12 minute read
Halloween Package
October 2021 The Halloween Fix From Fix
A review of some of the most spine tingling of films from across the years.
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— McCartney Fix, News Editor
Dir. John Carpenter
Photo sourced from Alternate Movie Posters “He had the blackest eyes, the Devil’s eyes.”
With every subsequent October, another crop of slashers fill the screens of cinemas, all almost impossibly indebted to the little independent slasher that could, John Carpenters “Halloween” Made on a shoestring budget of $350,000, “Halloween” laid the groundwork for not only the archetypal frame of a slashers narrative, but also the production philosophy that drives them, mainly low budgets and quick turnarounds. Shot over 20 days in Pasadena, California, with a cast of relative unknowns, Halloween follows a troupe of small town, innocuous, kind of unremarkable characters all subjugated to the mercy of the truest embodiment of evil theater screens had been and perhaps ever will be graced by. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the archetypal virginal final girl with a gleaming smile and assuredly nonexistent disciplinary rap sheet, her friends exist almost exclusively to have sex and inflate body counts, but they are not as bland as those they would assuredly go on to inspire. PJ Soles plays the ditsiest of ditsy blondes who totally wasn’t written by a thirty year old man trying his damnedest to put words in the mouth of a woman many years his junior. Nancy Kyes is the fire brand brunette by which all will have been judged over the last 40 years of horror cinema. Donald Pleasence was the closest thing to a notable name attached to the film, having acted in “Thunderball” in a James Bond film before Carpenter offered him the role which would come to define his career. Nick Castle is the man tasked with bringing to life Myers, and his approach is unique, as he opts for a deliberate, almost contemplative pace. He seems more curious than outright adversarial with his prey, as if he is not so much toying with them as studying them, and that, perhaps, is the brilliance of “Halloween”. The film strikes an unparalleled balance between the vagueness of Myers as an entity, and the specificity of him as a threat. He is at once a force of unknowable, almost unfathomable evil, yet in those moments he attacks, the deliberate pace with which he moves gives way to an apex of an attacker, seemingly bred from hell to kill. I have heard it said that Myers elicits fear because of what he represents- the stalking, looming threat of violence we as humans can never fully escape- as much as the pure horror of his being. But I would argue the genius of Carpenter’s direction is that he keeps his killer truly horrifying either way, whether you think him a singular killer or an allegory of something more.
Dir. Michael Dougherty
Photo sourced from Pinterest As long October has a 31st day, Sam will do what he does best. An artistic re-imagining of the fi
“Trick R Treat” is in the purest sense of the term a “Halloween Movie”. Its every individual strand is spun in service of the holiday, its set pieces are positively overflowing with wonderfully chintzy decorum, full to overflowing with pure unabashed Halloween cheese. Its every crevice and corner lit by pumpkins, cobwebs and witches strewn about its fictional Ohio city scape. It perfectly captures the vibe of a small city defined by its feverish obsession with a single night. It just oozes atmosphere, its the cinematic equivalent of a Spirit Halloween and it strives to be nothing more, being all the more perfect for it. Its deep reverence for not only the aesthetic, but the legend of Halloween is decidedly refreshing, as Sam, the overarching figure who is present in every one of the anthologies intertwined narratives acts as almost a surrogate for the legend of Hallows Eve itself. The quality of these tales is remarkably consistent as these loving send ups of some of the horror genres most overdone cliches are never handled with to irreverent a tone. From werewolves to demonic children, it earnestly runs the gambit of the genres tropes and does so without the cynical, mocking undertones of a film like “Scary Movie” “Trick R’ Treat” is the perfect October 31 flick because it is as scary or acclaimed as many of its genre contemporaries but because no film has ever felt so synonymous with a holiday as this one has with Halloween.
Dir. William Friedkin
Photo sourced from Pinterest
The Exorcist is one of those few “respectable” horror films, with artistic pedigree uncharacteristic for a film in which a possessed girl implies a man of God’s late mother performs favors in hell. Awards, however, and the legitimacy they grant films surrounded the exorcist from its inception. Academy Award winner William Freidken directs a cast including Oscar winning leading lady Ellen Burnstyn, and the Tony winning Jason Miller; who deliver impeccable performances as the mother of Regan, the aforementioned possessed girl, and the disillusioned religious man sent to perform the titular exorcism respectively. Its release was accompanied by calls for boycott from conservative religious groups, and its production was stained with tragedy and tribulation. For any other film with such a troubled production, the legend of its release and the stories surrounding it would grow to overshadow the film to which they were attached, but not with The Exorcist. The final frames of this film are as wrought with pain as any other throughout cinemas long history. Miller holds down the girl, asking the spirit inhabiting her to enter him, it obliges and with his last moment of humanity, he jumps from the window and tumbles down the stairs. In the scheme of things, however grand or minuscule they may be, Burnstyn gets her daughter back, and Miller has his faith vindicated, but this tale was a tragedy of circumstances not conclusions; of living a life that only ever has its larger questions answered by grabbing the devil by the horns. There are no wonderful days for exorcisms, but there are wonderful films about them, and this is the finest example. The rare film which both transcends and defines the genre it occupies. Feature 15
Terrifying Tales From The Mandan High School
— McCartney Fix, News Editor
The Not so Terrifying Spirit of Tuttle Far From Home, Close to Creepy Jump Rope Girls
There was just something off about the place. Every realtor who showed us through the property tipped us of, in not so subtle ways to its scarier elements. Of particular note was this strangely persistent, rustling, ruffle, kind of like a blown whistle trapped in a potato chip bag. One Realtor told us it was a rat infestation, the other errant wind and the third ended the tour the second we asked about it. However the property was simply too good a place at too good a price to pass up, so throughout that strange hazy summer of 2021, we spent quite a lot of time there. Family came and passed through, all saying some variation of the same thing, that they could just kind of, feel, a presence their, not physically but almost ethereally, constantly in the background. Speaking of background, we received some history for the building prior to its conversion into commercial property. It was a hardware store that doubled as the sight for some truly ghastly accidents. Limbs were separated from torsos and minds were forever altered by the sights, and we were spending chunks of the summer here! Then there were the occurrences. A coffee maker moved, a shirt folded neatly that was previously thrown askew, and once dusty shelfs now made spotless, it was like a poltergeist, but strangely the opposite, occupied the home. It helped with work throughout the house and generally made the environment a more pleasant one to occupy. Maybe we were all just a little too prejudiced against that kind apparition, after all, everyone dies someday, but few would choose to spend their days after their days had long been numbered helping out others. So, if you ever find yourself by that old shop in Tuttle stop in, and have a cuppa Joe courtesy of the kindest ghost since Casper.
