The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Adaptations: Part 1

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving is one of  the most popular stories to come out of the early 1800's in America. The tale has endured the test of time and is mainly associated with the holiday of Halloween due to the supernatural aspect of the story. With any popular book, there are film and television adaptations. There just happen to be a lot of adaptations, all starting in 1922 with the silent film version. Not just limited to movie length adaptations, the story has also been done in television episodes, some doing a faithful recreation, and some just using it as a jumping off point. I thought it would be fun to go through all the different versions of the tale I could find and see how much they differ from each other and from the source material. Before I start on the adaptations themselves, I'll give a short summary of the book for reference. 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow concerns a Connecticut school teacher who moves to a small town in New York called Sleepy Hollow in the year 1790. Ichabod becomes the town's new schoolmaster and is known as being strict with his students, though not too strict as to not warrant a welcome invitation to their houses for dinner. Ichabod is tall, thin, and though very learned is also extremely superstitious. He lives with various farmers during his tenure at Sleepy Hollow and also teaches choir to the women of the town. Ichabod soon meets Katrina Van Tassel, a young woman known for her beauty and wealth. Her father, Baltus Van Tassel runs the largest farm in the town and therefore is well-to-do. Katrina has many suitors, but it is Abraham Van Brunt, also known as Brom Bones, a rough and tumble man with a reputation as being mischievous, who has laid claim to the wealthy heiress. Ichabod and Brom compete for Katrina, but Brom cannot seem to get rid of Ichabod like the other suitors, as he cannot fight him outright, and Ichabod is unwavering where others have had more sense and left Katrina alone. Ichabod sees Katrina as a way of improving his station and thinks to himself that once he marries her he will forget everything about being a school teacher and even look down on the lot. Brom, realizing that Ichabod is superstitious, plays various pranks on him, including tearing up his school house in order to make Ichabod think that witches had held a meeting there. Katrina appears to be playing the two against each other on purpose. Things come to a head when Katrina invites Ichabod to a harvest party at her home. Ichabod dances with Katrina while Brom looks on with jealousy. Ichabod then goes and listens to spooky tales by the fire, which eventually turns into the whole group talking about Sleepy Hollow's most famous ghost, The Headless Horseman. Brom even chimes in, saying that he raced the Horseman for a bowl of punch but the Horseman disappeared once Brom went over the church bridge. Ichabod stays after the party in order to propose to Katrina, but it apparently doesn't go well, as he leaves the party devastated. He takes the horse he borrowed from Hans Van Ripper, the person whom he is currently staying with, and makes the journey back through the dark woods. The ghost stories get to him while he's riding home and he starts to fear everything is out to get him. He rides on until he sees a stranger on a horse riding nearby. He doesn't panic at first because he cannot see who it is and tries to talk to the stranger. It's only once the figure is backlit by the night sky that Ichabod sees that it is the dreaded Headless Horseman. The Horseman chases Ichabod all through the woods until they get close to the church bridge. The Horseman throws its head at Ichabod and Ichabod falls to the ground. The next morning, Hans Van Ripper doesn't see Ichabod at all and the schoolmaster is absent from the school house. Eventually the people of Sleepy Hollow find Ichabod's hat on the ground near the bridge with a smashed pumpkin nearby. The townsfolk all believe that Ichabod has been carried off by the Headless Horseman. Brom and Katrina marry, and Brom is seen having a knowing look when the Headless Horseman incident is brought up in conversation. Word came back to Sleepy Hollow that Ichabod Crane was alive and well back up north where he started a law practice. Some believed this, but most continued to believe that the Headless Horseman had finally found a head. The schoolhouse was abandoned and folks say that you can hear the old schoolmaster singing his hymns nearby. 

The Headless Horseman (1922)

The earliest version of the Sleepy Hollow story, it doesn't stray too far from the book's premise. Ichabod is his usual self, though maybe a little more proud and arrogant. He flaunts his intellect over the people of Sleepy Hollow, who he considers country bumpkins. In some versions of the story Ichabod is looked at with fascination because he is an outsider, some he is looked on with derision for the very same reason. This version gives you a little of both. In one of the additions to the tale, Brom convinces the townsfolk that Ichabod is a witch-doctor who put a spell on a young boy. Ichabod is nearly tarred and feathered by the townsfolk, but is luckily saved by Baltus Van Tassel, who has taken a liking to the unusual pedagogue. This version of the tale ends with no ambiguity like the short story does. Brom is revealed to have been the Headless Horseman after he runs Ichabod out of town. There are some unusual parts, too. When Ichabod asks Katrina to marry him, the words on the screen make it look like she says yes, but the reaction makes it look like she said no. Not sure if there was some missing footage or what. There are two different ways you see the Headless Horseman: a solid body that ends up being Brom, and a ghostly looking one when the movie introduces the Horseman. I like the double exposure effect they used for the horseman as it adds some great spookiness to the movie. Not my favorite version of the tale, but it is interesting to see how they tackled the tale in the early days of film. This version is available on Amazon Prime. 

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

This adaption is the first animated one, and comes from Disney. I watched this version many, many times over the years, though mostly the last third of the film. To me, this version is the best that there has ever been. It's short, but not too short, and hits on all the main plot points. The characters don't talk, you just get the narration from Bing Crosby. That itself would push this near the top, but the film also has some genuinely funny moments and an exciting climax. All the songs that Crosby sing are great, but especially The Headless Horseman. There are a lot of great spooky moments throughout, from the Van Tassel party, to Ichabod's late night ride on Gunpowder. The chase scene is one of the best set pieces in Disney animation history, and really drives home that Ichabod is in real danger. With most of the Sleepy Hollow adaptations, you see Ichabod ride away screaming for a minute and then get hit in the head by a pumpkin. The Horseman merely scares and chases him but not much else. In this version, the Horseman is full on trying to cut off Ichabod's head with a sword. It still culminates with Ichabod getting hit with a pumpkin, but this time it's a flaming jack-o-lantern. Love it. In terms of characterizations, they all fit into the classic molds. Ichabod looks just like he is described in the book and shows off several times how superstitious he is. Katrina is fair and it's made pretty obvious that she is purposefully playing the men against each other. Brom is an oaf and a bully, and that's about all that is said about him. It think that while the identity of the Horseman is still left ambiguous, I still feel like it's supposed to be an actual ghost. Besides the Horseman trying to outright kill Ichabod, Ichabod gets a good look down the Horseman's collar and I feel like he would most likely be able to tell if it was a person under there. Brom may be jealous, but he is never portrayed as murderous, just a practical joker. So it seems a stretch to say that he was trying to murder Ichabod. The animation is also the best of all the other animated adaptations of the short story by far. I credit Mary Blair's magnificent backgrounds and concept art. This is about the only adaption that hits the autumn time aesthetic hard, whereas most of the others seem stuck in a never ending bleakness. Highly recommend this as a kid's first introduction to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as it covers everything pretty well story-wise, and I would say it's not the scariest version of the tale. This is available to watch on Disney Plus.

