list-o-mania
from the cluttered wishing to be categorized brain of Nathaniel R
Compiled in October 2005
Top Ten Movies That Remind Me of Halloween |
I obsess on Halloween. Other than Oscar night it's my fav holiday. But for me obsess often = stress. Trying to come up with the perfect costume, planning to go to too many parties, etc... So, this year I'm taking it easier. But to celebrate bloggishly, and to satiate my desire for list-making, I will countdown the Top Ten Movies That Make Me Think of Halloween.
10. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Maleficent, the one person that Sleeping Beauty's parents shouldn't have ever forgotten to invite to their daughter's debut, is my favorite from Disney's animated rogues gallery. What's more this magical party crasher might just be my favorite villain. period. from any movie. Darth Vader can quit the heavy breathing. The Wicked Witch of the West's cackle isn't as deadly serious as Maleficent's entitled fury. Sleeping Beauty makes me think of this festively dark holiday because I always thought that, on the right person and with the right commitment to the whole look, the perfect Maleficent costume would be unbeatable. I know you can buy mass produced versions but I've never seen anyone come anywhere close to approximating this sorceress' majesty, gorgeous evilness, or the correct color of her flawless skin. And even if the right Halloween reveller could nail this singular look, they couldn't morph into a fire breathing dragon anyway. Losers.09. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
I think I have seen drag queens doing Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as Baby Jane and Blanche Hudson in nearly every Halloween party or parade I've attended. And why not? It's always good for a hearty familiar chuckle. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? is one of the great smorgasbord movies: a grand sick-making feast with equal parts horror, comedy, melodrama, psychological profiling, and meta Hollywood-on-Hollywood sado-masochism. Both stars were superb as looney washed up actresses, cooped up for decades in their shadowy two-story home. And you have to hand it to the ever-gutsy Bette Davis, one of the bravest, most relentless movie stars there ever was. She chews on the antique furniture as if her career depended on it... and it did back in 1962. Her signature Baby Jane ditty "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" is one of the scariest things you'll ever see or hear onscreen. Scary, I mean to say, in the giggle while you gulp sort of way. In other words: 100% perfect for the scary but all-in-good-fun thrills of Halloween.
08. Clue (1985)
I imagine my readers scratching their heads. That Tim Curry comedy from the 80s? That board game? Why, yes, my friends. I grew up loving the game, playing it with my family. Later, I was quite excited for the movie. I saw it three times. Little remembered fact: Unlike on the DVD at the theater there was only one ending. You had to try different theaters to see the different endings.
Anyway --much later in college with my family of friends Clue came up again. Halloween was approaching and the discussion erupted into party plans. There were six of us. We would dress as Clue for the party we were attending! I was Mr Green. [tangent: It was the first and the last time that I was ever seen w/ a moustache. Yuck]. The brilliance of dressing up with a group as Miss Scarlett, Mrs White, Mrs Peacock, Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, and Mr Green cannot be overstated. It's easy. It's creative. It's not expensive. And, despite there being no definitive look to adhere to, people will recognize who all of you are, provided you stick together. Enjoy the party.07. The Crow (1994)
This entry is not about costuming though you'll see the mime face w/ black leather pants (easy, iconic) just about everywhere this time of year. Neither is this about the Halloween ghoulishness of an extremely violent film about an undead man who happens to be played by a man who was killed on the set (Brandon Lee, rest in peace) during the making of. Nor is it about my teenage love of comic books. I only read this once after the movie was released. The Crow appears on this list because I hail from Detroit, Michigan and so does this gruesome story.
If you'd have told me as a child that I'd have to explain "Devil's Night" (the night in which all The Crow's narrative mayhem occurs) to other people when I grew up I would have laughed at you with the easy myopia of childhood. 'Who doesn't know what Devil's Night is?' I would have scoffed. Apparently lots of people. Or so I discovered when I moved west. So it came as a relief when The Crow opened and I suddenly had an easy-to-cite cultural reference to explain to people about the night of vandalism, arson, and general mischief that precedes Halloween. I thought everyone grew up tepeeing houses, egging cars, setting fires, and sneaking around their neighborhood on October 30th each and every year.06. Kill Bill (2003)
So for the past three Halloweens I have wanted to be Uma Thurman. Long blond locks. The imitation Hattori Hanzo sword. A yellow jumpsuit. With blood stains. Asian friends rudely and reductively recruited to dress up as the Crazy 88s. They form my entourage and strut down the street with me. It's like one massive Sally Menke edited, Robert Richardson lensed, Quentin Tarantino directed dream sequence that's all about glorifying me. Me. Me. Me!
(This fantasy has been brought to you by the holiday Halloween, my inner drag queen, and my tireless enthusiasm for self-aggrandizement)05. (Tie) Orlando (1992) and The Velvet Goldmine (1998)
oh, what the hell, let's just say--The Entire Filmography of Sandy Powell
Though I love almost nothing in the entertainment world as much as Oscar competitions, I'd be totally OK if they just cancelled the Costume Design category every year and just gave an Oscar annually to Sandy Powell for whatever she was making that year. Better yet, just let her costume every movie. Sure, that'd slow down production but I can't see all the movies that are made anyway. Think of my weary eyes, Hollywood! I really can't see them all.
If Sandy Powell and I were best friends, I would casually "borrow" whatever she had hanging in the wardrobe department annually on the morning of October 31st and I would have the best costume in existence for whatever I was attending that evening. Every single year Halloween would be even more fun that it already is if Sandy Powell were my best friend.
