Halloween Traditions
I'm generally not a stickler for traditions. There aren't activities or foods which are required for it to be Holiday X. However, there are things I like to do at various times of the year to remind me of the cyclical passage of time and help get into the spirit of the season. I'm particularly fond of these things with the onset of fall and spring. My October "tradition" is watching "scary" movies and reading The Halloween Tree.
My recollection is that I was first introduced to Ray Bradbury's Halloween Tree in grade school. I recall the teacher read it to us, probably in chapters over a number of days. It was a cool way to get exposed to the Halloween and death traditions in other cultures. I think by that point I had already perhaps read a few of Bradbury's stories, likely Dandelion Wine. If I hadn't, I likely started searching out his works shortly after.
With access to Netflix and Amazon Prime, there is a greater diversity of horror movies available to me than in prior years. However, the quality of the movies seems to have gone down over time. Plots and character development have been overcome by violence, gore, screaming, and jump scares. Blood and gore aren't scary to me. I'd rather have suspense and an unexplained supernatural element. If I have to watch a "bad" movie, I'd rather have an old Roger Corman-Vincent Price movie than the 12th sequel to Halloween or Friday the 13th. I even enjoy the Rube Goldberg-style demises in the Final Destination movies. The characters in the movies should at least not be despicable. Nothing ruins a scary movie more than hoping that the characters just hurry up and die because you hate them.
So far this month I have watched these movies, TV shows, and "documentaries":
Apostle (2018)
Haunted (2018)
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
The Worst Witch
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Little Evil
Eli
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
Insidious
The Conjuring
The Devil and Father Amorth
The Mummy
Stranger Things
Helltown
House
House II
Fractured
The Raven (1963)
The Innocents
In the Tall Grass
Of the movies I hadn't already seen the only one that I thought was actually worth my time was Little Evil. The Worst Witch is running second.
Next up:
As Above, So Below
The Open House
The Woman in Black
My recollection is that I was first introduced to Ray Bradbury's Halloween Tree in grade school. I recall the teacher read it to us, probably in chapters over a number of days. It was a cool way to get exposed to the Halloween and death traditions in other cultures. I think by that point I had already perhaps read a few of Bradbury's stories, likely Dandelion Wine. If I hadn't, I likely started searching out his works shortly after.
With access to Netflix and Amazon Prime, there is a greater diversity of horror movies available to me than in prior years. However, the quality of the movies seems to have gone down over time. Plots and character development have been overcome by violence, gore, screaming, and jump scares. Blood and gore aren't scary to me. I'd rather have suspense and an unexplained supernatural element. If I have to watch a "bad" movie, I'd rather have an old Roger Corman-Vincent Price movie than the 12th sequel to Halloween or Friday the 13th. I even enjoy the Rube Goldberg-style demises in the Final Destination movies. The characters in the movies should at least not be despicable. Nothing ruins a scary movie more than hoping that the characters just hurry up and die because you hate them.
So far this month I have watched these movies, TV shows, and "documentaries":
Apostle (2018)
Haunted (2018)
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
The Worst Witch
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Little Evil
Eli
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
Insidious
The Conjuring
The Devil and Father Amorth
The Mummy
Stranger Things
Helltown
House
House II
Fractured
The Raven (1963)
The Innocents
In the Tall Grass
Of the movies I hadn't already seen the only one that I thought was actually worth my time was Little Evil. The Worst Witch is running second.
Next up:
As Above, So Below
The Open House
The Woman in Black
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