Tales of Washington Irving (1970)

An Australian animated TV special that includes the story of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, both being Irving tales. The animation is what you would expect from the late 60's, early 70's, so it's not too bad. Katrina is about the only one that looks a little weird. I think it's the stilted way that she talks, too. Ichabod sounds an awful lot like Paul Lynde (he did a lot of voices for Hanna-Barbera) so that's a little distracting, but it fits the character well. Ichabod is very superstitious and mentions that witches used to use Sleepy Hollow as a meeting place, along with his belief that the Headless Horseman is real, because so many people have claimed to see him. Katrina is much less coquettish than in the short story. She bristles at Brom's affections and says to her friends that she would like someone with some intellect, like Ichabod Crane. One unusual part of this adaptation is that Sleepy Hollow is not considered where the people live, but instead the woods and countryside are Sleepy Hollow. I guess the people live in Tarrytown? Though Katrina seems to like Ichabod throughout the story, she ultimately rebuffs him at her family's party, and probably one of the harshest ways I've seen. She laughs right in his face, asking why would she want to give up all she has to live in poverty with the schoolmaster. He tries to say that he could take over the farm, but she laughs at this too, saying that he may be a good schoolmaster, he wouldn't be any good at farming. The ending leaves the identity of the horseman ambigious, and Katrina marries Brom. The school house falls into disrepair and they say Ichabod's ghost haunts the area. This ending is probably as close as they come to the end of the book, as it's the only one that mentions the schoolhouse being abandoned. The characterization of Katrina is very odd for this adaption. She really seems to favor Ichabod until he asks her to marry him, and though she claims to detest Brom, she marries him. Not a bad cartoon, but not nearly as good as Disney's. You can watch this one on Youtube. 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1972)

This is a very short adaptation of the tale, mostly known for it's unusual visuals and for the narration of John Carradine. This version is extremely 70's, as you can tell by the music, unique animation style, and the use of color. There is not a lot of detail with the backgrounds, it's mostly just one backdrop of color, which permeates the rest of the scene, though the characters are often a different color to make them stand out. In terms of the story, it hits the main beats, including Brom playing pranks on Ichabod and Katrina saying no to Ichabod's proposal. They even have Ichabod not run immediately upon seeing a figure in the woods who ends up being the Headless Horseman. This one is worth a look if you don't mind the overtly 70's aesthetic. This is available to watch on Youtube. 

The Scooby Doo Show: The Headless Horseman of Halloween (1976)

Scooby and the gang, plus Scooby-Dum, are at a costume party at Crane Manor. Beth Crane explains to the gang that Ichabod is her great-great-grandfather. Beth's Aunt Gertrude is hosting the party and shows off her diamond necklace. The Headless Horseman shows up and scares all the guests away. The gang attempt to solve the mystery of the Headless Horseman and why he's come back to haunt the Crane's again. Gertrude's nephew, Elwood, mentions that the diamond necklace she wears is cursed and of she gives them to him to put in the bank, this will all stop. He leaves with the diamonds and is quickly "killed" by the Headless Horseman. Now the Horseman is riding around with Elwood's head on. The gang eventually catch the "ghost" and reveal it to be Elwood (BUM BUM BUMMMMMM). Elwood's company had gone bankrupt so he was going to use to diamonds to start a new life in another country. He had to keep the façade of the Horseman alive so the ghost would be blamed for the diamond necklace's disappearance. All in all, not a bad Scooby Doo episode. Not the best, but it's from The Scooby Doo Show, so it's never going to be the same as Scooby Doo, Where Are You? As with most Scooby Doo villains, Elwood's Headless Horseman is not that threatening. The episode gives a short recap of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but there's not much else there. This begins the trope of not doing a straight adaptation of Sleepy Hollow but using a descendant to tell a new story in modern times. This is available to watch on HBO Max.

 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)

Jeff Goldblum plays Ichabod Crane in this TV movie adaption of the Sleepy Hollow story. Goldblum's Ichabod is different from other incarnations in most ways. While still brainy, as you would imagine from a school teacher, he lacks the belief in superstitions and ghosts, at least at first. There's a few new characters in this version: Fritz Vanderhoof, an older man that tries to get Ichabod to believe in ghosts, his widowed daughter Thelma Dumkey who is chasing after Brom Bones, and Brom's dim-witted best friend, Frederick Dutcher. 

Ichabod comes to Sleepy Hollow and quickly hears from Mr. Vanderhoof that ghosts haunt this town and that each of the previous school teachers went funny and disappeared in the night. Winthrop Palmer, one of the most unlucky school teachers, was said to have been driven into the river to his death by the Headless Horseman. Ichabod doesn't entertain such nonsense, but as the story goes on, he's not so sure there isn't something supernatural going on at Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod falls in love with Katrina, whom Brom has claimed but has yet to make a move officially. Seems Brom struggles with commitment issues! Mr. Vanderhoof tries to set up Ichabod with his widowed daughter, but she has eyes for Brom. It's one big mess all capped off by appearances by the ghost of Winthrop Palmer. He mostly harasses Ichabod throughout the story, before finally coming to him face-to-face and telling him that he seeks revenge on Brom for trying to scare him off, and on the Headless Horseman who drove him off the cliffs into the river. Ichabod isn't quite sure if Palmer really is a ghost or not, but he starts to believe more than before in the supernatural when he runs into the Headless Horseman outside his school house. He starts "acting funny" in the eyes of the town, talking of the Headless Horseman and Palmer's ghost coming to him, and though he had been making strides in winning Katrina's heart, it's all for naught when her father deems him to be unfit for her. Ichabod's classroom is destroyed and he believes it to be ghosts, so he brings Squire Van Tassel (Balthus's title) back with him, only to find it's back to normal. This doesn't help his case at all. Ichabod gets in a tussle with Brom at the Van Tassel's winter ball, and he is banished from the house by Squire Van Tassel. He rides home, dejected, not knowing what awaits him. Meanwhile, back at the Van Tassel's, Brom and his buddy Dutcher plan to scare Ichabod away for good by dressing up as the Horseman again. Palmer, wanting revenge on Brom, is about to jump out at them from a barn, but gets tangled up in a rope instead. He is soon found by Mr. Van Tassel, who realizes that Ichabod wasn't funny in the head. Palmer had been pretending to be a ghost the whole time in order to get his revenge on Brom. Ichabod is on his way home when he runs into Brom's Headless Horseman. The real Horseman joins the fray and Brom runs away, right into Mr. Vanderhoof and his daughter. They realize that it has been Brom pretending to be the Horseman this whole time, and threaten to tell the whole town if he doesn't marry Thelma. Brom begrudgingly agrees. Ichabod, now believing that the Horseman is none other than Palmer, chases him into the town square, back to the Van Tassel's house. The Horseman disappears past the house and Ichabod calls out for Squire Van Tassel. Squire Van Tassel reveals that he found Palmer in his barn and that Ichabod is not crazy after all. He allows Ichabod to marry Katrina, though Ichabod almost ruins it by mentioning that he had just been chasing Palmer here, so he couldn't have been in the barn. Katrina kisses him to shut him up, and they all go inside to celebrate the engagement. 

