Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Galloween!
Just wishing everybody a happy Galloween, or as it's called everywhere else, "Halloween". I never really celebrated the holiday mostly because in Gallowmere, every day is Halloween, but also because, due to my religious upbringing, I didn't get to part-take in trick or treating or the other Halloween festivities. My parents were always distant figures in my life, or maybe I was the one who was distant. I can go back and forth on that one, but it's irrelevant, I wouldn't have it any other way. Be that as it may, they were stern about a couple things: skipping the commercial and secular aspects of holidays and keeping the sabbath. By the time I was old enough to use my mental faculties to reason giving Christianity the punt, I was too old to give a damn about celebrating. I could attend Halloween parties, but let's be frank, I'm not a party person. I'm seldom the life of the party, but rather the death of the party. I like attending parties on occasion, because I get to sit in a corner and observe human behaviour at its rawest, and I can get ideas of how to write about these beings. So the parties I attend, I'm usually in the corner writing things down. It's only when alcohol or other substances cross paths with me that I become the guy dangling from a chandelier, laughing maniacally at a private joke, and being poked at with a broom by the host while my friends look to the ground when people ask, "Who brought that guy, anyway?" But still, a Halloween party is probably not where I should be. They tend to be like any other party, except people are in "clever" costumes. I'd get carried away and bring a truckload of heads fresh from the morgue, and watch people spurt blood from drinking the punch that I literally spiked.
I mean, in my high school days, I did do a bit of egging, and throwing bottles of mould, and flaming pumpkins at people and houses on devil's night. That's way behind me now. But yeah... the most I usually do for Halloween is watch the onslaught of horror movies that come on during the month. I'm no horror buff, or gorehound, contrary to popular belief, but I find a lot of over the top horror and gore hilarious. So I get to have a few good laughs during the month of October. I didn't really watch much this month, though. At least, not horror/B-Movies. The only movies I recall seeing are Edmond and The French Guy. Both of them were black comedies that I happened by purely by chance. Edmond is apparently a satire about what it is to be a middle aged white suburban man living in America and how difficult it is to be one, contrary to what feminists and civil rights activists say. I'm indifferent to the message, sympathy, empathy, whatever, aren't really my strong points. And let's face it, I'm wary of customs and stereotypes, but am all for transcending or ignoring collectivist notions. But for what it's worth, Edmond it's very funny, dark, and ironic. The titular character is a man who gets fucked over and over again in one night, though not in the way that he aspires to. All of his pursuits of prostitutes work out miserably due to their weird policies, haggling, high prices, pimps, etc. He gets mugged a few times, and snaps beating the snot and teeth out of a pimp while going all Michael "Kramer" Richards on his ass. He meets a girl, gets lucky, gets unlucky, and lands himself in jail where... things go down an ironic path. Hilarious, and unmistakably dark. I love it.
Then I saw The French Guy, which I was impressed to see was a Canadian film. I was surprised because it was actually funny. I was laughing so hard, scene after scene after scene, harder, and harder, and harder. It was a cleverly crafted black comedy. Not much of a plot, but well crafted jokes. It's about a sick and eccentric old lady who gets part of her brain taken out because she had cancer. They politely kick her out of the hospital, she meets a derelict, get home, there's a slip of the tongue, then bad thing after bad thing happens. Every thing she does to cover her tracks only leaves more bloody foot prints around. It was surprising and shocking. It reminded me a lot of the first time I ever saw Very Bad Things, another finely crafted and bloody disgusting black comedy. I'd love to buy The French Guy, but can't find it anywhere.
So I had those, but I didn't really binge much on horror movies as I had the year before. That's probably because since I've binged so much, I'm all horrored out, there's nothing else left for me to see and laugh at. Oh, the other movie I saw, which I watched just a couple days ago on the Prince of Darkness's recommendation was Hot Fuzz. It's an action movie spoof, with copious amounts of gore and black humour. An example, a man goes flying in the air, and a spire of a miniature building impales his chin, he says "Owie!". That's hardly anything to what it has though. Hilarious. It also takes a nice couple jabs at Christianity, which is always good in my book. And speaking of books, two identical characters are always seen reading Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks books. Iain Banks is the author of one of the best novels in the field of black humour, The Wasp Factory *cue immaculate chorus*. Iain M. Banks is the name he uses when he writes Sci-Fi. I have yet to read any of his other books, but I've noted at [Pages] for the team spirit/X-Mas party that I want my Secret Satan to get Complicity for me.
Welp. Halloween's nearly over, the little gremlins are probably out of the costumes which disguise their hideousness, and they're probably killing their digestive systems with mounds of confections. It's better they eat than than cat hearts, I suppose. And better they kill their digestive systems than their parents.
Happy Gallow/Halloween Everyone!
