(Jeff still feels bad because we ended up doing nothing on Halloween... but that's what I WENT there for!)
My goal was to subject myself to horror movies, which I usually avoid at all costs choosing to deal primarily in the "thriller" genre. It was a sort of trial by fire week. Jeff is somewhat of a horror expert with 6 bookshelves 90% full of horror DVDs, stacks of Fangoria magazines, and a brain full of slasher knowledge... he could be that Jamie Kennedy character from SCREAM. (The other 10% of his DVD collection is British TV shows.) And I threw in some other Halloween tradition-type things as well.
The horror flicks/shows I can now say I've seen are:
- DAWN OF THE DEAD (the original) (I found it boring and fell asleep)
- HALLOWEEN (Eh! Didn't scare me. Dangit.)
- SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (Gratuitous boob shots... script written by notorious lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown) (P.S. Not scary. Not that funny.)
- 4 misc. episodes of TALES FROM THE CRYPT (this ain't new...I'd watched these when they were on originally)
- Showtime's first episode of their new "Masters of Horror" series entitled "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" (Which was actually quite good! I'd watch it again - the twist ending was exciting.)
- HAUTE TENSION (a.k.a. "Switchblade Romance" in the UK) (a.k.a. "High Tension" in the U.S.) (Omigod I loved it! Jeff bought it for me afterwards as a "many missed birthdays" present. If you've seen it - it'll not be surprising to you that I loved it. If you haven't - I'm not going to ruin it for you.)
- FRIGHT NIGHT
- AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
- And I spent a lot of time watching little segments of horror flicks/shows that I've either already seen or need to catch up on later like FRIGHT NIGHT 2, EXCORCIST 2, POLTERGEIST (seen), NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREETs (several pieces of several), FRIDAY THE 13THs (several pieces of several), VAMPIRE BATS (my mother was nice enough to tape that for me - I still have to watch it) and several "hauntings" shows
The Jack-O-Lantern tradition was taken care of by my friend Chrissy who invited me to a carving party in Boston last Thursday! The hostess was a Martha Stewart in the making who had pre-laid out carving tools, bowls for the goopy innards, pre-printed designs for the non-creative, ziplocks with recipes for the pumpkin seeds and served us up wine and lasagna.
(Another mutual friend said to Chrissy, "I'll bet Erin's gonna carve a raven!" So I did. To satisfy the masses.)
And Chrissy also introduced me to her family tradition of Halloween donuts! Her papa cooks 'em up using a rhyming recipe that sounds like a witch's spell. We ate those on carving night while fishing out pumpkin seeds from the gourd's gutty goodness.
I cooked those, seasoned with salt, pepper and cinnamon (the only spices I could find in Jeff's cupboards), on Halloween day.
Friday I added my own "tradition" to the mix - my traditional visit to Newbury Street's "Gargoyles, Chimeras and More" store. (I love that place! The same stuff is in there that was in there when I went to college.. it must be some sort of front for some seedy money laundering business... but it's just so creepy!) Chrissy was entertained... specifically by a piece of "art" writing that told the story of sex with a gazelle.
A Horror-a-thon complete with pizza was held at the home of a friend of Jeff's later that night. (That's where we watched Dawn of the Dead and some of the Tales From The Crypts.)
Saturday we attempted to see the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE at a place called "The Cable Car Cinema & Cafe" ... but the newspaper misprinted the time as "Noon" when the screening was at midnight. It began raining heavily that night so we skipped the midnight screening. (It had been snowing in the afternoon - that's just wrong!)
Halloween was, itself, low key. One of Jeff's parents' cats died so he spent half the day with them and the other half too depressed to dress up. I entertained myself during my alone time by watching several of the aforementioned horror titles, making the baked pumpkin seeds and coming up with a reason to mess up my face in a horrific fashion.
Here is the elaborate mini-story that I came up with for my facial Halloween display: One day I was walking through my village minding my own business when some toe-headed little bad boy pointed his grubby finger at me and said, "Bitch, Bitch, You're A Witch!" Thus accused I was accosted by the town witch-hunters, beaten badly about the face, had my face ground into the ground (!), had the runic symbols that spelled out "Cursed" carved into my head by a rather perverse minister and finally I was strung up to be hung (but they didn't do it right so I just bruised badly and the rope rubbed open a neck wound). (This explains my injuries... but I had no actual "costume" to go with it.)
(Erin, can we please see that make-up design step by step?) Why sure! How nice of you to ask!
Just for you then (you pleasant little thing you!):
Stylized "bed-head" and initial neck wound marking
Initial "outer bruising" on neck
Bruise shading (Actually this is about 5 steps into the bruise shading)
Black eye, scraped and torn nose, scrapes about the mouth, "CURSED" carved in the forehead
"Thick blood" and "coagulated blood" fun is applied to a variety of places...
... including the gaping neck wound (which also employs the use of liquid latex... as do other wounds on the face)
And Voila! Presto Chango! We have a completely @$%#ed up face! (Which I then sat around watching TV in.)
Jeff's self-assigned job was candy-passer-outer and he took his title seriously! He, on more than one occasion, chased a few kids down to let them know that he HAD CANDY!
His $30 dollars worth of "Fun Sized" bits of candy trademarks were passed out to children, some who didn't even bother dressing up, while I finished up Hot Tension (yes, I wrote "Hot" intensionally). And then we watched Prison Break. And Degrassi Jr. High. I went to bed with no nightmares to speak of. (Though there had been two questionable haunting experiences in my guest room earlier in my stay - so there was potential for a good scare.)
And THAT was Erin's Halloween 2005 East Coast Extravaganza! (Hooray for giant summaries with pictures!) I have been left with a (probably false) sense of security about horror movies and how I can now handle them just fine! (Though as I write this the house is dark.... and I'm not so sure about that.)
No comments:
Post a Comment