As you could probably tell, there were quite a few differences between this version and most of the others. Added characters aside, there's also the fact that it is made plain that the Headless Horseman is real. Katrina actually marries Ichabod in the end, changing the more depressing ending of the traditional story. Brom doesn't make out that bad, though. He gets a girl, but just not the one he had wanted. There are plenty of story beats that fit with the original story, though mostly to do with what Brom does to harass Ichabod. In general, I like this version better than most of the other TV versions because it tries to do something different, like Burton's Sleepy Hollow does. It doesn't go that far out of the realm of the story, but just adds some extra pieces to make the story a bit more interesting. Jeff Goldblum is always gold, even in an early role like this. You do have a few other well-known actors (at the time) in the movie, namely Meg Foster as Katrina, Dick Butkus as Brom, and Paul Sand as Dutcher. Michael Ruud plays Winthrop Palmer and he's by far the most hammy of them all. He pretends to be a ghost by making the most clichéd ghost wails and laughs that you have ever heard. It's too funny not to love. Butkus's Brom is a dumb oaf like most other Brom's, but this version has a moustache, so he is infinitely more interesting and out of place. All in all I like this version a lot, though I know the quality isn't exactly top notch. It reminds me of watching late night movies on the VCR as a kid. It just has that soft, grainy quality to it. It's on Youtube if you're interested in watching it yourself. 

Shelly Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1985)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was the first episode of Shelly Duvall's second anthology series. In this version we meet Doffue Von Tassel, Katrina's uncle and the narrator of our tale. Doffue is a part of the story but breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience. Everything about this adaption is over the top, acting wise. Ed Begley Jr. plays Ichabod Crane with a manic energy, taking the description of Ichabod being fearful and superstitious to the extreme. I'm pretty sure he yelps and screams more than he talks. Tim Thomerson plays Brom Bones and he is also chewing the scenery, acting like a cross between Gaston and Johnny Bravo. There is definitely more humor inserted into this version than any of the others, which is apparent by the animated performances. While the characterizations are the same, the legend surrounding the Headless Horseman have changed. The pesky phantom instead of a Hessian soldier was a highwayman who lost his head by a sword instead of a cannonball. There is no mention of a bridge to cross, just that a Headless spirit roams the woods of Sleepy Hollow looking for a new head. The tale ends with a definitive answer that it was Brom that scared Ichabod off with a Headless Horseman costume. While that is only mildly surprising, the real twist is that Brom himself becomes the victim of the Headless Horseman the night after Halloween. It seems that Ichabod may have gotten some justice in the end. Another adaption that you can find on Youtube.

Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Midnight Ride (1994)

This version centers not so much on Ichabod and the Headless Horseman, but a middle-schooler named Ian. Ian is new to Sleepy Hollow and is having a hard time making friends due to him trying way too hard. While the school is setting up for a Halloween party, Ian runs into Katie, who he immediately falls for. Of course, Katie is dating a bully named Brad and Brad doesn't take too kindly to Ian making nice with his girlfriend. At the dance, Ian and Brad get into a confrontation that leads to Brad telling Ian he must go to the Bridge of Souls to recover a pumpkin, as it is a town tradition. This version of the Headless Horseman story differs as it centers in Ichabod taking a wrong turn and not making it to the Bridge of Souls before the Headless Horseman gets him. Once he goes and gets the pumpkin, the Headless Horseman arrives and chases him until Ian falls and begs for his life. Of course it ends up being Brad and all the kids come out of the woods and mock Ian. Katie decides to stay with Ian, mad that Brad has embarrassed Ian. While walking back to the dance the couple run into a ghostly man on horseback asking which way to the Bridge of Souls. They tell the ghost the right way and the specter identifies himself as Ichabod Crane before disappearing into the fog. They get back to the school and run into the real Headless Horseman who chases them because they changed the story. Brad gets his comeuppance when he, still wearing the Horseman costume, gets scared by the real Horseman and falls down backwards. Ian and Katie run all the way back to the bridge where Ian leads it across and the Horseman bursts into flames. The couple see Ichabod once more at the bridge who tells them he is lost and will go back to the fork and go his original way, thus setting the story straight. The two tired teenagers head back home, happy to no longer be in danger and look forward to their new relationship.

Besides using The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow as a backdrop, the main story itself draws parallels, namely in the love triangle. Ian, Katie, and Brad are all plays on Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod, Katrina, and Brom. There are obvious differences in how the love triangle plays out, as Katie ends up with Ian in the end instead of with Brad. Katie also doesn't lead Ian on just to make Brad jealous as Katrina does to Ichabod. The show had to add the part about Ichabod taking a wrong turn so they could come up with a way for the kids to change the story. The episode itself is just OK. I think I never noticed how Canadian the accents are in this show when I was a kid, or maybe this episode was extra egregious thanks to how many times Ian says "sorry". Ian is not likable at all. Everybody knew a kid like this growing up, or you were that kid sometimes without even knowing it. A lot of unearned confidence in this kid. The twists on the Sleepy Hollow story are fun and I like stories about towns with spooky traditions, real or otherwise. In the end, it's not a go-to if you are looking for a story about Sleepy Hollow and is definitely not one of the best Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes. I'll make a list of those when I get around to watching them all over again. You can watch this episode on Youtube. 

My Favorite Scary Stories

For someone who likes scary things, I am very far behind on my scary stories. I haven't read most of Stephen King's massive library, and most horror from the last forty years has gone completely under my radar. I keep telling myself that I can read horror stories outside of October, but it just doesn't happen. A lot of these picks are from stories I've read in just the last few years, but some are from my childhood.  These are in no particular order. These are just ten of the stories that I really enjoy or have scared me at one time or another.


1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

I'll just say that I was pleasantly surprised that this story was so much different from the Universal classic film. This monster, or "Adam," talks and even waxes philosophically with his beleaguered inventor. The monster was not accepted by Frankenstein, so he goes about completely ruining his life. This book is deep and has some of the most disturbing lines from any book.


2. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

This book was quickly adapted into a pretty decent horror movie in 1963, and was later remade in 1999, both titles being shortened to The Haunting. Spoiler Alert: the newer one not so good. Stick to the first one, or this book. The book deals with a paranormal investigator who brings a bunch of psychics into the house to discover its secrets. The book relies more on subtle terror, and makes you wonder whether there is actually any paranormal activity going on, or if Eleanor, the main character, is just imagining it because she's a crazy person.

3. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

This ones a short story, and by far one of the most famous scary short stories of all time. The story involves a sleepy town in 1940's America that takes part in a ritual known as "the lottery." I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it, but rest assured that you will be uneasy by the end. Shirley Jackson's short story was included in a 1948 issue of the New Yorker and quickly became the most infamous story they have ever run.


4. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

There are several other titles for this book, but they aren't exactly politically correct. More of a murder mystery than a horror book, but it's got the perfect mood and setting. Ten seemingly random people are invited to a remote island off the coast of England and are all accused of past hidden crimes through a gramophone found inside a large mansion on the island. Mystery and murder ensue! A classic, to be sure.


5. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book is the newest book on this list, and is probably my favorite. Yes, it's a young adult book, but it's near perfect in my book. Gaiman has a knack for spookier tales (Coraline, Sandman, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane), and this is his best. Partly modeled after The Jungle Books, the book follows Nobody Owens, a young boy who is taken up by ghosts in a graveyard after his family is murdered by the deadly order known as the Jack of All Trades. Spooky, touching, and heartbreaking all in one spectacular story. I can't recommend this book more. I listen to it every year for Halloween (it's narrated by Gaiman himself).


6. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving

A short story penned in 1820 as a part of The Sketch Book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is undoubtedly Irving's most famous story. In this early American classic, the lanky and stork-like school teacher, Ichabod Crane, becomes entangled in a battle for a rich, young woman's heart. Crane ultimately meets a mysterious end, though the reader is left to decide whether it was from the legendary "Headless Horseman, " or Crane's nemesis, Brom Bones. I do enjoy the book, but I do feel that the various film adaptations help bring the story to life.

7. "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood

Considered by H.P. Lovecraft to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature, "The Willows" tells the story of two men traveling down the Dunabe river, all the time being stalked by a powerful and otherworldly force of nature. This short story is heavy on dread and unease. This is probably the most effective story in terms of freaking me out.


8. "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury has many short stories that deal with horror and the unknown, but his best is "The Veldt". Bradbury was famously disgusted by modern technology, as evidenced by Fahrenheit 451, and this story is no different. A family lives in a futuristic home where the children have a virtual reality room that projects images telepathically from their mind and project it into the room. The parents become concerned that the room is raising the children and attempt to separate them from it, but find out that perhaps the room is full of more reality than they thought.


9. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

I had to read this in a literature class in college, and judging by the title, thought it was going to be a bore. Instead, it's a story about a family who winds up running into a serial killer and his cohorts. It's a fascinating story, and proves once and for all that you should never take your grandmother with you on long trips. Less of a scary story, and more of a surprising, though-provoking evaluation of the human condition.


10. "The Green Ribbon" by Alvin Schwartz

This story has been around for many, many years, but my first encounter was from the children's book, In a Dark, Dark Room and other Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz. There's a young girl that always wears a green ribbon around her neck. She meets a nice boy who asks her about the ribbon, but she refuses to tell him why she wears it. They eventually fall in love and get married, and again he asks, and again she refuses. They grow old together, and when she is on her deathbed, he asks her a final time and she finally tells him that he can remove the green ribbon. Then her head falls off. Yup. This scared the crap out of me when I was young, and is honestly still pretty unnerving.

Disney's Haunted Mansion: Part II

The Haunted Mansion has become a favorite ride for many park attendees over the years, so much so that Disney built it in every park they operate. There is a Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom inside Disney World, and also a Haunted Mansion in Tokyo Disneyland. There are two more version of Disney's Haunted Mansion in the world, but they go by different names. Phantom Manor is in Disneyland Paris, while Mystic Manor is in Hong Kong Disneyland. So what are the biggest differences between the rides? Well, every attraction is almost exactly the same, except for Mystic Manor and Phantom Manor. Phantom Manor is considered the scariest of any of the rides, featuring a lot of differences from the original ride, including different portraits for the stretching room, and way more appearances of the Bride. The architecture of Phantom Manor is Western Victorian. Mystic Manor is part of the Haunted Mansion family, but barely. It is closer to a ride based on The Adventurer's Club in Pleasure Island than a Haunted Mansion ride. OK, so that's not completely true, but it certainly feels like it. The story in this house is that you are visiting Lord Henry Mystic and his monkey Albert, who have just discovered a mysterious music box said to be cursed. Albert opens the box, ala Abu in the Cave of Wonders and everything in the house comes alive. The spirit of the Haunted Mansion is in this ride and there are winks here and there to the original, including some of the same changing portraits, like the Medusa. This ride just opened, and it honestly looks pretty cool. If you don't plan on going to Hong Kong anytime soon, then you can watch a POV video here. The architectural style of Mystic Manor is Victorian.

The Haunted Mansion in Tokyo Disneyland looks almost exactly like the Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom, outside and inside, so I won't compare those two. Disney World's Haunted Mansion is a Gothic building, and is was purposefully made to look creepier and more run-down than Disneyland's Mansion. Don't get me wrong, the mansion still looks good, but the webs, cemetery, and long grass add to the mystique of the Mansion. Probably one of the most famous parts of the Haunted Mansion is the Stretching Room. Funny enough, this was created as a necessity for the Disneyland version. To get to the actual ride, guests have to go down a level, but Disney ideally didn't want the guests to notice. So, they created the Stretching Room, where portraits seemed to stretch to show ghoulish sights, though it's just a glorified elevator. Guests then go down a long hallway where they see various changing portraits, from a cat-lady, to a knight on horseback. They are then able to finally get on the "Doom Buggies" and see all the happy haunts. The Disney World's Haunted Mansion needed no such elevator ride to get guests to the loading area. The Stretching Room was very popular, so they decided to instead have the ceiling go up to create the same effect. In both mansions, the actual ride is not inside the literal mansion, but inside a building behind it. You can only see this building if you ride the monorail, otherwise they've hidden them pretty well. The queue for Disney World's Mansion has been re-done recently, so you're bound to be entertained as you wait for the ride. Probably the only other big difference between the two is the audio that plays during the ride. The Ghost Host for each ride is voiced by Paul Frees, though the audio is abridged for the Disney World version. One leg up that Disneyland's Mansion has over Disney World's is its transition to Haunted Mansion Holiday, where the Mansion is completely turned into a Nightmare Before Christmas themed ride starting in October. Tokyo Disneyland also takes part in Haunted Mansion Holiday. I've watched footage of that edition of the Haunted Mansion, and though I love Nightmare Before Christmas, I love the original ride more.

Part of the reason, or most, depending on who you talk to, that the Haunted Mansion is so popular, is because of the notable haunts. There are many versions of the story behind the Haunted Mansion, but the original story involved a sea captain named Captain Gore, who built the mansion to house himself and his wife, Priscilla. After he was finished, he had to go back to sea, and told his love that he would be back someday, but warned her never to go up in the attic. Her husband had been gone quite a long time, and she grew more curious about the contents of the attic. She went up to explore and found inside some trunks evidence that her husband was actually a bloodthirsty pirate. She didn't have time to react, as she was promptly killed from behind. It was her husband back from the sea, though in his rage in finding someone snooping in his stuff, he didn't realize that he had just murdered his own wife. In his grief, he went to the entrance hall and hung himself from the rafters. The Ghost Host is none other than Captain Gore, and the Bride in the attic is Priscilla. The story has been changed, with the Bride being changed to Constance and her identity changed to the woman in the Stretching Room who has murdered each of her five husbands. The Ghost Host's portrait can be seen in various locations inside the Mansions, and look like a menacing,gaunt-looking man with a noose hanging around his neck. Perhaps the identity of Master Gracey has caused the most confusion. The names on the tombstones are for the most part named after Imagineers and their family. Most who saw the name Master Gracey figured that that meant Gracey was the literal master of the house, though Disney meant it as the title of a young man, or boy. The confusion was so widespread that it slowly became canon, culminating in the Haunted Mansion movie having the owner of the house being Gracey. Disney has by now accepted this as canon now, and Gracey is now the owner of the house, not the Ghost Host. Though not intended to be any character in particular, the portrait where a young man slowly changes into an old man, and then into a skeleton, became Master Gracey because fans willed it to be.

