A couple of posts ago, I made a vow that I wasn’t going to let Halloween pass me by. Well, it’s crunch time folks, cause we’re in the home stretch. We’re less than a week away from the big day.
It’s funny how every year, the season creeps up very slowly, bit by bit, and then suddenly, it exponentially crashes in on you in the span of a few days. I intend to make the most out of those few days.
Here’s a quickie to get this week started. MY 2014 PUMPKIN!
I carve one every year, and every year is the same. Well, the pumpkin’s not the same. I change up the look of it every year, but this year I went with “scary grin and mismatched eyes”.
One tradition that hasn’t changed however is the act of carving itself. Every year, I get together with my cousin Larry, we go buy them, take them back to his house, and slice them up there. Since creating the proper mood is essential, we’ve developed two traditions regarding background noise over the years to go along with the deed itself, and they depend on where specifically we’re doing the carving.
If we do it out in the garage (as we did this year), we put on the same spooky sound effects CD that we’ve used for years. It’s one of those generic ones that you can buy in any decent store around this time of year, full of the sounds of evil scientist labs, howling wolves, bats, witches cackling, and screams. Lots and lots of screams. Seriously, this thing is like 85% screams. Shut up, already.
But the other tradition is the one I really want to talk about today. If we decide to do it in indoors, we have the same movie playing in the background every year – The Midnight Hour.
This thing is a LOT of fun and absolutely full on wackadoo. Both of us remember it coming on TV in 1985 and have been huge fans of it since. Larry actually taped it off TV at the time, and nearly every year, we pop that exact same VHS tape into the VCR and watch it.
Folks, if you haven’t seen this thing, seriously try to check it out before the season is up. It’s the type of thing that was common in the ’80’s, but just isn’t done anymore. By that, I mean, it’s an all-star collection of names that were big at the time thrown together for an hour and a half of sheer crazy.
Here’s your premise: A group of high school students, one of which is the direct descendent of the town’s most famous, dead witch, decide to enact a ritual to bring back said witch on Halloween night. Of course it’s all just fun and games and they’re not taking any of it seriously until shit actually does go down.
Surprising no one who has ever seen a motion picture before, the spell they recite actually does work and Lucinda the witch comes back and brings a horde of zombies, and one random werewolf for some reason (not that I’m complaining), with her.
For those of you who don’t remember 1985, one of the things I loved about that era is that people would just throw in anything they wanted to into a film and it didn’t really need to make too much sense at all. Apparently, prime-time made for TV movies during Samhain were excuses to just throw shit to a wall and see what stuck. Random werewolf while the dead rise from the grave? Sure, why not? And of course, being zombies, they’re all in one stage or another of decomposition, except for one — Sandy the cheerleader, who comes back as a…ghost…or something? I don’t know. Just go with it. I mean, she’s got a physical body and falls in love with one of the other characters, but although she died in the 1950’s, she seems to not be aware that she ever did. Yeah, it’s one of those deals.
I don’t know how well I’m selling this, but if you’re still waffling on it, there is only one thing you need to know. During the course of events, the witch Lucinda (who’s also sort of a…vampire…or something? just…whatever) essentially possesses Melissa, turning her evil and kind of horny. Some of the other teen friends also turn evil, and during a Halloween party, which has been crashed by the newly reanimated dead, THEY BREAK OUT INTO A MUSICAL NUMBER.
Guys, there is a musical number, with zombies, for no f*cking reason whatsoever, and it features LeVar Damn Burton. I’m going to post the vid with the entire movie down at the bottom, because after seeing THIS, there is no way that you will not want to watch the rest of this thing. Seriously, it’s full on batshit.
But, if you’re not all in just yet and you want a taste, check out this FANTASTIC ABC Movie Special Intro!
And because, well, you HAVE to see the rest of it now, here you go. I love it and you will too. Seriously though, guys. Stop jokingly reading spells on Halloween night. That has never, ever worked out well for anybody.
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