Tag: Tim Curry

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Rebecca Rowland

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Meghan: Hi, Rebecca! Welcome to this year’s Halloween Extravaganza. What is your favorite part of Halloween?

Rebecca: It used to be the dressing up in costume, coming up with the wittiest ensemble for a party. One year, a guy I was dating dressed up like Bob Ross and I was a “happy cloud.” The year I got married, my spouse went as Jesus and I went as a nun. Nowadays, what I like about the holiday is much subtler: I like the smell of the air at that time of year, the leaves, the fact that it gets dark earlier and there’s always a classic scary movie playing on television somewhere.

Meghan: Do you get scared easily?

Rebecca: I don’t, not at traditional things anyway. I worry about things, and I am definitely a bit high-strung, but it’s difficult to really scare me. Every now and then, something in a book or movie will take me by surprise, though.

Meghan: What is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen and why?

Rebecca: There really hasn’t been a movie as a whole that frightened me. There are scenes that have scared the bejesus out of me the first time I saw them, though—don’t get me wrong. Tim Curry’s mouth full of sharp teeth in It. The way the camera motion changes at the very end of The Blair Witch Project. The eyeball peeking out from the crack in the door in Black Christmas. Toni Collette crouched on the bedroom ceiling in Hereditary. Come to think of it, that last one still creeps the heck out of me!

Meghan: Which horror movie murder did you find the most disturbing?

Rebecca: When I first saw Midsommar, I thought the big hammer on the cliff-diving survivor was shocking. A silver lining is, when I saw the film in the theater, a group of chatty women were seated nearby; after that scene, they got up and left.

Meghan: Is there a horror movie you refused to watch because the commercials scared you too much?

Rebecca: As a kid, there was one movie commercial that terrified me: the one for the first A Nightmare on Elm Street. Granted, I was very young, but I remember the montage very well: Freddy Krueger’s arms stretched wide across a narrow alleyway. I was grateful that the rating made it impossible for me to see it in the theaters.

Meghan: If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose?

Rebecca: I’d have to say Rosemary’s Baby. The late 60s in Manhattan was a swinging time, and the Castevets seem like decent neighbors—as long as I’m not sharing a wall with them (I’m a light sleeper). I’d double up on the birth control, though.

Meghan: If you were stuck as the protagonist in any horror movie, which would you choose?

Rebecca: Nightbreed, hands down. The book and the movie always spoke to me; I felt like a bit of an outsider growing up. Still do, to be honest. Being secretly dosed with LSD, set up for murders I didn’t commit, shot, and well, bitten doesn’t sound like very much fun, but being able to look at David Cronenberg for hours on end and then having a squad of fellow misfits to feel at home with: that seems like a fair trade off.

Meghan: What is your all-time favorite scary monster or creature of the night?

Rebecca: The boogeyman, for sure. I was never much frightened of vampires or werewolves or anything like that. To me, those creatures exist outside, and you can avoid them. Boogeymen, though: they make your home their own, and they creep about when you least expect them.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?

Rebecca: The decorations. When I worked as a librarian, I’d change the décor of the space with the seasons. I had a giant box for each: a winter box, a St. Patrick’s Day box, even a Mardi Gras box. For Halloween, I had seven giant boxes, including one with an unsettlingly large and hairy stuffed spider I’d string up in a dark corner.

Meghan: What is your favorite horror or Halloween-themed song?

Rebecca: “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo. I’m a diehard Danny Elfman fan, and that’s one of their catchiest tunes, for certain!

Meghan: Which horror novel unsettled you the most?

Rebecca: I read Stephen King at an age that I think was much too young to be reading him. When I first read The Shining, I was sharing a bedroom with my little sister, and there was a small bathroom right across the hall from our room. It had a nightlight, so the room glowed that eerie bluish-white color until morning. From my bed, I could see the edge of the shower curtain, and after reading King’s scene with the woman in the bathtub, that’s all I could think of when I woke up at night. For weeks, I couldn’t get up to pee because I was too scared.

Meghan: What is the creepiest thing that’s ever happened while you were alone?

Rebecca: I live in a very small Cape Cod-style house, and the second floor is unfinished. The area is a giant storage space, for all intents and purposes. At night, it sounds like someone is walking around it, and over the past few years—since before the pandemic, even—I’ve found random things missing from the first floor: a lipstick here, an unwrapped bar of soap there…things I remember putting one place only to find them totally gone the next day. Sometimes I really do wonder if someone is secretly living on my second floor, and every once in a while, when I am home alone and writing, the house dead quiet, I swear I hear someone creeping down the stairs and into my kitchen.