Madame Leota is probably one of the more popular and well known characters inside the mansion. Though she appears for just a few seconds in the ride, it a memorable span of time. The new Haunted Mansion store in Disney World will have many of it's wares featuring Madame Leota. Favorite portraits inside the mansion include the five changing pictures, including a cat-lady, the Black Prince, the Flying Dutchman, Master Gracey (based on The Portrait of Dorian Gray), and a Medusa. The Sinister Eleven portraits are found throughout Disney World's Mansion, and include the Ghost Host, the April-December Woman, and characters based on historical people like Jack the Ripper and Rasputin. There are many, many more characters inside the Mansion, but the most recognizable are the Hitchhiking Ghosts. Each were never given names, though fans didn't mind making up their own. There is Gus (Prisoner), Ezra (Skeleton), and Phineas (Traveler), and together they have become the Haunted Mansion's mascots. They appear near the end of the ride and seem to hitch a ride with you in your Doom Buggy. The one haunt that you won't see inside the mansion is the legendary Hatbox Ghost. He was first installed in Disneyland in the attic next to the Bride. His head was supposed to disappear and re-appear inside the hatbox. The Imagineers couldn't quite get the effect to work, so they had to get rid of it. Rumors still come up that the ghost was too scary for the ride, but most people buy the official story. The Hatbox Ghost has become such a hit with fans of the mansion that Disney finally added pictures of the spook in the Corridor of Doors inside the Disney World Mansion. Guillermo Del Toro is a huge fan of the Haunted Mansion and is currently developing a movie based mostly around the Hatbox Ghost. I can almost guarantee it'll be better than the Eddie Murphy version.

There are a few quirks with the two American Haunted Mansions. In the Disneyland Mansion, there is a giant spider on the glass in front of the ballroom scene. Doesn't seem to unusual, right? The spider, along with what appears to be a web, is in fact Disney's cheap way of covering up a crack in the glass allegedly created by a child hitting it with a rock from a slingshot. It's very hard to see, and you have to be looking for it. People are strange, and they think that it's OK to do whatever they want if their dead relative wished it. People ask all the time to have their ashes dumped inside the various Haunted Mansions. Each time someone does, they have to stop and clean it up, so don't do it! The urban legend surrounding the first instance at Disneyland claims that a boy's ashes were strewn around the inside of the ride, and now the boy haunts the Mansion. The ashes thing is probably true, but not too sure about the real haunting. When you leave Disney World's Haunted Mansion, you may notice that there is a Pet Cemetery on the left hand side. It's very small, but it has a few cute tombstones. If you look all the way in the back and to the left, you'll see a tombstone for none other than Mr. Toad from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Why is he there? Well, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was a popular dark ride in Fantasyland inside the Magic Kingdom up until 1998 when it was replaced by a Winnie the Pooh ride. Disney took the Toad statue above the ride and placed it inside the pet cemetery as a tribute to a fallen ride.

I haven't experienced any other Haunted Mansion than the one in Disney World, so my love is specifically for that ride. I have seen POV videos for the other versions, but I love my version the best. Hopefully someday I can experience one of the others ,but I wouldn't be too crushed if I didn't. All I know is that I'm too excited that I'll soon be riding one of the best rides in the whole world.

Disney's Haunted Mansion: Part I

I remember being very scared. So much so that I wouldn't let my dad take me anywhere near the Gothic style house. He must have really wanted me to experience the ride though, as he eventually convinced me that it would be fun. I must have been around 4 or 5, probably during the second trip my parents took my family to Walt Disney World. All my fear melted away when I finally did go inside and experience the masterpiece that is the Haunted Mansion. It filled me with so much wonder and it really wasn't that scary at all, in fact it was a lot of fun! Needless to say, I will be taking my children on this ride someday, and though they may be scared at first, I hope they embrace the ride just as I did so many years ago. My wife and I are leaving for Disney World soon and I couldn't be more excited. I love everything there, but my pilgrimage is always to the Haunted Mansion. I've ridden it up to three times in one trip. I don't think I've had the misfortune of seeing it under refurbishment while we visited. It wouldn't ruin the trip, but I would be seriously bummed. I know what you're thinking, that this "haunted house" ride shouldn't mean that much to me, but it does. I think it's a combination of things. The Haunted Mansion represents a unique part of my childhood. As far as I can tell, it introduced me to all things spooky. It showed me that just because something had ghosts in it, didn't mean it was scary. It could be fun! I embraced that mentality early on, and led to my love of Halloween. The ride also means a lot to me because I associate it with my father. I don't think I've ridden it with him since 2000, but it was our tradition when going to the park-- that and riding Pirates of the Caribbean. No one else in my family went crazy for it, so if anything my dad and I would ride it by ourselves, and a couple times in a row if time allowed. This ride is special to me, which is why I wanted to write about it. The Haunted Mansion has a ton of devoted fans. There's even a website dedicated to it, so I'm not alone in my love for it. Disney did something right with this ride. There's tons of information out there about the ride and its many different interpretations, so it's easy to learn more if you'd like. I'm just going to give a brief background.

The idea for the Haunted Mansion actually predates Disneyland, as Walt Disney had hired a bunch of Imagineers to help him come up with areas for his new park. One such Imagineer came up with a old broken down antebellum manor at the end of a crooked street leading away from Main Street. The idea was to have a whole land dedicated to New Orleans, and it would include a thieves market, a pirate wax museum, and a haunted house walk-through. So it's evident that they first intended the Haunted Mansion not to be something that you could actually ride, but just walk through. Who knows what that would have been like. Walt Disney liked the walkthrough idea, but hated that they wanted to make the house look dilapidated. Disneyland was supposed to be a nice place! He made the rule that the house could be whatever they liked inside, but the outside would look creepy, but not run down. This is in contrast to the other Haunted Mansions, which were designed after Walt Disney's death, they are notably less nice looking on the outside on purpose when compared to Disneyland's. Ken Anderson was responsible for much of the mansion's design, along with Claude Coates and Marc Davis, among others. Coates wanted the attraction to be more scary, while Davis wanted it to be a light-hearted affair, more in line with the rest of Disneyland. They both got their way, as you can see a noticeable shift in tone from the beginning half of the ride, to the latter half. The beginning has more spooky imagery, the stretching room, the hanging body of the Ghost Host, the rising coffin lid, and many other things. The latter half, starting after the ballroom scene, is a bit sillier, with the graveyard scene being filled with many goofy ghosts doing an assortment of gags and tricks.

The Haunted Mansion was announced in 1961, with a opening date in 1963, or so the handbills passed out to guests at the main gate were led to believe. This opening date would prove to be way off, as the Haunted Mansion didn't actually open til late 1969. So what was the delay? There was a lot of confusion on what was going to be in the ride, and how people were going to experience it. The exterior was finished by 1963, which was accompanied by a sign out front that promised an opening of the ride very soon. Rumors began to fly around about what was housed inside the mansion, with the most wild piece of gossip circling around it being Walt Disney's second home. The ride's design was heavily changed after the 1964-65 World's Fair, where Omni-mover technology was introduced. The Imagineers knew they had their new ticket to a hot ride. With a continually moving vehicle, guests to be spun and directed to look at certain things inside the ride, causing more chances for surprise. Though Walt Disney had liked his walkthrough idea, the Omni-movers were an improvement. After some redesigns after Walt's death in 1966, the Haunted Mansion finally opened in 1969, with it becoming a smash hit with park attendees. Stay tuned for Part II coming soon!

