“ I met this 6 year old boy with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes….the Devil’s eyes. I spent 10 years trying to reach him and 5 years trying to keep him locked up because what I saw in that boy’s eyes was purely and simply….evil.” Dr. Sam Loomis I remember seeing commercials for John Carpenter’s Halloween back in the fall of 1978. I was living in Washington Heights for a time and I knew that whatever this film was I wanted no part in it. It scared me. I remember the face…the mask. Pale, devoid of passion, of anything alive. I just ignored the previews and I just kept right along as I reached for my Darth Vader costume to get ready to trick or treat…. Halloween was a landmark film in its own right. Just a few years earlier, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released….and it shocked audiences with a similar chaos as did the Exorcist around that same time. Leatherface with his human skin mask and the chainsaw…running, screaming….total anarchy….as scary as that was…...

Zombies…..we all fear zombies. The apocalyptic tales of a world gone completely mad with the dead coming back to life to feed on the living has become a cultural phenomenon since its inception back in the late 1960’s with George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead. The concept of zombies actually has a much older origin. Dating back to the religions in West Africa, the idea that bringing a person back to life with a spell was well known. The person making the spell was called a bokor. The person being brought back was then under the control of the bokor because the person had no more self will. These traditions and practices were then brought over later to the Caribbean Islands like Haiti and practiced in both Hatian and Creole communities under the voodoo religions. A certain kind of powder was known to put human beings into an almost coma like state that simulated death. They would then be buried alive and when the chemical wore off it just would not be a good situation to be in. ...

Which witch is which? I’m getting confused now. Is it me or has there been an increase in films and television shows about witches? I think back on the television series Bewitched….that was a long time ago, and when I was watching that I was a kid and the show was already a rerun (I’m no t THAT old…) but then a return took place with the television show Charmed. That was in my view a very diverse show. There was everything there from witches, to angels to demons to God knows what. Now we have films like The Craft. Even the recent installments of Paranormal Activity had elements of witches and covens tied in to explain the possession of poor Katie. Witchmania is sweeping the nation. We can’t get enough of it. Now we have American Horror Story-Coven. It just started under two weeks ago and already I’m hooked. What I’ve loved about the American Horror Story series is that they put in various elements of horror in one show that you almost forget what the center issue is…and then in a ...

“It means the Lord of the Dead…the end of summer…the festival of Samhain…October 31st.”- Dr. Sam Loomis, Halloween II I am completely blown away at how the concept of Halloween has become an incredible staple in our society. It’s a fun time of the year for getting dressed in cool costumes, going trick or treating, and having parties. It’s a celebration of just having fun of sorts. Actually, I don’t like the word “celebration” because it suggests a more serious and even religious tone to the day of Halloween. Some people tell me they don’t “celebrate” Halloween. Well, I don’t either. I take my kids trick or treating and that’s all. So what’s the point you’re making? And what’s with this “Happy Harvest”crap? It’s PC jargon. Happy Halloween dammit! Have some candy! And this thing about Halloween being the Devil’s birthday? Stop it. Stop it right now…. In any case Halloween does indeed have its origins very early on in our history on this earth. It actually began in the British land...

My Comic Con 2013 Experience If there was any kind of a pilgrimage of sorts for all comic book, television, film and sci-fi enthusiasts, it would have to be Comic Con. This event, now in its seventh year in New York City, draws in people by the thousands. As chilly as it may be on the outside, the heat of human bodies packed into the Jacob Javits Center in the West Side Midtown more than makes up for it. I for one am not keen on big crowds but the one thing that holds my attention on those long lines is the biggest attraction; The costumes. Yes. I said it. Costumes. Granted we’re in October and Halloween is right around the corner. Yet The New York Comic Con grabs the greatness of the holiday and takes it to the people. Imagine dressing up as your favorite super hero, villain, spirit, demon, killer, Jedi, Sith, even video game character. The Comic Con had it. It was awesome as I brought myself and my family on Sunday’s Kid’s day. My oldest daughter was Wonder Woman, My ...