Meghan: Which unsolved mystery fascinates you the most?

Rebecca: I’d like to be that stoic scholar and say I want to know if God exists, how the universe was created, or what happens to us after we die, but truth be told, I’d rather know what happened to D.B. Cooper, what wiped out the hikers on the Dyatlov Pass, and of course, the real identity of Jack the Ripper.

Meghan: What is the spookiest ghost story that you have ever heard?

Rebecca: Someone told me that urban legend of the black-eyed children, and there’s something about it that truly unsettles me. I will likely weave them into a short story someday, just to shake their residual creepiness from my mind.

Meghan: In a zombie apocalypse, what is your weapon of choice?

Rebecca: That would be a tie between a machete axe and an entrenchment tool. My spouse has been giving me weapons as Christmas gifts for nearly a decade—it started out as a joke that I was preparing for the zombie apocalypse. I’ve acquired quite the arsenal, and I know how to use all of them, and trust me when I tell you: the machete axe or the entrenchment tool is the way to go.

Meghan: Okay, let’s have some fun – Would you rather get bitten by a vampire or a werewolf?

Rebecca: Vampire. I’m not a hairy person naturally, and I think the werewolf upkeep would throw me for a loop, even if it were only once a month.

Meghan: Would you rather fight a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion?

Rebecca: Aliens. I can’t even imagine how the world would smell in a zombie apocalypse.

Meghan: Would you rather drink zombie juice or eat dead bodies from the graveyard?

Rebecca: As a vegetarian, I’d have to choose the zombie juice, though had the dead bodies been fresh, it might have been a toss-up.

Meghan: Would you rather stay at the Poltergeist house or the Amityville house for a week?

Rebecca: Poltergeist, for sure, no matter how sexy James Brolin and Ryan Reynolds are in those beards.

Meghan: Would you rather chew on a bitter melon with chilies or maggot-infested cheese?

Rebecca: I can’t do maggots, even though cheese is my favorite food. It almost seems like an extra terrible punishment to ruin it that way! Bring on the melon.

Meghan: Would you rather drink from a witch’s cauldron or lick cotton candy made of spider webs?

Rebecca: It all comes down to the smell of the cauldron. Is it putrid or soup-like, and how hungry am I? All things even, I’d say, give me both!

Boo-graphy: Rebecca Rowland is the dark fiction author of The Horrors Hiding in Plain Sight, Pieces, Shagging the Boss, Optic Nerve, and the upcoming White Trash & Recycled Nightmares and is the curator of seven horror anthologies. Her short fiction, critical essays, and book reviews regularly appear in a variety of online and print venues. She is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association and lives in a chilly corner of New England with her family. To surreptitiously stalk her, visit her website. To take a peek at what shiny object she’s fixating on these days, follow her on Instagram.

Shagging the Boss – “Lesson number one: don’t get attached to anyone. Being a cannibal is the only way to truly succeed in this business.”

He placed one hand on the door handle, then thought a moment and smiled to himself. “The problem is, once you take a bite, it will never be enough.”

After a fortuitous encounter at a local book convention, a liberal arts graduate accepts a position at a flashy publishing company under the tutelage of its charismatic owner only to learn that the press is led, and fed, by a literal boogeyman.

Optic Nerve – Shawn is a scientist developing the formula for a drug that may cure blindness by stimulating another area of the brain that controls perception. When he surreptitiously tests the drug on himself, he accidentally accesses a neural pathway that appears to allow him to communicate with a complete stranger through telepathy instead. When Shawn finally discovers the significance of their connection and of the drug’s true effects, it is too late to stop the damage their intimate friendship has set in motion to unfold

Terror for Teetotalers – What might your favorite scary movie taste like if someone were to make it into its own signature cocktail? With more than thirty recipes inspired by some of the greatest staples in horror cinema, even the most novice of bartenders can experiment with shaking and mixing a new concoction for every evening of October leading up to Halloween.

Generation X-ed – In a unique anthology of monster, folk, paranormal, and psychological horror as glimpsed through the lens of the latchkey generation, twenty-two voices shine a strobe light on the cultural demons that lurked in the background while they came of age in the heyday of Satanic panic and slasher flicks, milk carton missing and music television, video rentals and riot grrrls. These Gen-X storytellers once stayed out unsupervised until the streetlights came on, and what they brought home with them will terrify you.