Evil Dead (2013) Review

Who likes to see filmmakers attempt to remake a classic movie? Nobody, that's who! It works about ten percent of the time, with the other ninety-percent ending up smelling to high heaven. You have your Ocean's Eleven, and then you have your Psycho. So, like every other Evil Dead fan, I freaked out when I heard they were going to remake it. It just didn't seem like a good idea. Why bother messing with a classic? After hearing that Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapert, and Sam Raimi were producing it, I settled down. As you've probably noticed, I'm a little late with this, considering the movie came out in March. I wasn't incredibly excited to see it, so it took until now for me to rent it. So what did I think? It's....different. Let me explain.

The Evil Dead is a classic of horror cinema and it also-unbeknownst to me when I first saw it-has a huge cult following. It's a classic because the liberal use of blood, the creative camera usage, the bare-bones look, and the corny one-liners. Evil Dead (yes, the new movie is titled Evil Dead, not The Evil Dead) takes a few cues from the original, but tries to be its own movie. This is good because you can't make a shot for shot remake of a film and expect it to go over well (I'm looking at you Psycho). Evil Dead couldn't be overly hokey, couldn't look cheap, and couldn't reuse dialog. The Evil Dead was a movie for the 80's, and this is one for the 2010's. The best way of describing Evil Dead is saying that it's like they put the first two Raimi films in a blender. It takes several cues from both classic films, but leaves out the humor. Seriously, there are no lighthearted moments in this movie.

While The Evil Dead dealt with five teens going to a cabin in the woods to just have fun, Evil Dead has five teens going out to a cabin in the woods to try to clean out their user friend. Something that was nice about the original film was the lack of back story. You didn't need to know anything about the characters except for associations. You had a brother and sister, the brother's girlfriend, and two other friends (the two other friends were boyfriend and girlfriend in the original). There you go! Who cares about their back story, it's a horror movie. Evil Dead decides to give at least the two main characters, the brother and sister, a back story. Their mom went nuts and the brother left Michigan for Chicago, we assume because he can't cope with his mother's illness. This leaves the sister all by her lonesome, who eventually breaks under the stress of it all and becomes addicted to heroin. The trip is a way of everyone trying to make the sister go cold turkey, this time with the brother back in the picture. Some might say that a back story helps you feel for the characters, but it doesn't help me. I usually root for everyone to survive, even if they don't. I only don't care when the movie tries to make you hate a character. So the added story didn't really do anything for me, but I knew exactly how they were going to use it.

To keep this review a little bit shorter, I'll just go over a few similarities between The Evil Dead and Evil Dead. The biggest one is the situation: five kids from Michigan at a cabin in the woods, with no way out and crazy stuff going on. The main villain, "The Force," is the same, with both movies using a POV shot to show the demon's perspective. The way everyone is taken by the demon is the same, usually coming from direct contact with a possessed person, or Deadite. The pendent makes an appearance in Evil Dead, though instead of a gift to the girlfriend from the main character, it's from the brother to the sister. The reason I'm sticking with just labels is because the names are not the same in each movie. The main character in The Evil Dead is obviously Ash, while in Evil Dead, it can be argued whether it is Mia or David (the sister and brother). A few weapons from The Evil Dead make a return, namely the shotgun and the infamous chainsaw. In both films the sister is the first to be possessed, after being raped by the woods. Yes, you heard me correctly. I was honestly surprised they kept that part in. The sister is then locked in the basement for most of the film, though serves as the main adversary. The male friend is again the one that releases the demon, though the way they do it is completely different. While Scotty played a recording of a professor reading the words from the Necrinomicon (the Book of the Dead), Eric simply reads the words out loud from the book, even though there is writing all over it that tells him not to. Oh, Eric. The Deadites do the same tricks as in the original, claiming they are back to normal and not actually hideous demons who want to eat your soul. The best similarity between the two movies is the similar camera work for when Ash/David is getting things ready in the shed. Pure genius. I loved it.

Evil Dead differs in a lot of ways, however. The movie does a good job of keeping you in the dark about who the actual main character is. It is set up to make you think that David, the brother is the Ash of the film and therefore is the one that you should bank on making it out. His sister, Mia, is the first one possessed and therefore can't be the real main character, right? Wrong. It was a great twist, but this movie changes the rules on how to be free of the demon. You have to either burn, bury alive, or dismember the original host, in this case, his sister Mia. He almost burns the place down, but can't do it because of back story! Gah! He decides instead to buy her alive, though he plans on bringing her back to life after the fact. It actually works, though after Mia comes back from that...somehow, David is stabbed in the neck by the Deadite he forgot about. Oh whoops, now Mia is the last one standing. Seriously, it's always the girl that's last. She burns the house down, but it's not over. Another demon comes out of the ground and totally messes her up, eventually leading to her hand being taken off. She then attaches a chainsaw to her stub of an arm and grinds the hell out of the demon's face. Bet you didn't see that coming! This is what I meant when I said that it's like the first two movies mixed together. Ash doesn't lose his hand and replace it with the chainsaw until Evil Dead II. It was a nice touch to the end of the movie. Besides the ending being completely different, the way each person is possessed is pretty different, save for the sister in both films. Other differences include: two cars in this film instead of one, there's a dog named Grandpa (who names their dog Grandpa?!), there's an opening sequence that shows that this isn't the first time this has happened, and there is a complete lack of bookcases falling on people rendering them completely immobile.

I liked a few things about the movie. First off, the blood and gore was up to par with The Evil Dead. It might have even surpassed it in some ways. A lot of the weapon use was cringe-worthy, especially the utility knife, syringe, pneumatic stapler, and the electric knife. This film is relentless; once the story starts to get going, it never stops. The twist with the main characters was great, and I think the acting wasn't that bad either. It's not too hard to be better actors than the ones in The Evil Dead though, no offense to Bruce Campbell. I just appreciate that the filmmakers made a film that was all their own. It wasn't a shot for shot remake, but it also wasn't a incredibly loose interpretation. You knew while you were watching it that this was The Evil Dead. What I didn't like about the movie was the obvious foreshadowing. Seeing the characters use the electric knife and the stapler made it glaringly obvious that those items would be used later on as weapons. Like I said before, I didn't really like the whole back story. It took away from the film in my opinion and gave them all really stupid reasons for doings things. They decide not to leave the cabin at first because they think if they leave Mia will go back to heroin. Everyone feels indifferent to David because he moved to Chicago. David wimps out of doing a bunch of awesome stuff because he feels that he can't do anything wrong to his sister. David is kind of a weak character in general. He is convinced the whole time that everyone is alright, that maybe it's just some kind of sickness that his sister has and all they need to do is get her to a doctor. He must represent delusion or something, while Eric represents the audience, constantly trying to slap some sense into him. The last gripe I have is the ending. You can't have a happy ending in an Evil Dead movie! Something bad is supposed to happen!

If I had to give the movie a grade, I'd give it a solid B. Not bad for a remake. Let me know what you thought about the remake. Did you like it? Hate it? Even love it? Word is they are coming out with two sequels, the last one that will tie-in with the original trilogy. I'm a little intrigued by that, though I don't know if that involves Bruce Campbell playing Ash again. He's kind of too old for that now. It hurts me to say that, but it's true. I still love him anyway.

