWEENTOBER

Okay, I usually try not to post more than once a day on this here blog, but since we're just days away from Halloween (woohoo!) I thought I'd take a minute and list my three favorite Halloween vampire movies. Sure, I have a cornucopia of other films I love to watch during this spooky time of year, but hell, I write vampire stories for devil's sake. I'm gonna keep it real! Until the Vampire Hunter D is captured in celluloid, this list will do. And I have to give a shout-out to INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. Without this film, I never get into Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, and perhaps never begin writing about vampires in the first place. But this is a top 3, not a top 4. This will be boringly obvious, I'm sure. Right then, I'll begin.


3. John Carpenter's VAMPIRES
Easily my favorite Western of all time. The vampires are hardcore things of legend and the gore is copious. James Woods is the man (Fuck James Woods I hear in the background somewhere...). But he rips in this film. And Valek, the main baddie vamp is badass. When he rips a hunter in half with his bare hand, you can only say, "Duuude." The book by John Steakley is better, but what's new. The movie rules in its own way. But get the novel to compliment it.




2. BLADE
This movie re-invigorated my love for vampires when it was released in 1998. I still remember the goosebumps after seeing the trailer for the first time with "Confusion" pumping in the noise for the kids. Style, style and more style is what Stephen Norrington does to movies. And this one is fast, violent and edgy. The ending still leaves something to be desired, but it's far better than the alternate ending on the DVD. That was just painful to watch... But the way the vampires disintegrate when felled is classic, sort of like Mr. Whedon did with the "Dusting" of vampires in the Buffyverse.




1. THE LOST BOYS
My all-time fav. This movie takes me way back, all the way to 1987. And it still is copied to this day. I will not mention the sequel here. No point. Looks like crap. But this film was special. The soundtrack, the characters, the story. I overuse the word Cool quite a bit, but what else will do it justice? I watch it at least once a year, and especially right before Halloween. I give Near Dark an honorable mention here, because it came out the same year. It was far more violent and dark than The Lost Boys, but again, it's overshadowed because David and his boys no how to have a good time. For a long time this movie has left an impression with me, and I owe it to Michael Schumacher and co. for giving me my first taste of inspiration.

So tomorrow, after class, I know what I'll be doing. No, not homework. I'm going to be glued to the set with a big, fatty bag of potato chips, some Diet Pepsi and I'm gonna lounge in the dark.

Happy Halloween!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Halloween Additions

There have been a few additions to the Halloween decorations and bric a brac here at the Haunted Mansion, Rumsey Island edition. While searching my parent's basement boxes for my old VHS collection I came across a few things I kept. My parents no longer decorate for Halloween, which breaks my heart. But now these things are with me now, so.... At Barnes and Noble the other day, T had disappeared for 10 minutes. When we got home I found out why. She had found, at the counter, this really cool Halloween advent calendar she surprised me with. It comes with this lil plush ghost for the days. Just look at 'im; he looks stoned on jack-o'-lantern stuffing or something. Or he's horrified he's stuck on this site because he didn't make it on Dinosaur Dracula... Next is Gerald from Target. I first saw this preppy pumpkin-head scarecrow a few days after Halloween a couple years ago, and when I returned next to pick him up, he was gone. Liquidated unt

Marketing

Is it ever too early to market your book? This question is retroactive to pre-publishing, too. I know very little about marketing. In fact, I guess I know nothing at all. My plan has always been, from the beginning, to get my story out there . To have people read it - that's the point to all of this. That's why this blog exists. And yet now I find myself searching for new, constructive ways to market this book. So far, I've been searching for an artist for the cover. I have it completely planned out, but I could screw up a stick figure, so I'll leave this to the pros. I'm wondering if it's too soon to design a website. Would a website even work for an unpublished work? I don't know. These are things I am looking into to help market my first novel. I've never had much use for an ego, but is self-promotion really egotistical? Or will it only hasten my prospect for publishing? Hmm.

Curse of Crom

Curse of Crom, The Legend of Halloween is a new favorite film. I watched this film last season, and I honestly fell in love with it right away. I ordered the bluray right after watching it on tubi or some other streamer, of which there were many showing Crom. Low-budget Indy flicks have never been my cuppa but this one had me at Halloween. The opening is Halloween 4-style perfection. It's incredibly earnest, for some reason I've used this word often when talking about this flick. What I mean is that low-budget or not the characters are in this film and they own it. I really like every single character. Steve, or Lil Rock, as I refer to him (Halem Medina) is the spitting image of a younger Dwayne Johnson. I do not accept that this guy is not the bastard son of the Rock. I shouldn't gossip, it doesn't become me. The scene where Steve finally sees the spirit is great. The next time we see him he is dressed in a costume of dead animals (or the likeness thereof, to protect