Dancing in the Shadows – With her hauntingly beautiful reimagining of archetypal monsters from classic horror, Anne Rice was the undisputed queen of contemporary gothic literature. Her contribution to the movement first established by Shelley, Stoker, and Stevenson revitalized and continues to inspire dark fiction writers and readers. Dancing in the Shadows pays tribute to Rice’s legacy with tales from today’s most innovative authors, drawing from the darkness where vampires and witches, mummies and rougarous, spirits and demons move to the music of nightmares. 

Featuring stories by C. W. Blackwell, Anthony S. Buoni, Holley Cornetto, Stephanie Ellis, Douglas Ford, Lee Andrew Forman, Holly Rae Garcia, KC Grifant, Greg Herren, Christine Lajewski, Tim Mendees, Scotty Milder, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, E. F. Schraeder, Angela Yuriko Smith, Morgan Sylvia, Lamont A. Turner, Gordon B. White, and Trish Wilson; co-edited by Elaine Pascale and Rebecca Rowland; Foreword by Lisa Kroger

All proceeds from the sale of Dancing in the Shadows benefit ARNO. Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO) is an organization created and dedicated to the rescue and aid of abandoned and homeless animals in the New Orleans area, including responding to the immediate needs of those in need of medical care or those too old, too young, too sick, neglected, abused and deprived of love. ARNO promotes the foster, adoption and reunion of pets with caretakers as well as spaying and neutering all companion animals through their no-kill shelter.

GUEST MOVIE REVIEW: Lisa Morton

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch
By: Lisa Morton

Let’s get one big thing out of the way first: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) is possibly the worst sequel ever made. I don’t mean that in the sense that this is the worst movie ever made that followed another movie, but rather that this is not even remotely a sequel to Halloween (1978) or Halloween II (1981). This movie has no slasher in a William Shatner mask (except for a couple of scenes of the first movie glimpsed on televisions), no courageous Laurie Strode frantically repurposing a wire coat hanger into a weapon. Making this movie part of the Halloween franchise is about like making a Mad Max movie set in a scenic utopia where everyone walks.

Aside from that, there’s really a lot to love about Halloween III: Season of the Witch, especially if you’re one of those who (like me) start cruising stores in July for Halloween stuff. Unlike the other films in John Carpenter’s Michael Myers series, this one is not merely set around and finally on Halloween, but explores the deeper meaning of the holiday itself.

In case you’ve either skipped seeing Halloween III because of the bad press or haven’t seen it since its original release in 1982, here’s what it’s all about: a small-town doctor, Dan Challis (Tom Atkins), is working the late-shift at the hospital eight days before Halloween when he finds that one of his patients has had his face pulled apart. When the dead guy’s comely daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin) shows up and decides to investigate Dad’s murder, the good doctor accompanies her to the small Northern California town of Santa Mira, where Dad had been dealing with the Silver Shamrock Company, producers of Halloween masks. Silver Shamrock’s owner Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) is a mysterious Irish toymaker who is more than he seems. Before long, Dan and Ellie are surrounded by a number of bizarre deaths, all somehow related to a five-ton piece of Stonehenge kept in Silver Shamrock’s basement, surrounded by scientists and high-tech (for 1982) equipment. It’s finally up to Dan to escape Cochran and tell the world that the immensely popular Silver Shamrock masks will unleash more than just a lot of candy.

So, where’s the title witch? Okay, yeah… Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a double-fail as a title because there’s no Michael Myers AND there’s no witch. What there is instead is Conal Cochran, who is known as the ultimate practical joker and who tells Dan that he was around when Halloween was still called Samhain and “the hills ran red.” The first screenwriter on Halloween III was mad genius Nigel Kneale, the British writer who not only wrote the terrifying Quatermass and the Pit (known in the U.S. as Five Million Years to Earth), but even invented a now-accepted paranormal investigation theory in his 1972 television movie The Stone Tape (“stone tape theory” speculates that some objects or structures can record traumatic events and replay them). Producer Debra Hill asked for a story that combined ancient witchcraft and modern technology, and Kneale was brought in to write the first draft but he ended up being unhappy with the gore added later and had his name removed from the credits. Kneale’s influence is plainly still there… but, sadly, watered down. In his draft Cochran was an ancient demon; in the final film, his nature is so ambiguous – is he a trickster spirit? A sorcerer? A Druid? Just a creepy old dude? – that it deprives his character of a shot at real iconic horror stardom.