My Top Ten Halloween Movies

People like reading lists, right? I mean, they have websites dedicated to lists, so FINE! Here's my attempt at a top ten list! Since it is Halloween and all, I'm going to do a top ten list of my favorite Halloween type movies. I was considering calling it my top ten favorite scary movies, but there were too many that were funny movies that just happened to be about ghosts or zombies. Go figure! So, I have changed it to Halloween, because I love being vague. Enjoy!

10. Shadow of the Vampire

I am a sucker for movies about making movies. They just appeal to me. So it would make sense that Shadow of the Vampire would be my kind of movie. I didn't hear about this movie until last year, but it's been out since 2000. Chances are that you haven't heard about it either, since it kind of flew under everyone's radar only making $11 million in theaters. The plot centers around the making of the silent movie, Nosferatu. Anyone familiar with Nosferatu knows that it was just a ripoff of Dracula since they couldn't get the rights at that time. Anyway, John Malkovich's character, the director of said film, wants his production to be as close as possible to the real thing, so much so that he finds a real vampire to play Nosferatu's vampire, Count Orlok. I won't go anymore into the movie, but just know that it is definitely worth a watch, if only for Willem Dafoe's magnificent recreation of Nosferatu's Count Orlok. 

9. Beetlejuice

If I remember correctly, I watched the TV show version of Beetlejuice many times before I finally saw the movie version. I'll just say that the dynamic was a little bit different. Nevertheless, I love this movie. It definitely has that Tim Burton flair. The plot revolves around a recently deceased couple who are having trouble with the people that have moved into their old house. They unwittingly unleash the devious "bio-exorcist" Betelguese (that's how is name is actually spelled, like the star. The movie title is the phonetic spelling.) on the new owners and chaos ensues. The highlight of the movie is Betelguese, played by Micheal "I'm Batman" Keaton. Keaton literally has a little less than 18 minutes on screen, but believe me when I say that he utilizes every minute of it. It's a twisted comedy from the mind of Tim Burton, and one of his better films. 

8. Halloween

Halloween in my mind is the slasher film. It's not the first slasher film, but it's probably one of the more well known ones. People who have seen other slasher movies, especially newer ones, and then watch this for the first time may find it a little predictable and cliche, but that's because every slasher film has copied this movie. The movie follows Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode, a high school babysitter, who, along with her friends, are terrorized by a speechless and seemingly indestructible killer named Micheal Myers. This confused me at first when I was a child, since there was the scary Micheal Myers, and the funny one from SNL. This is another movie that I didn't watch until a few years ago when it randomly came on TV during October. This is a classic slasher film that hits all the right notes. It just feels real, and it does a great job of building up the suspense as the movie goes on. Random fun fact about this movie: the Micheal Myers mask is just a William Shatner mask that had the hair removed and the whole thing spray painted white. 

7. 28 Days Later

Just another zombie movie? I think not. Danny Boyle decided to turn the zombie genre on its head by making the zombies a little bit different from the ones that people were used to seeing. Instead of radioactivity from a space probe like in Night of the Living Dead, or a mysterious gas like Return of the Living Dead, the zombies in this movie are made from a virus called "Rage." Oh, and these zombies aren't slow like the ones you may be used to seeing, they are fast as hell. The beginning is probably the best part of this movie. Just watching Cillian Murphy's Jim walk around an abandoned London makes me shiver. The mood is perfect. I don't know how else to put it. I don't know what else to say about the movie, except that I like the first half a bit better than the second. Don't get me wrong, its a great film, but some parts in the second act just seem out of place. 

6. Psycho

From this point on, you can basically lump all these movies together, because they are all basically perfect in my book. They are all different kinds of scary stories though. Psycho is under the old classic category. But I also find it the scariest out of all the entries. Everything about this Hitchcock tale is extremely terrifying to me. An out of the way motel, a strange motel manager, tons of taxidermy on the walls, and a mysteriously absent mother. I won't spoil anything here, unlike in my Psycho review. You should already know the shower scene, and if you don't, then you must be living under a rock. Actually, you are fortunate for not seeing it, because after I saw it for the first time I basically had to have my bathroom on lock-down in order to feel safe inside a shower. If you want an older horror movie for the Halloween season, this is the perfect choice. Suspense, mystery, and murder!

5. Shaun of the Dead

This "Zom-Com" can be watched any time of the year, but why not during the Halloween season. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play best friends trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse. It parodies all the Romero zombie movies, even in the title which is an obvious homage to Romero's Dawn of the Dead. This was my first Pegg/Frost film and it is in my opinion the best one. It's a funny movie that knows when to throw in a bit of heart, but also when to throw in a literal heart. Just because its a comedy doesn't mean its not gory. It's a zombie pic! What do you expect!? If you want something for the season, but want to laugh, look no further than this British comedy classic. 

4. Ghostbusters

Yeah, yeah, another comedy. I was torn which to put at 4, and which to put at 5, but Ghostbusters is too much of a classic. This movie will never not be funny to me. This is another one that you can watch anytime and it's good. It fits the season because of the whole ghost thing, but it's truly a comedy for all seasons. You all know the plot: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Ackroyd, and Ernie Hudson are the Ghostbusters, and they do just that. This is probably Bill Murray's funniest movie, but I'm sure someone will argue with me on that. As funny as the movie is, it still has some legitimately scary parts. I was super scared of the ghost librarian as a child. And I'm sure I had nightmares about the beast versions of the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster. I could go on and on about this movie, so I'll just stop here and offer this movie up as another alternative to any truly scary movie for Halloween. 

3. Alien

Alien is a masterpiece. It freaks me out every time I watch it, and I love it. The whole movie is so claustrophobic and suspenseful that it makes me antsy. They are literally trapped on this ship in the middle of space with a hostile alien. Alien movies aren't typically thought of as Halloween type movies, but I would say that this movie is just as worthy as any movie. There's a killer, it's in a secluded area, people get picked off one-by-one. Sounds like a classic slasher-like movie, minus the slash. Like Halloween, Alien's protagonist is a woman, played by Sigourney Weaver. It's refreshing to see a female lead in a horror movie, especially one that kicks so much ass. Well, not as much in this movie as in the sequels, but she does her fair share. One of the greatest horror movies of all time, and one of the best movies period. 

2. The Thing

Another John Carpenter film, the other being Halloween, this dealt with scientists in the Antarctic. That's not so scary, right? Oh, I forgot to mention the part about the extraterrestrial parasite that assimilates other organisms and is in turn able to imitate them. That's right, these researchers are stuck at a ice station with an alien that can look like any one of them. As you can imagine, this causes mass paranoia among the group and things escalate quickly. The movie is actually a remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World, which is the movie everyone is watching in Halloween. This is one of my favorite scary movies because it's premise is just that good. Who can you trust? The alien could be anybody. The suspense is unbearable. I love it, though. I'll warn you though, this is kind of an intense movie. Lots of gore, mutations, and scary images, so if you aren't into those things, I would go for a lighter Halloween movie. 