If you're not already frightened, you can read more about my love for Sandy Powell and see a lot of beautiful photos of her work here. And to prove that I'm not alone in my idolatry, you can read another ode to Ms. Powell here (scroll down to April 8th).04 Halloween (1978)
Well, duh. Of course it would be on the list.
Although I will admit that I just saw it last year. I have this way of avoiding movies that I think will scare me. I am a big wuss. I still haven't seen The Exorcist. I only saw Silence of the Lambs almost a year after it opened because I kept having nightmares about it and figured, 'why the hell not? I'm already having nightmares' The nightmares stopped as soon as I saw it. It wasn't as scary as the nightmares. But Halloween is evil scary. I mean, it's even scary during the daylight hours. That is just... wrong.03. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Perhaps this 1939 musical classic should be exempt from any list. Because, well, it's got several unfair advantages. You don't even have to have seen it to feel as if you're intimately familiar (but it's such a grand film that one certainly should actually see it. And without commercial interupption). This movie is so deeply enmeshed into the collective subconcious that one can, if inclined, connect it to all else. The more fascinating list to make would probably be along the lines of "Top Ten Things ThatDon't Make Me Think of The Wizard of Oz". It makes me think of everything -childhood, television, Thanksgiving, Christmas, other Friends of Dorothy, old Hollywood, showtunes, midgets, shoes, Broadway, lions & tigers & bears, fantasy vs. reality debates, beauty fascism, hot air balloons... I could go on all day. I'll spare you.
So, why does it make me think of Halloween in particular? The ubiquity of its iconic costumes for starters. You will always see riffs on every one of its main characters this time of year. Silly spins (hirsute drag queens in Dorothy wigs), innocent enthusiasms (a great family group costume), and every other imaginable interpretation. The second and better reason is the beautiful wickedness of The Wicked Witch of the West. Audience affection for this villain is obvious, but only on Halloween, the night when evil is good, does it seem appropriate to wish that Dorothy had never tossed that bucket of water her way.
"What a world. What a world."
02 Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Nothing says "Halloween" more than sunlight aversions and blood-lust. If this were a less cinematic list I'd want to put TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in here or even in the top spot. But we're talking movies --you have to narrow it down somehow. So, in honor of the original bloodsucking Count I've also jettisoned any vampire movies that have torn free from his (or from " first vampire" stories --you can't discount Nosferatu, now can you?) enormous shadow. Of the many --seriously many-- film adaptations or movies inspired by Bram Stoker's epistolary horror novel (1897), Francis Coppola's take on the immortal fanged Count (titled after the novel) is as good as many and better than most. It represents the vampiric in my Halloween list.
Of all vampire films, FW Murnau's silent Nosferatu (1922) is the most important to see if you're taking cinematic historical importance into account. But this list is a personal one. So I chose Coppola's elaborately bizarre, colorful, and passionate 90s treatment of the vampire mythos. The most peculiar thing about this film and my love for it, is that I don't really think that much of it works. A good deal of the problems seems to be in the casting. The most interesting performance (Sadie Frost as Lucy) has the least screen time. Keanu Reeves is wooden as Jonathan Harker, Gary Oldman lacks the onscreen sexual charisma that one would expect from a lead in a romantic horror epic, and strangely, despite it being filmed during what were unarguably her peak years, Winona Ryder also flails about. She never was adept at period (nevermind those two Oscar nominations) but her star turn reads as slightly over-the-top silly rather than passionate when the blood really hits the walls in the second half of the film. Still, despite many misgivings, the film is a spectacle in the best sense. You can't take your eyes off of it. Coppola's passion for le cinéma is evident throughout as he tries every conceivable camera trick in the book. His sort of operatic passion and creative invention is lacking in most every other vampire film. That's a pity because the approach is a perfect fit for this grand guignol literary classic.
This 1992 vampire epic is best seen on the bigscreen where the enormous oddness of its Oscar-winning costumes and makeup and its in-camera visual effects are properly showcased. Bram Stoker's Dracula is large and fascinatingly messy. There's no trace of laziness here--no fingerprints of the undead were involved in this film's making, only fully committed living and breathing artists attempting something awesome. For whatever reason, this particular Coppola film is never booked for repertory houses or even midnight screenings (though it would seem an ideal fit for both) so rent it soon if you've never seen it.01. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
With an affectionate "BOO!" to the entire filmography of Tim Burton
Who better to be considered the cinematic patron saint of Halloween than that weird, wild-haired auteur Tim Burton? Most of his filmography from his debut featurePee Wee's Big Adventure(1985), to the amazing run of Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman through to Ed Wood, Mars Attacks! and this year's Corpse Bride displays a sweet magical combo of the macabre and innocent spiced with dark humor and mighty visual invention. In other words, it's easy to love Tim Burton's movies for the exact same reasons that it's easy to enjoy Halloween.
In this Henry Selick directed Tim Burton produced animated adventure all of these auteurial character quirks were literalized into the perfect Halloween movie. Oh, sure...Nightmare's storyline is actually about a longing for Christmas. But from its hilarious and jokily gruesome opening number "This is Halloween" to its triumphant 'let's put on a show' reaffirmations of purpose, this movie subverts all the Christmas love into an ode to Halloween as the supreme holiday for those with ghoulishly creative minds. That twist is this movies most memorable trick. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a sickly delicious treat.
"Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween
This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
This is Halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright
It's our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween."
____-Danny Elfman, composer.HAPPY HALLOWEEN