Halloween III certainly has other problems. It was Tommy Lee Wallace’s first directing gig (he would go on to make the It television miniseries with Tim Curry as Pennywise), and he has a bad habit throughout the film of holding on his actors so long that you can see them actually wondering what they should be doing. Tom Atkins is always a reliable and likeable actor, but his character here is a doctor who drinks and smokes too much, slaps his nurse on the ass, and asks Ellie how old she is after they have sex (hey, at least he’s not a typical hero). The editing is lazy, and the story takes too long to get going.

But here’s what’s great about Halloween III: it’s Weird with a capital W. Weird as in, full-on go-for-broke crazy. Name another movie that incorporates 18th-century clockwork automata, Jerusalem crickets, loving shots of latex masks being produced, a fake living room set in a lead-lined laboratory, a heroine whose last name is Grimbridge, a reference to Samhain, a woman whose face is (very artistically) fried by an energy beam… well, you get the idea. Buried beneath all this wackiness is some interesting commentary about consumer culture, especially about how it has created a middle class that is happy to plant its children in front of a television while the parents are otherwise engaged. The Silver Shamrock commercial jingle, heard throughout the film, limns an American society obsessed with advertising, even at the expense of protecting its own children. Halloween III is one of those few films that doesn’t just threaten children but shows one being graphically killed, while the parents attempt not to save the child but to flee.

It’s probably no coincidence that Halloween III, which John Carpenter co-produced and also co-wrote, is intensely cynical and ultimately nihilistic, because it was released in 1982, the same year Carpenter directed The Thing. Although in some respects it’s closer to Carpenter’s 1980 gem The Fog – they share the same small Northern California coastal town setting – it absolutely reflects the “we’re all doomed” aesthetic of The Thing.

It also happily wallows in Halloween-ness. First are the three Silver Shamrock masks – a jack-o’-lantern, a skull, and a witch – which we get to see in the factory, in stores stocked full of Halloween goods, and on kids parading about the streets in costume, engaged in trick or treat. The plot’s meticulous build toward the 31st – giving us a seasonal countdown – raises the holiday to an appropriate level of importance. And even Cochran’s undefined nature could arguably be a comment on the deeper mysteries surrounding the history of Halloween.

If you’ve never seen Halloween III: Season of the Witch, consider giving it a spin this October. Go in knowing it’s neither a perfect film nor a classic slasher and you might find other, stranger pleasures here to enjoy instead. Just don’t blame me if that Silver Shamrock jingle gets stuck in your head for weeks after.

Boo-graphy: Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, Bram Stoker Award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.”  She has published four novels, 150 short stories, and three books on the history of Halloween. Her recent releases include Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction from Groundbreaking Female Writers 1852-1923 (co-edited with Leslie S. Klinger) and Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances; her latest short stories appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2020, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and In League with Sherlock Holmes. Her most recent book is the collection Night Terrors & Other Tales. Lisa lives in Los Angeles and online.

From Halloween expert Morton, a level-headed and entertaining history of our desire and attempts to hold conversations with the dead.
 
Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism—when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by “spirit rappings”; Daniel Dunglas Home, the “greatest medium of all time”; Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose unlikely friendship was forged, then riven, by the afterlife; and Helen Duncan, the medium whose trial in 1944 for witchcraft proved more popular to the public than news about the war. The book also considers Ouija boards, modern psychics, and paranormal investigations, and is illustrated with engravings, fine art (from beyond), and photographs. Hugely entertaining, it begs the question: is anybody there . . . ?

An abused child finds comfort in the friendship of Frankenstein’s monster…a near-future Halloween party becomes an act of global terrorism…one of the world’s wealthiest men goes in search of his fate as he rots from within…Hans Holbein’s famed “Dance of Death” engravings are revealed to be an instruction manual…a man trapped on an isolated road confronts both a terrifying creature and the legacy of his tough-as-nails grandfather…

Night Terrors and Other Tales is the first major collection to gather together twenty of Lisa Morton’s finest short stories (chosen by the author herself). During a career that has spanned more than three decades, she has produced work that has been hailed as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening” (the American Library Association’s Readers Advisory Guide to Horror).

If you’ve never encountered Lisa Morton’s work before, you’ll find out why Famous Monsters called her “one of the best writers in dark fiction today.” If you’re already a fan, this collection will offer up a chance to revisit these acclaimed and award-winning stories. You’ll also find a new story here, written just for this collection: “Night Terrors” reveals ordinary people trying to cope with extraordinary and terrifying dreams that have spread like a plague.

