Screen (and Other) Haunts for Halloween

It's less than a week away from Halloween and I'm in the haunting spirit.  Clearly I'm pretty late in joining in on the festivities, there's been talks and blogs of Halloween for a full month now and I'm only throwing my 2 cents in 6 days prior.

This past weekend's Toronto Zombie Walk really helped a lot of folks get in the mood.  Ghouls from all around the GTA (a couple friends mentioned that zombies know how to ride the GO... important to know should there ever be an uprising and we need to get out of town!) gathered at Nathan Phillips Square before embarking enmass for...lunch/brains around the block.  The rain clearly doesn't affect them and only helps to keep the blood flowing, I kept a safe biting distance and observed them from the bridge over Queen St at the Eaton Centre.

And afterwards went to fish my friend Mikey from out of the carnage.  

S'cuse me, have you eaten a photographer named Mikey recently?

This is an annual event and the more zombies the merrier.  I chose to pose as a human being this year, cause hey, zombies gotta eat too.  Though I guess I was being a tease, because I also wore sneakers in order to be able to outrun them.  Is there anything that gets your blood racing faster than a zombie moaning and biting at your ear?

If live run-ins are a bit too much for you, perhaps it's better to stick to horrors that are safely encapsulated on the other side of a movie/TV screen.  The Toronto After Dark Film Festival kicked off this past weekend, featuring premiers of international horror/cult/sci-fi/fantasy films.  In a bit of poor planning and procrastination, I will sadly not be attending TAD this year.  For complete festival movie coverage, you can check out all the reviews here.

Last week was the season premier of one of my favoutie TV shows, I've been over the edge excited about the return of American Horror Story: Asylum.  While watching season 1 last year, I saw about 4 episodes in a night and had the most terrible night's sleep afterwards waking up constantly with the unnerving theme music echoing in my head.  If the premier was any indication, we should be in for a lot of creepiness once again.  Mad scientists, tortured and angry creatures, ghosts, and the mentally unstable always make a wonderful combination it seems.

In one of my previous entries I mentioned that seeing Berberian Sound Studio inspired me to re-watch Dario Argento's Suspiria, which I did over the weekend.  The main theme is still playing in my head, for those who know it, the soundtrack of that movie probably scares me more than the movie itself.  It's a 1977 film from Italian horror master Dario Argento about an American girl who goes to study at a prestigious German Dance Academy, only to learn there's more than meets the eye to the school and its teachers when students begin to suffer horrific accidents and go missing.  I always forget young Udo Kier is in that film, he was pretty cute too, who knew he'd become my favourite on screen creepy foreign weirdo?

Also part of my weekend viewing: the Hitchcock classic, Psycho.  If you're a horror/suspense/thriller/classic film fan/pretentious art student or grad and you've never seen Psycho, then you are a fraud, a disgrace, and we cannot continue being friends.  This is my favourite Hitch film, from the Saul Bass title sequence (for those of you who are interested, Bass did a number of Hitchcock's title sequences and movie posters, and also for countless more filmmakers in his 4 decade career.  In 2004 I got to see a exhibit of his work at the London Design Museum, certainly one of the most interesting exhibitions I've ever seen), to Bernard Hermann's score including the infamous chords struck during the unforgettable shower scene, to Anthony Perkins' superb performance.  I've studied the scene composition of this movie, read articles on the achievement in storytelling - where the heroine can be killed off 50 minutes into the movie without the story suffering any lapses in suspense to the climax.

There's still some days to go, other titles that are currently sitting on the shelf under my TV (my "purchased but not yet watched" shelf as I like to call it) that would be appropriate for Halloween-time viewing include Pontypool, The Faculty, and Weirdsville.  I would definitely recommend the former, which I haven't seen since I caught it at TIFF the year it screened.  I was reminded of The Faculty during a conversation with friends back in September, Best Buy in the US was selling the blu-ray copies for $6 so I picked it up.  Weirdsville is one of movies that I wanted to own (for cheap) at the time I bought it, but haven't really given much thought to again since.  (It's ok...)

Need more spookatcular inspiration?  Try Nick Watson's 31 Movies - A Halloween Countdown He's got it all, from classic Dracula (circa 1931) to foreign frights (Ringu).  As well, it's nice to know someone else liked The Mist as much as I did. If you didn't catch Cabin in The Woods while it was in theatres, now's a good time to watch it.

I guess it should go without saying:  check local rep cinema listings for a screening of Rocky Horror near you and get your fishnets ready.

So who's a fan of British TV and delinquent superheros?

Speaking of dressing up, spent my Tuesday night working on mine! (The jumpsuit's borrowed so I couldn't use stencil & spray paint.  The letters are cut from a sheet of adhesive vinyl, lined up with multiple rulers, and stuck down with great precision!) Hopefully everyone has a clue by now what your costumes will be (I speak like you don't have a choice whether to dress up and that's because you don't.  It's Halloween, have a little fun for pete's sake!)  Please send me photos of your get-ups, especially if they're movie/TV/zombie related. Happy haunting!