There are always those certain places at those certain times of year which just startle with their beauty, and Chief Looking Village in the fall is one of those places. The shifting shades of the leaves holding on by a thread to the branches before beginning a slow, breeze aided ascent provided a beautiful backdrop to the finest skyline perch in the state. The whole city was visible, but on this particular day, what most caught my eye was a rock, seemingly marked by the devil himself, stained with a maroon that looked as if it had been bled from the autumn leaves. My friends realized my preoccupation with this sedimentary slab and believed it a wonderful opportunity to get a rise out of my heart rate. My pair of friends who had accompanied me to the lookout, claimed they had seen a dark figure darting in and out of those trees, but my initial suspicion was that they were attempting to dupe me, and I did not take kindly to being made a fool. However, when I caught up with Photo by McCartney Fix them, initially planning to lambast them for their adolescent antics, my Do not look in the mirror this most scary time of peripheral caught a glimpse of that the year, for I fear you may not like what you see. same strange paradox, not so much a figure as an absence of anything identifiable, like a black hole personified. I was so swiftly set on edge that I ran into my friends vehicle, and as we abandoned the premises, we were greeted by a circle of children, skipping in unison while chanting something vaguely demonic. As far as silver linings go, we saw “Far From Home” that night, which almost made it enjoyable enough to overshadow the weird demonic angel kids we say! Can you say great way to end a night out with the boys?
My Strange Attachments Wont Let Me Be My Little Town, and The Littler Ghosts Who Call it Home
The spirits had become almost a part of me. For as long as I can remember there have been attachments following me, stepping in unison with me, taking every walk alongside me. Talking about it has always been difficult. It’s tough not for me to say I would prefer a life without them casting their long shadows over me, then again, I don’t have a clue what a life like that would look like. I was a young girl when my first attachment burrowed itself within my soul, and since then, another two have joined it. A tall, slender figure is the briefest and clearest description I can give of that first thing, because it never physically presented itself to me in a form which I could call human. It seemingly existed outside of our plane, only manifesting through actions meant to remind of its presence, as if I could ever forget it was there. There was a hereditary element to these hauntings, perhaps it was passed down through generations. My grandmother was afflicted with something similar, as was my sister, but the love of a sibling knows no bounds. I recognized her fragility, and knew it was better if I allowed her to grow old not knowing the struggles I had, hence how I contracted my second attachment. This attachment was an abstract anxiety more than anything else, a little ribboned up girl that re-channeled my emotions and found boundless joy in manipulating my mood. She looked almost out of place in this world, as if she belonged more in an episode of Shirley Temple than the 21st century. Her aesthetic would be almost enduring if she wasn’t such a pain in my neck. The third ghost was a soothing spirit. I’m partially convinced it’s my grandma communicating with me, as it presents itself to me in moments of deep personal crisis and never ceases to quell my soul. I wouldn’t mind the spirits if they were all like this. But, as the age old adage goes, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick the ghosts which permanently attach themselves to you.
Newark, Ohio was a pretty little piece of nothing. As easy on the eyes as it was to overlook, there was little in that place which I called home for the first many years of my life which was cause for, well really, anything. If you held that belief you were easily weeded out as a tourist in this town, because there was so much more to my hometown than those Earthworks built by tribes long since made artifacts of. McMillen Woods was more specifically the setting for these experiences, as it was that apartment complex where I spent much of my youth. To tell these tales is an exercise in suspending my Ohio nativism for a moment, as all who spent more than a cursory stay in Newark knew of these occurrences as a North Dakotan would the score of NDSUs most recent game. Built over long since lost to time farmland, McMillen Woods was a tight knit community of well worn, kind faced individuals, the archetypal small town Midwestern slice of life which you would find there was not so much simple as comfortable. The people worked hard, Photo by McCartney Fix and perhaps better fit the Ghosts are not real you say? Then what is that behind you description of your average skeptic than a true believer, but right now! the folks knew what the folks knew and quite simply, they knew ghosts were abound. These souls have long been theorized as the ghosts of deceased children, with many finding comfort in knowing Newark acts as a garden of youth in which those robbed of theirs can live about their young lives as we who took them for granted have. This purported adolescence is provided credence by the many notable behaviors of the ghosts, which were, for the most part, quite childish. Beds were left looking like the after photos of an intense pillow fight and ice cream was tossed empty and absentmindedly in the freezer, because lord forbid they have the courtesy to throw it away once they are done! But I guess all this does is offer validity to our towns unofficial slogan. “Newark, Ohio, where a kid can be a kid, even if fate robbed them of that opportunity the first time around.