GUEST MOVIE REVIEW by Jeff C. Carter: Hack-O-Lantern

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Hack-O-Lantern
Rated R, 1:27, 1998

Director: Jag Mundhra

Writers: Dave Eisenstark (story), Carla Robinson (screenplay)

Cast:
Hy Pyke – as Grandpa
Gregory Scott Cummins – as Tommy

Available on: Amazon Prime Streaming, Tubi

A town is terrorized by devil worshippers and a masked killer.

Hack-O-Lantern begins appropriately with lurid red titles floating in black space, accompanied by the creepy pulse of synth music.

Then, something unexpected happens.

The sun rises, shining gloriously upon a bucolic farm. A pleasant tune chirps as an old pickup truck putters into view with a flatbed full of pumpkins. The driver (Hy Pyke – Dolemite, Blade Runner, Vamp) is a chipper old man in a cozy flannel shirt.

He arrives at a farm house and honks the horn to call out Tommy, his little blonde grandson. Everything is bathed in sunlight as the innocent child dashes out and leaps into his grandpa’s welcoming arms.

Everything distills into a perfect Norman Rockwell moment, until grandpa slips him a bundle with something “special.” He leaves him with a pumpkin, throws up the devil horns and then bones out in his truck.

This is not yet four minutes into the film, but we have been put on notice. This story just might give you whiplash.

Later, Tommy is carving his pumpkin and pelting his sister, Vera, with pumpkin guts. When he cuts himself, he proclaims that he likes the taste of blood and that ‘grandpa says it’s good for him.’

Their mother is distraught when she finds out that grandpa has been there, and she demands to know if the old man had given anything to her son. Tommy denies it and hides the special package.

That night, she begs her husband Bill not to confront Grandpa on this, of all nights – Halloween. Bill storms out to handle things anyway.

He arrives at Grandpa’s barn and finds him hanging out with a bunch of robed cultists. One of them smacks Bill with a hammer and together they dump his body back in his car and then set it on fire. Grandpa cackles with dark delight.

Back home in his room, Tommy takes out his special gift – a pentagram medallion.

Match cut to 13 years later: Tommy (Gregory Scott Cummins, former college sports star with roles in Buffy, Batman Returns, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Baywatch Nights [TWICE!], and as the devil in a Snoop Dogg video!) is still swinging his medallion, but now he is all grown up. He is rocking a black sleeveless shirt that is open to the navel.

It is once again Halloween, and Grandpa has returned with another honk of the horn. This time he has a black robe for Tommy, who will undergo a ritual that night and learn his true power. Grandpa throws up the devil horns again, and now Tommy does too…and then they press their devil horns together.

Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate these actors. Gregory Scott Cummins has a prime set of ‘crazy eyes’ and does his best to mean mug every chance he gets, but he’s fighting for oxygen in every scene with Hy Pyke.

Hy Pyke is a character actor unlike any I have ever scene. He plays Grandpa like a southern fried, chain-smoking, frog-throated, slightly femme goth hillbilly. If Tim Curry had an older brother who was prone to falling down stairs, he might be a little something like Hy Pyke.

Tommy’s mother runs out and begs Grandpa to leave the family alone. Grandpa then reveals two things: first, he has been wearing one of Bill’s bones as a necklace for 13 years; second, he has been forcing her into an incestuous relationship for most of her life. If the devil horn hand kiss made you uncomfortable, you may wish to avert your eyes from the flashback in which Grandpa smothers his daughter on her wedding night. This could imply that Tommy and the others are, in fact, Grandpa’s children after all.

We are re-introduced to Vera, who is getting ready for Halloween with her friend Beth, and then to Tommy’s little brother, Roger, who is now a rookie policeman. Roger has been assigned to patrol the cemeteries after a string of grave robberies as well as chaperoning the big Halloween party in town.

Mom stands outside the door to Tommy’s basement apartment and screams at him to change his wicked ways, but he tunes her out with a Walkman and a cassette tape of rock n’ roll.

This begins a full-on music video, with Tommy fantasizing that he is the backup guitarist for a leather-clad rock band playing a song about the Devil’s son. A woman appears in a bolt of electricity. She is dressed in a skimpy outfit and draped in bones (possibly his father’s), and she shoots green lasers from her eyes that festoon the band’s drum kit with shrunken heads, freeze the band members in place, and then make them vanish one by one.

She throws Tommy to the ground and stabs his head off with a pitchfork. Tommy wakes up, disturbed (and/or aroused).

Now Roger is knocking on his door. He asks Tommy if he’s ever going to do anything worthwhile with his life. In response, Tommy shows him a closet that he has converted into a satanic altar with candles, skulls and a human fetus in a jar.

