Saturday 30 September 2017

Halloween 31 For 31 2017: An Introduction

Another year, another Halloween 31 for 31 season in which a mania takes over me. Where suddenly the air changes from summer to autumn, the wind becoming colder and the light starker, and like lycanthropy for Lon Chaney Jr. I am inflicted by the desire to write 31 days worth of horror reviews when the tenth month of the year is even a month away. A season, alongside Halloween, greatly needed for me as circumstance has left the end of September on a disappointing, depressed note for my own personal life, a poor moment of timing which thankfully can thankfully be soothed with family and friendship. It can also be cured by this  crazed ritual of mine, which forced sadden emotions out in favour of a frenzy that leaves the hands numb from the constant typing of letters.

In general, my own disappointments for the end of the summer cannot frankly be compared to how bleak it's been for many people either. My own concerns of unemployment at the time of writing this introduction pales in comparison to what's become a terrible year for others in just these last few months. Even a viewer from afar, through the television or web screen, looks to what has happened over the last few months natural and manmade that's caused actual despair and grief for other human beings, and even the vicarious onlookers feel empathy for them mixed with a melancholy trying to imagine their positions, let alone those actually affected by any of the series of newsworthy circumstances which have caused said grief. A season like Halloween is a necessary one to put one's mind, mine and the readers of this introduction, at rest.

Admittedly its strange to type such a thing when Halloween, and horror, is about death and decay. But it's an innate aspect of horror that its catharsis for the spectators. Its baffling to think how once moral guardians, not as far back as even the nineteen eighties or nineties, viewed horror as a corrupting force when you can look back to literature, even theatre, and find of this gruesome macabre material thriving and a necessary cure for many emotional ailments. It means the human being can be a morbid animal, but that's why corpse humour and perversity was invented too. Halloween as a season was also more spiritually symbolic too, a real connection to the past and the dead where one spoke to ones' ancestors. So that this doesn't get too serious, I'll just paraphrase Dan O'Herlihy in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and talk of how few people thought further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy. The other advantage is that, just in terms of horror cinema (and maybe some horror television snuck through the back door too), for all the weeds that exist in the genre the crops are also so diverse, the study of horror botany full of numerous wings for the curious that one shouldn't become bored with the subject if you were a true enthusiast. Even the weeds are held aloft, as the red paint gore and animal organs are their own aesthetic choice, and even the most mahogany strong level of wooden acting gets championed. On the opposite side, that which faces the harshness of reality will hopefully depict it unflinchingly with far greater power than a lot of award winning drama.

This year's Halloween 31 For 31 will be weird in how more predictable it is. Less eclecticism than usual, in terms of nationality and eras of the films, and a lot of reoccurring motifs. Japanese horror. Franchises. Various coincidences and connections. A lot of this is to do with this year's marathon being a eulogy to LoveFilm, a physical DVD/Blu-Ray rental service that will finally close its doors after fifteen years of existence on All Hallows Eve, on 31st October 2017. I inherited my parents' subscription not that long after LoveFilm came into existence and there's been at least ten years of this postal service being my guide to cinema since I was a teenager. It's a service which has great meaning as a method to explore one's aesthetic tastes even if it itself was a mere luxury now made obsolete. It was where my appreciation for the best of cinema came from - Wong Kar Wai, Theo Angelopoulos, Pier Paolo Pasolini, film movements like the Czeck New Wave and many other discoveries. It was also from the beginning an access to the strange, psychotropic waters of cult movies came from, from the films I fell in love with such as Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) to films I still need to see after ten years still swirling in my memories even if my younger self didn't like them. (Such as Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) to The Last House on Dead End Street (1977)).

Inevitably, hopefully, I'll get into a streaming service like Shudder, but there's still a tragedy behind all this as, since it was streaming sites that led to LoveFilm closing their doors soon, they will undoubtedly still have had a far larger and more useful catalogue to have viewed than any streaming service for years onwards. Whilst one like Netflix is criticised for barely scratching the surface of cinema beyond five years ago, LoveFilm purchased rental copies of their discs, including limited edition sets from the likes of Arrow Video (why my House series reviews recently were possible),  and for still retaining all DVDs from the early 2000s onwards if they hadn't been lost or unavailable. Even if they were pan-and-scan, ripped from VHS and/or ugly as fuck in modern picture quality standards, it also meant long out-of-print films you cannot get online for sensible prices were still available to see. If anything a lot of the odd Japanese horror flicks being covered for this season's reviews will be a tribute to this aspect of LoveFilm which will sadly be lost, as the discs will vanish and one is left hoping for either Shudder to get excptionally obscure in their tastes. Yes, LoveFilm could be a pain in the arse at times. Scratched discs. Discs not arriving. The attempt to watch every episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) by post which was compromised by being over the Christmas holiday and different discs being sent to me instead. But the service was always worth it, usually reliable and will be missed far more than a lot of streaming sites of now, as important for me as an actual VHS rental store was for horror fans growing up in the eighties. The virtues people talk of nostalgically of VHS rental didn't die away for me personality as the early DVD boom which led to LoveFilm meant the exact thing for me in terms of discovering gems and obscurities.

With that in mind, this season will be meant to be fun. Ignore the strain of everyday drudgery. Unemployment, autumn colds and various grievances. Ignore the worse in life in general around the world which is truly awful to witness. Ignore the stupidities of politicians and leaders of all ideologies left and right who suggest our species actually devolved from apes rather than evolved. Reveal in horror and gorge on its multicoloured nature until intoxicated and on the floor babbling. Even if there's only thirty one slots available, I will be watching films regardless both to take advantage of LoveFilm before it gracefully closes its doors and because, even if every day is Halloween like in the Ministry song, this is my Christmas. A better holiday than Christmas in fact. Particularly as there were Christmas trees already out in stores before October has even began, Halloween is definitely the better holiday just for the fact it doesn't get shoved down your throat an entire season too early. 

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