The Setup

Flying high after the fantastic Giant Monster event and rumbling into the month of October like a great steam engine, we took a look around to see what great thematic choices we hadn’t hit yet. With the horror-themed holiday that October is known for, we decided to do something a bit different than locking onto a particular creature for the month and instead celebrate the glorious day that is Halloween itself.

With origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain-a celebration of the end of the harvest season and a time when the borders between the land of the living and the dead disappeared-Halloween as a holiday has since been turned into a silly night for children to dress up like ghosts and goblins, and blackmail adults into giving sugary “treats”, or else face an egg-based “trick” being set upon your house.

But this is the night when evil walks, and the masks are there for your protection from evil spirits, not games. Unless of course, you’re a certain vampire slayer; then it’s your night off.

Since we’re temporarily abandoning the standard singular theme of the monthly features in favor of a random selection of titles, we are skipping the “two types of movies” section and jumping straight to the Formula.

Formula

The movies for this month have a few things in common. Indeed, all horror movies of this ilk tend to have these very same things in common:

• Teenagers: Every generic slasher/monster movie is going to center around a batch of  Teens. The great thing about Teenagers in movies is that they are an infinitely renewable resource. Additionally, since nobody actually likes teenagers (including other teens), nobody minds if they get stabbed in the face.
• 1 innocent will die, the rest will more or less-”deserve it”: Serial slashers have to establish their street cred by gettin’ stabby with some nun/mother/otherinnocentbystander. Once that’s done, they tend to be fairly puritanical in their choice of victims. Participate in the following, and you’re dead:
  • Pre-marital sex
  • Underrage drinking
  • Mockery of the protagonist
  • High-school sports.
  The same can also be said for generic movie monsters. Either some innocent is killed as a sacrifice to summon the monster, or the person’s death is avenged by the summoning of said monster. Then they tend to follow the afore-mentioned victim selection matrix.
• They’re never dead when you think they are: Seriously people, if a monster/serial killer is after you and you think you’ve killed it: SET THE CORPSE ON FIRE JUST TO BE SURE. Then-use dynamite.

The Menu

Since we’re rocking with the holiday, the food and drinks were fairly easy to come up with.

The Booze: Pumpkin Martini , Harvest Moon

Pumpkin booze is the order of the day!

The Food: Candy Corn, Ghost faced Marshmallows, and assorted Halloween Candy

Told you it was easy!

The Movies

Halloween (1978): The classic slasher film that launched the careers of John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis. You’ve got Michael Meyers, a gaggle of teens, and a sharp knife-what more could you ask for? But..is this deliberately paced film a good choice for the Cavalcade? Wait and see!

Pumpkinhead (1988): A dark fairy-tale of loss and revenge starring Lance Henricksen. Directed by the late mechanical effects legend, Stan Winston, the film has gone on to become a cult-classic. But how well does it fare against a drunken mob ready to strike?

Idle Hands (1999): A last minute addition that has a very young Jessica Alba and a more normal-aged Vivica A. Fox and Seth Green (who, as near as we can tell, has been the same age for more than 15 years), this is a romantic tale of a stoner-slacker who’s  so damn lazy his hand gets possessed and starts killing people-eventually causing him to get it on with his neighbor. What? That’s not romantic to you?

Evil Toons (1992): Not on the original docket, but it got added on as fans were eager for more! Fantastic sexploitation flick featuring an animated demon!

Suggested Alternatives

Anything that floats your boat! It’s an open month people, have fun with it!