Roger just shakes his head, chagrinned and says, “No wonder mom thinks you spend too much time with Grandpa.”

The Satanic Panic of the 1980s certainly inspired this movie, but it seems that satanic ritual has been completely normalized for this family as well as the town at large.

Tommy goes to get booze with his girlfriend, whom everyone knows has a pentagram tattoo on her butt (see?). Unfortunately for them, Grandpa is there to nag Tommy into geting his rest for the big night.

Not long after, the girlfriend is surprised by a robed figure in a strange mask that is equal parts satanic and simian, like a demonic baboon. She believes the masked intruder is Tommy and she tries to flirt, only to get brutally murdered with a hooked pitchfork. For clarity, I will henceforth refer to this robed and masked figure as the ‘Staboon’.

Vera and her friends are all downtown decorating the hall for the big Halloween shindig. Naturally Grandpa stops by to leer lecherously at his granddaughter, but her boyfriend Brian chases him off.

Vera takes Brian home with her to lose her virginity, but Tommy busts in and throws him out with a warning; “Next time, you’re dead.”

Tommy goes to his room and pulls out a Staboon mask and a switchblade.

Brian takes the shortcut home through the cemetery and quickly finds himself being chased by the Staboon. He tumbles into an open grave. He begs the Staboon for a hand up, but gets his head cleft in twain with a shovel instead.

Night falls, and Roger begins his patrol of the cemetery. He has also brought Beth, so they can spend their date looking dug up graves. They find nothing but a fresh shallow grave, so they lay down and get it on, oblivious to Brian’s half buried body.

Roger then heads to the Halloween party, which features a tasteful full-nude strip tease.

The movie then grinds to a halt as an amateur comic shoehorns his tight five minute set into a random scene. This bad comedy is made even more awkward because it is performed outside on the street, instead of inside on the stage which was literally just established with the other entertainment acts like the stripper and the band. Perhaps this is meant to signal a tonal shift to comedy, which is only one of the genres that Hack-O-Lantern tries on like so many Staboon masks.

Vera and her friend Beth also take the cemetery shortcut, which apparently connects her house to the party hall. Beth shows off all the places that she had sex with her brother, but this time Brian’s body does not go unnoticed. Vera thinks it’s another classic Halloween prank and pulls on the arm, only to reveal her cleft-in-twain boyfriend. She freaks out and blames Tommy for the murder.

Vera heads straight to Grandpa’s satanic ritual barn to confront Tommy. She knows that he will be there for the big Halloween ceremony, and does not seem overly concerned by the robed cultists shuffling around the giant pentagram on the floor.

Grandpa rebukes her for intruding and orders his minions to tie her up.

He gives Tommy a goat-shaped knife, which they gamely try to hold in their hand while making devil horns with their fingers. Grandpa commands him to kill Vera, intoning, “The power is in the blood!”

Tommy raises the knife…and cuts her ropes! He sends her packing off into the night.

He turns to face his grandfather and shouts, “She’s my sister!”

Grandpa is both furious and crestfallen. He explains that in the kingdom of hell, the only family that matters are your fellow Satanists and…the master! He excommunicates Tommy from the satanic ritual barn.

I will note that it is heavily implied that the ritual that Tommy was supposed to enact that night was going to involve murder, but they didn’t seem to have any sacrificial victims handy until Vera showed up. Was this all part of Grandpa’s master plan?

Back at the freaky Halloween party, a belly dancer undulates for the revelers wearing a large snake. Vera and Beth arrive to find Roger, but the Staboon is already there.

Roger learns all about the murder and attempted sacrifice and then speeds away on his motorcycle.

The Staboon decides to knife a random lady in the women’s bathroom. Her only connection to the story was a few minutes earlier, when she was hitting on Roger. If there is a through line to any of the killings, it is that anyone who attempts to have sex with anyone in Tommy’s family dies. That may seem par for the course for a slasher flick, but this will take on added significance later.

Roger and the rest of the police find the barn, but no evidence of satanic activity. Back at the party, the Staboon strangles Beth. Vera finds both bodies and runs out, into the arms of Staboon.

She thinks that this is Tommy, but the Staboon removes its mask. It is her Grandpa, and he tells her that tonight, she belongs to Satan.

Tommy arrives wearing his own Staboon mask and wielding a pitchfork. Grandpa puts his Staboon mask back on, grabs a machete from a party goer, and the two start swashbuckling their way through the Halloween party.

