Spooky Season: The Movies

Sometimes -- usually because I think about two books with a connecting word in the titles -- I may base a reading list on that.

That's where the "daughters" reading list comes from. The "trauma" one involved looking up "grief" too, though that list has some related by content but not title words. 

There are various ways books get connected in my mind, but that is one of them.

Last year I started thinking about Halloween, which is pretty normal for me. There were books that related, but also books that had "ghost" or "witch" in the title, whether it was relevant or not. 

Actually, there were some "daughter" books that fit into it too.

I decided reading those books in October was a great idea; next year I would do all the books with "monster" in the title. 

Time happened; I have finally finished the ghost, witch, and monster books and am ready to start writing!

I have written about trying to watch a different Halloween movie each year, so that may be the easiest entry point.

Of course, two years means two movies. 

For 2023 I watched Death Becomes Her (1992), and then The Lost Boys (1987) for 2024.

Well, The Lost Boys was pretty familiar. I had read the novelization many times and seen the play, but there are always things that are different when you are actually watching it. 

The novel didn't make it clear how cowardly the Frog brothers were. I mean, I get that it would be scary, but that plus their eagerness to put down Laddie did not reflect well on them. 

I expected Death Becomes Her to be funnier, but the humor there was quite cynical. I did appreciate Bruce Willis' arc.

This would not be much of a post, except two of the books relate at least partially to movies: 

Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting by W. Scott Poole

Monster Theory: Reading Culture, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

I was initially too hard on Poole. I disagreed with how he was referencing Ann Rule, I thought he was missing some relevant points for themes he chose, and the conclusion ended up being very weak.

However, as someone who does not like horror, he made me seriously consider watching at least a couple of horror movies based on what he said about them.

If I do, they will be Candyman (1992) and The People Under the Stairs (1991). No promises. 

I am committed at some point to watching The Host and Parasite, for Bong Joon Ho. That's because I believe they have greater points, the same reason that I watched Get Out and Us for Jordan Peele.

Part of the credit I have to give Poole is that he made those movies seem relevant and meaningful.

The other credit I have to give him is that while there were times when I found his book frustrating, I did not find it boring and irritating, a big problem with the Monster Theory book.

When I was searching for it at the library I saw another "Monster Theory" book. I thought maybe I should check that out too. Maybe it would be interesting.

Maybe it is interesting, but I will have to read a lot more books before I am ready to gamble on that.

I suppose one of the keys would be seeing if there are similar authors. 

There was one pretty interesting article on Icelandic revenants by William Sayers and a very well-written article on "Vampire Culture" by Frank Grady, but it was a really long slog to get there. Both of those were in the last section, though I guess that is better than starting out great and then everything going downhill.

One of the really interesting things about Grady's article was that it made me think that Anne Rice stole from Michael Talbot's The Delicate Dependency. Grady didn't say that; some things just sounded very familiar.

Interview With the Vampire was written before The Delicate Dependency, but it sounds like the familiar parts Grady mentioned were from later novels by Rice that came after Talbot. I think that's interesting, but not interesting enough to read her novels.

At least not this year.