Long gone are the days of E.T. and Starman. I must say I miss them…but I don’t miss them that much…the influx of films such as The Fourth Kind, Fire in the Sky and Dark Skies brings about a dread in us that was formally the anxieties of ghosts and demons. Aliens now seem haunting. And they are ready to take us. Experimentation, abortions, sexual violations…the alleged victims of such crimes supposedly committed by our beings from another world have stories with much skepticism tied to them. We are in the brink of a new kind of horror in the world of cinema. The question is the same question posed to us since the heydays of our existence…are we alone? I enjoyed The Fourth Kind. They actually tried a Blair Witch Project attempt to make us think that this story was based on true events. It was a mix of “authentic” video recordings of events taking place in Nome, Alaska back in 2000. Dr. Abigail Tyler…played by Milla Jovovich, (Resident Evil) is the main character who has been wo...

I hate rape scenes. Really. They are violent, horrific and downright diabolical. I’ve seen enough of these kinds of scenes in my lifetime to understand why I try to stay away from movies like that. Unlike other types of horror films this one is a representation of something that is real. It’s real. It happens to people. This is why I hate it. Watching horror films to me is akin to watching science fiction. It’s out there. It’s unreal. It’s crazy, and it’s fun. There is nothing crazy and fun about rape. The reason why films like that fall under horror is because it is indeed a horror. A moral trigger is pulled inside a person that makes them squirm in their seats at the sight of someone sexually violating someone else. There’s a reason for that….our sexuality is a huge part of who we are as human beings. Rape is a human rights violation of sorts. We hear stories in the news about such atrocities in certain countries in Africa, the Middle East, and in India. Each time t...

Demonic possession and the movies There was a rise in people going to confession in 1973. There was a heightened sense of the awareness of evil, particularly within the Catholic Church. My sense of evil at the time was not really there. I was about 4 years old at the time. The same film that brought about this awareness of evil did not really hit me until I was about 12 years old. 1973 was the year The Exorcist was released in theaters nationwide. Sure, there have been Devil-related tales told in the big screen for years, but there was something different about this film, something that brought it all home to those who dared to watch it. That concept of the unknown that brought fear to the human heart finally had a name on it. It revealed itself through the helplessness of small, innocent 12 year old Regan McNeil. This revelation was of an ancient origin. A demon by the name of Pazuzu, worshipped in real life in ancient Assyria and Babylon as far back as ancient Meso...

The Omen Series…my critique I was 14 years old in my first year of high school. Right by Yankee Stadium on 161st street there was this stationary store where now stands a diner. A novel caught my attention one late August day…The Omen by David Seltzer. I bought the book and read it. I couldn’t put it down. By the end of my ninth grade year I had read the book about five times. Mind you I had not seen the movie yet. I was only beginning to get into horror films at this point and I had a lot of catching up to do. When I finally did catch it a year later on television, I must say I wasn’t very impressed initially. Part of it is that they cut out a lot of the graphic death scenes due to its nature. I didn’t get the full effect. The other part of it is the whole “The book is better” thing. And it’s true. Reading opens your mind to create the movie in your head. My advice, watch the movie AFTER you read the book. It makes no sense to do it vice versa. I actually believe ...

The Concept of a horror movie….my world view…. Human fear is an inherited, evolutionary trait. Believe it or not, it’s a form of defense. We are repelled by it yet we continue to be drawn to it. To be drawn to the concept of fear is a mystery, yet one that we go after because of the adrenaline it creates in the human condition…the beating heart…the sweaty palms, the frozen face…the wide eyes….It protected our families in the wilderness at night during the early times of humanity. It helped us fight for survival. We braved the dark night and fought against the unknown. This is the essence of the horror story. People have gone on to rate a horror film by how much blood or how crazy the form of death by our ill fated characters in the plot may be. That’s all well and good but horror films do not require complete extreme showmanship to make it a horror movie. Consider John Carpenter’s Halloween, which was released in 1978. It was a low budget film directed and written by then unknown ...