Tommy quickly bests the old man and sends him careening to the ground with a pitchfork wound in his stomach.

Roger makes it back in time to unmask Grandpa. Grandpa tells Roger that, “the power is in the blood!” and then pokes him in the forehead with the devil horns, leaving behind a flicker of red light.

The other Staboon tries to flee, but Roger blasts it in the back with his pistol. The bleeding Staboon stumbles into the woods and unmasks. It is Tommy’s mother. She takes the cemetery shortcut to her husband’s grave and collapses.

Tommy finds her there and apologizes, telling her that he loves her. She dies, and the now reformed Tommy makes the sign of the cross.

It seems that all is well, or at the very least the nightmare is over.

Unfortunately, the Satanists have reconvened at their satanic ritual barn. They have a new leader now – and it is Tommy’s brother, Roger.

Hack-O-Lantern ends on that final twist, leaving us to contemplate what the hell we just watched and what was going on. I believe that Grandpa secretly fathered Tommy, Roger and Vera because he needed someone in his bloodline to carry on the power and dark work of his satanic coven. He jealously protected that bloodline, which is why anyone who attempted to sleep with or corrupt it was murdered. The theme song’s refrain, as you’ll recall, was ‘you’re the devil’s son.’

That is just one possibility, however. It doesn’t explain why Tommy had the pitchfork at the end, which was previously used to kill his girlfriend. And what was Tommy’s mother doing at the party dressed as a Staboon? Was she the swashbuckler who killed Grandpa? Or that random lady in the bathroom? Was she hoping to create a diversion to allow Tommy to escape? Was this movie set in a farm town only so its devilish characters could have easy access to pitchforks?

Indeed, this movie raises more questions than it answers. Overall, it is crazy, cheesy, creepy, gory, schmaltzy and simply fun. If you want a first time watch for your Halloween marathon, I say throw up the horns and put on Hack-O-Lantern.

Boo-graphy:
Jeff C. Carter’s stories have been featured in dozens of anthologies, translated for international markets and adapted for podcasts. His love of Halloween, adventure and science continue to inspire his horror, action and science fiction writing. He is a member of the Samhain Society and a contributor for the Creepy Kingdom network. He lives in Los Angeles with a cat, a dog, a human and a child.

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His new middle grade adventure book is called COLD SPELL: The Halloween Curse of Winterhill.

COLD SPELL The Halloween Curse of Winterhill is a spooky middle grade adventure from author Jeff C. Carter for kids and adults who love Halloween.

When a freak blizzard cancels trick-or-treating (based on a true event), a Halloween-obsessed nerd and his friends break the rules and go out, only to discover that a terrible curse has befallen their town.

COLD SPELL The Halloween Curse of Winterhill is a fun, fast-paced story of friendship and supernatural adventure that will appeal to fans of Hocus Pocus, Goosebumps, and anyone who believes there is magic just beyond the veil of red and orange woods.

This book is packed with dark whimsical illustrations by Mexican artist Mariana Garcia Pizá.

Her charming map of Summerhill shows a town on the verge of Halloween and all the places that the kids will go as they battle the Witch’s forces and attempt to break her curse.

There is a handy Spookabulary, a list of new words that every Halloween lover should know. The book also includes a Monster Manual featuring the unique creatures that serve the Witch, compatible for the D&D 5E and Tiny Dungeon RPG systems.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Kristopher Triana

megHan

Meghan: Hey, Kris. Welcome back to Meghan’s House of Books and our annual Halloween Extravaganza. What is your favorite part of Halloween?

Kristopher: As a kid, it was being out on a cold night with the leaves blowing about, seeing the jack-o-lanterns glowing, running down the street in my costume and pretending I was a werewolf or vampire or whatever. That was even better than the candy! As an adult, I cherish those memories. Now, my favorite part of the holiday is its rich traditions, and the way adults can return to that childlike wonder for a night.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween tradition?

Kristopher: The horror movie marathon, especially when it’s with a significant other or a good friend. You carve pumpkins as the sun goes down, put on scary movies, and hope to get trick or treaters.

Meghan: If Halloween is your favorite holiday (or even second favorite holiday), why?

Kristopher: It is my favorite, hands down. I’m a horror writer, and also a horror fanatic. Halloween is the time of year everyone is into what I’m always into all year long.

Meghan: What are you superstitious about?

Kristopher: Nothing, really. I don’t believe in that stuff. Give me a black cat to pet!

Meghan: What/who is your favorite horror monster or villain?

