Welcome to October!
It’s always wonderful when the rest of the world finally catches up with us and embraces all of the spooky stuff. For those of us who live in SpookyTown year round, it’s time to stock up on “normal” household stuff like dish towels and napkins.
I’m in a weird head space in terms of Halloween decorating. On one hand, I feel like I am terribly behind, as I only have two things up outside and nothing up in the house (well, nothing that isn’t up all year). On the other hand, for decades I wasn’t able to put anything up outside until a few days before Halloween without it disappearing. On the gripping hand, I’ve been terribly busy with everything else, so I have a little bit of an excuse.
Normally I would be jumping around, happily welcoming the cooler weather and the turning of the leaves. However, this means that I will also have to accept the fact that I will eventually have to close the pool for the year. Honestly, the water is getting to be too cold, even for me.
Yes, I am still in the running for the Face of Horror, but I’m going to need a slew of votes to get me into the top five if I am to continue. Feel free to vote!
Listening To: The gentle pitter patter of walnuts skipping down the roof. I’m just kidding. It sounds like someone is lobbing bowling balls from the trees. There’s nothing quite like sitting in the dark, watching a horror movie, when suddenly something crashes overhead.
Currently Reading: Ad Astra: 20 Years of Newspaper Ads for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films by Michael Gingold. This book, like the two Ad Nauseum books discussed below, are absolutely great.
Current Obsession: Searching the streaming services for some great horror that I haven’t seen already. As I write this, I have Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror on in the background.
Dragon’s Roost Press News
The big task for the week has been preparing for the trip to St. Louis. We will leave tomorrow for AuthorCon IV. We enjoyed our previous AuthorCon in Williamsburg, VA. We are looking forward to the midwest version.
We have a very promising meeting with an audio production company regarding the creation of the audiobook version of The Pleasure in Pain. We don’t want to say too much more because we don’t want to jinx anything.
We will be entering the final week of the Kickstarter campaign for Arkham Institutions. We are hoping for a big weekend to put us over the top.
This Week’s Rambling: If Your Skin Doesn’t Crawl IT’S ON TOO TIGHT
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the '70s and ‘80s and Ad Nauseam II: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1990s & 2000s, especially the first volume. The books are large (perfect for your coffee table), hardcover tomes containing newspaper advertisements collected by author Michael Gingold. Included in the mix are descriptions, reviews, and the author’s recollections of some of the films.
The books provide not only an examination of the way horror films were marketed, they show the progression of the horror genre as a whole and how different aspects changed over time. Readers see ads for some of the classic exploitation films and how this then blends into the slasher boom, the rise of the self-aware films of the ‘90s and then the remake craze of the ‘00s. You can also see the decline of the overblown taglines and how they were replaced by quotes from reviewers.
I have always loved the crazy taglines used to promote genre films, especially the ones from the grindhouse era. I love watching the trailers from those classic exploitation films that graced the theaters of NYC’s 42nd street. I’ve watched a number of documentaries on various aspects of the films of that era, but if anyone knows any good ones, I welcome the recommendations.
And in case anyone needs the explanation, the title of this week’s post is the tagline from Last House on the Left and the one from This Week’s Rambling is from Black Christmas.
The originals, natch.