1. Evil Dead II

OK, so this was a hard one. Not between this and The Thing, but between this movie and its predecessor, The Evil Dead. I really want to put both of them, because I love them both so much, but there can be only one! The Evil Dead is a low-budget masterpiece that was straight horror. It's got great makeup, gore effects, and camera work. What it doesn't have that II has is comedy, well intentional comedy at least. I heard a ton of laughs at a midnight showing of The Evil Dead last year. I don't know, I just have a harder time recommending the first film to people because it's just so different. The tree part also has a little bit to do with it. II has a bigger budget, better acting, and a bigger role for the greatest B-movie actor of all time, Bruce Campbell. Campbell's Ash was the hero in the first film, but he's kind of a woos. He got stuck under bookcases a lot. In the second film, he has attitude and he's not gonna go down without a fight. The second film literally rewrites the first film in the first ten minutes. So, it's kind of a remake of the first film, but not really. Anyway, Ash is tormented by The Book of the Dead. He plays a tape player of an archaeology professor reciting passages from said book and it unleashes an evil force. This evil possesses his friends and it's up to Ash to banish the evil once and for all. The humor in the movie definitely has a Three Stooges vibe to it. That's the best way to describe it. The movie can be just plain silly sometimes, than the next second, something completely messed up happens. That's Evil Dead II. Funny and messed up. This is another film I could go on and on about but I'll save that for another post. If I had to label this under any specific horror genre, I guess it would have to be the zombie genre. This movie is too hard to define, you'll just have to check it out for yourself. Have a great Halloween!

My Halloween

Anyone that knows me pretty well knows that I love Halloween. Always have, always will. When I was a kid, it wasn't about the candy so much as it was about the experience of it all. Being able to go out one night a year and dress up as something spooky was good enough for me. The candy was just an added bonus. Where did my love of Halloween come from? Well, I don't really remember, but I kind of associate it with my father. My dad has always enjoyed all the spookiness of Halloween too, so I'm sure his enthusiasm just rubbed off on me. My parents always decorated the house for Halloween, with paper cutouts of ghosts, witches, and other assorted spooks. So, I basically grew up around it. It's not just the night of Halloween either, but the whole month of October, and basically anything spooky. I could ride The Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World a million times and not get sick of it. I love scary stories, and every once in a while, a good scary movie. So this is basically just going to be a little walk through of my obsession with Halloween.

The best tradition as a kid always is going out trick-or-treating. Like I said, I loved the candy and everything, but it was the night itself that was exciting for me. What other night could I walk around a strange neighborhood in the dark while being dressed up? No other, because I'm pretty sure you'd get picked up by the cops. There was a certain magic to it. Halloween night is always a special one, and I can't rightly say why at the moment. It's out of the ordinary is all I can say. I could dress up, be something scary like a ghost, or harmless like a clown (I know some of you find clowns terrifying so I'm sorry), and pretend for a while that the neighborhood I was in was inhabited by all these other mystifying creatures that you could see no other time. It was always best when it was not too cold, as my mother would often make me wear a coat over my costume if it was too cold, and not raining. Rain did not make everything spookier, just wetter. The neighborhoods we visited would change from year to year, but we always went to my Great Aunt and Uncle's house in Highland to get some candy and visit. I didn't have that much of a sweet tooth as a child and I still don't. That being said, I still loved having a haul of candy at the end of the night. My parents, like everybody's, stole some of the good stuff, but there were enough goodies left to consider the night a success. The best houses were the ones that gave out actual full sized candy bars. Those were the rich people who just wanted to do something nice for the kids. God bless em'! Another rare treat was a can of pop. That only happened a few times in my childhood, but oh man was it ever awesome. Thanks to that, I could walk around for an extra hour and not feel tired! But for the most part it was fun size candy bars, licorice, hard candy, pennies (I hated this), and popcorn balls. And there was always that one nut-job that gave you a toothbrush. Every neighborhood has to have a dentist. Jerks. I would thank you kindly to let me rot my teeth. The modes for carrying around the loot changed throughout the years, and is oddly specific to my generation. McDonald's came out with these trick-or-treat buckets in the late eighties, early nineties that had a ghost, a witch, and a pumpkin. Man I loved these things, and almost every kid had one. The problem was they were too darn small and you'd fill it up with candy too fast. We used to have to run back to the car to dump out our full pails. As I became older, I had to resort to a pillow case. Not as spooky or fun, but hey, it held a ton of candy.

My parents were great not only because they took us trick-or-treating, or that they decorated the house, but also because they taped a bunch of awesome Halloween specials. Every Halloween we would watch these specials, and they were probably the best things ever. You have the classic Garfield's Halloween Adventure. Garfield and Odie go out trick-or-treating, only to run into a bunch of pirate ghosts...or is it ghost pirates? The Real Ghostbusters had an episode called "The Halloween Door" and it dealt with this old dude trying to get rid of Halloween. He went even as far as creating a device that makes Halloween associated things disappear. Geez, someone's a killjoy. Well it turns out that he releases a bunch of demons in the process and the Ghostbusters have to stop them and bring peace back to Halloween night. Fun episode, and it has a lot of little bits of history on Halloween. Everybody watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, as it is a classic alongside the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The whole episode is genius, but I love anything that had to do with Snoopy. My all time favorite thing to watch though was Disney's Halloween Treat. It was a TV special that came out in 1982, I believe, and all it was was a bunch of old Disney cartoons that had to do with Halloween. It was all narrated by this jack-o-lantern puppet too, which had this kind of creepy voice. My favorite part of the whole special was the headless horseman chase from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. That story creeps me out, but is still one of my favorite Halloween stories. Oh, and Night on Bald Mountain. So awesome. I'm unusual because I've basically watched those specials every single year. I literally just watched the Ghostbusters one today. It's a stupid tradition, but I love these old videos.

I'm pretty serious about Halloween. I've decorated for it ever since I was old enough, except for this one year back in middle school. I'm not sure what my deal was. I think it was in that transition where I thought Halloween could only be enjoyed by kids, and since I was a little older, I wasn't supposed to like Halloween. I must have gotten over that, because my love for the holiday is going strong! I've even had a Halloween party every single year since the beginning of high school. I like to get the most out of the whole month by trying to watch some scary movies, maybe play a creepy game like Castlevania or Zombies Ate my Nieghbors, and read a few scary stories. I don't think I'll ever recapture the wonder I had as a child during this season, but it's still fun to try and get into the festivities. I see people that put a lot of emphasis on Christmas, and I get it, it's a fun holiday. However, I put as much energy into Halloween. I may not fully decorate my house and the outside, but I like to live the season. Yes, I realize that I am a crazy person, as Halloween is not typically one of the holidays that people go all out for, but that's just who I am. The one thing that I have never been able to do on Halloween is hand out candy. My parents house, and all the previous places I lived in weren't conducive to handing out treats to kids. I don't know why I want to do it so badly, but I think it has to do with just being able to see all the kids in their costumes and seeing how much fun everyone is having on the holiday. Plus it gives my wife and I an excuse for buying tons of candy! Now that we have a house in a subdivision, my dream will finally be realized!

So please enjoy the month, as I always have. Go out and see a scary movie, or watch one at home. Go to a haunted attraction, or a corn maze. Just do something fall related! It's the best season of all, so you might as well go enjoy it at an apple orchard or something! Hope I've given some of you some holiday cheer, or at least brought back some Halloween memories.