Kristopher: Oh, that’s a tough one. As for the old monsters, I’d have to say The Wolfman is my favorite. I’ve always related more to a tortured soul trying to contain his inner beast than some undead bloodsucker being all suave and perfect. I also dig The Blob!

Meghan: Which unsolved murder fascinates you the most?

Kristopher: The Black Dahlia. It was such a brutal crime and so shrouded in mystery.

Meghan: Which urban legend scares you the most?

Kristopher: I’ve always loved the hook, with the teens at lover’s lane who hear on the radio about an escaped maniac with a hook hand, then find the bloody hook on the handle of the car door after they drive home.

Meghan: Who is your favorite serial killer and why?

Kristopher: I wouldn’t say I have a “favorite” one because I don’t like when people glorify someone like that. I see someone at a horror con wearing a Richard Ramirez t-shirt and I’m just like, “You know he raped and murdered old ladies, right?”. It’s just messed up. People need to differentiate between horror fiction and reality. But I do find true crime stories very interesting. Edmund Kemper’s story is so beyond messed up. Well worth a read if you can stomach it!

Meghan: How old were you when you saw your first horror movie?

Kristopher: I can’t remember exactly, but probably eight or nine, watching the old Universal monster movies. I was about eleven when I saw my first slasher film, which was John Carpenter’s Halloween, and I was hooked.

Meghan: How old were you when you read your first horror book?

Kristopher: I read the Crestwood Monster Series and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid. Then I moved on to Stephen King and Clive Barker. I think The Mist by King was my first adult horror story, and my first novel read was The Dark Half. Then Barker’s The Great and Secret Show opened my mind to the limitless possibilities the genre could offer. By the time I was fourteen I was devouring what is now referred to as “Paperbacks from Hell”, all the novels from the horror boom of the ’80s. I knew early on that I wanted to be a horror author too.

Meghan: Which horror novel unsettled you the most?

Kristopher: King’s The Shining was the first book I ever had to put down for a few hours because I was so freaked out. Since then, there have been many that got under my skin—brutal books like Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door and Off Season, or more recent thrillers like Come With Me by Ronald Malfi. There are even books that don’t qualify as horror but are deeply unsettling, such as Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr. His books are incredible.

Meghan: Which horror movie scarred you for life?

Kristopher: I saw part of Prince of Darkness when I was way too young and it scared the crap out of me! I never knew what is was, and then one day I’m watching this movie, and the scene I always remembered—the hobo impaling a man with a bicycle—comes on and I’m like, “Holy shit!”

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween costume?

Kristopher: I loved being Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, but dressing as Leatherface was the best because I hid in the bushes and then chased kids with a real chainsaw! I had removed the chain, so it was totally safe, but still loud and terrifying. They came back for more every year.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween-themed song?

Kristopher: Again, it’s hard to pick a favorite. But I do love Tim Curry’s song in The Worst Witch.

Meghan: What is your favorite Halloween candy or treat? What is your most disappointing?

Kristopher: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are my Halloween staple. Even the old school label screams Halloween with its autumn colors. The worst in the world is that horrible abomination known as candy corn.

Meghan: Thanks again for stopping by, Kris. Make sure you send Bear our love. But before you go, what are your go-to Halloween movies?

Kristopher: My ideal Halloween movie/TV marathon is:

John Carpenter’s Halloween
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Ginger Snaps
Trick or Treat (1986)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror episodes
Night of the Demons (1988)
Night of the Demons 2
The Exorcist III
The Monster Squad

Boo-graphy:
Kristopher Triana is the Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Gone to See the River Man, Full Brutal, The Thirteenth Koyote, They All Died Screaming, and many other terrifying books. His work has been published in multiple languages and has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, drawing praise from Rue Morgue Magazine, Cemetery Dance, Scream Magazine, and many more.
 
He lives in New England.

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And the Devil Cried —
When Jackie is released from prison, his boss Pino sends a limo to pick him up. Even fresh out of the joint, ruthless Jackie is ready to work, collecting money for the mob and using his special training to take care of bad accounts—permanently.

But when a drunk driver kills Pino’s young son, he gives Jackie a task that goes against every moral code. The drunk driver has a pre-teen daughter, and Pino doesn’t just want vengeance—he wants an eye for an eye.
Jackie accepts the job, but once he finds the girl he starts making plans of his own…

And the Devil Cried is a dark thriller from Kristopher Triana, the award-winning author of Gone to See the River Man and Full Brutal. It is a vicious, unflinching novel that’s bound to keep you burning.