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Wow! I come out of my cave and what do I find? Almost another whole month has gone by! It’s amazing how quickly you can lose track of time when you’ve gone past your deadline. Grrrrr.
In any case, this is the time when I start gearing up for my favorite month of the year. I LOVE October! Not only is the area right around where I live really gorgeous with all of the fall colors, but there are tons of Octoberfests and Harvestfests to attend, where I totally go broke with all of the wonderful crafts for sale and all of the great food to to pig out on. 
October also hosts my very favorite holiday: Halloween. My niece and nephews like to visit around this time because they know Aunt Kim already has her Halloween candy sitting out in bowls for little hands to snack on, and I usually try to go big with the decorations. 
And right about now I usually start lining up my scary reads for the month alongside the movies that I will watch in my scary movie marathon.
I love romance novels, but if a book or movie can offer me a good scare right along with the love story, that’s a double thrill! I like to re-read Linda Fallon’s historical Ghosthunter trilogy around this time. Of course, I have Teresa Medeiros’s new vampire book on my list as well as Christine Feehan’s Carpathian Celebration. As for movies, there are the old classics: Halloween, The Haunting, The Shining, Poltergeist, and The Changeling along with new spooky favorites The Ring and Gothika.
Of course, I will probably have to wait until next week to make all of my October preparations, when I will–Hopefully!–finally be finished with Devil’s Temptation. (Appropriate title for this time of year, eh?) In any case, does anyone have a suggestion for a good scary romance novel? Or any suggestions for a recent scary movie to rent that I may not have seen? As Count Floyd of SCTV fame would say, “I vant to see something reallllllllllly scary!”
Filed in: Jaunty Post
Sep 28th
2006
9:58 am
Margo Maguire Said:
How about Young Frankenstein? Or the one Gene Wilder did with Gilda Radner – I think it was called Haunted Honeymoon.
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Sep 28th
2006
10:51 am
Shana Said:
Oh, I don’t like scary movies or books. But I used to read a lot of Stephen King, and Salem’s Lot kept me up at night! Not so much a romance, though.
I do like Halloween. Maybe it’s the chance to wear my black nailpolish again! ( I was a bit of a Goth in high school)
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Sep 28th
2006
11:48 am
smile0303 Said:
One thing a small movie theater does here is a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show every year right around Halloween…It’s so funny seeing people dress up and act out some of the scenes.
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Sep 28th
2006
12:06 pm
Robyn DeHart Said:
I love Rocky Horror! I was Magenta one year cause I have the hair for it. And I pull the soundtrack out quite often. Fun stuff.
I haven’t seen a scary movie in ages b/c The Professor is a wimp when it comes to them. He’d watch them with me, but he jumps and that makes me jump and I hate jumpy movies. An old movie you might try, if you can find it, is called The House of the Lond Shadows. It’s a Vincent Price movie and very creepy. It was made in the 70′s though so there is some cheese factor, but it really is good.
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Sep 28th
2006
1:49 pm
Kimberly Logan Said:
Oh, Robyn, I remember House of the Long Shadows! I loved that movie! They showed it on cable so much when I was a kid that I could have recited the dialogue by heart.
And Shane, I also went through a Stephen King phase back in junior high and high school. That’s probably why I still enjoy a good horror novel every now and then. I think my favorites were Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and It. I don’t like his more recent work nearly as much as his older books.
My brother, sister and I were scary movie fanatics growing up. (And Smile, my brother was a Rocky Horror fan and went to one or two of those showings, though I can’t say he ever dressed up.) We saw it all, and the bloodier the better. All of the Nightmare on Elm Streets, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I could go on and on. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost my taste for that sort of thing and have gotten so I really appreciate the movies that are truly scary without being gory. I love movies like the first Halloween and The Ring, which offer a good scare, but aren’t blood and guts all over the place.
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Sep 28th
2006
1:51 pm
Kimberly Logan Said:
Oh, and Margo, I forgot to mention that Young Frankenstein was also a favorite. I can remember going to the movies to see Haunted Honeymoon when I was kid, but I don’t think I cared for it too much. I don’t recall all that much about it.
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Sep 28th
2006
1:55 pm
Lois Said:
I don’t really like scary movies, so I will be watching Pinky and the Brain’s Halloween special again this year, but I decided to try to force myself to watch the version of Phantom of the Opera with Robert Englund as Phantom. I’m afraid. . . I mean, he was Freddy Krugger and all. . . LOL
Lois
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Sep 28th
2006
2:01 pm
Kimberly Logan Said:
OOOh, Lois! The Robert Englund version of Phantom??? You brave girl! Let’s just say that it’s nowhere close to the Gerard Butler version, LOL. And it’s pretty bloody from what I remember, so be prepared.
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Sep 28th
2006
3:16 pm
Margo Maguire Said:
What about all those versions of Dracula? The Frank Langella one (1979? 1980?) was truest to the book, if I recall correctly. THAT was a truly scary/creepy book.
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Sep 28th
2006
3:38 pm
Shirley Karr Said:
Hubby and I went to a special screening of the original Nightmare on Elm Street last week. (There’s a common element to the movies I’ve seen lately, but can’t quite put my finger on it…) Was fun to watch a supposedly scary movie with a big crowd. All the reactions are multiplied. This one was more funny than scary, though I did jump a couple times. At the end there was a montage of Freddy’s best kills. Um… not recommended unless you’re a real fan of the genre, because they seemed repetitive and gratuitously gory.
My favorite “horror” flick is Young Frankenstein. DH and I can crack each other up just by saying “Put…the candle…back.”
I read everything Stephen King wrote up until Cujo. (We had a German Shepherd.) Loved “The Stand.” Part of King’s creepy brilliance is in making these wild flights of twisted fancy seem plausible. So glad he found a healthy outlet for all the bizarre stuff in his imagination.
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Sep 28th
2006
4:04 pm
Rainy Said:
I love a good scary movie, not something where the major character is some kind of power tool or appliance. When you think horror, you do tend to think Stephen King. Although most of his supernatural horror just doesn’t translate on the big screen. Read the Shining and compare the movies. The scene where Jack? (the kid)is playing in the snow and the snow-covered topiaries appear to begin inching closer, closer to him. In the book it was major creep out. The movies…not so much. But his horror that is not so over the top, like Carrie or Misery, that worked really well on screen.
Kimberly, have you seen “The Skeleton Key” with Kate Hudson? It’s pretty good with a neat end twist. Everyone’s seen the 6th Sense but it’s worth rewatching.
A few years ago we used to rent scary B (maybe even C’s or D’s) movies with some friends and just have a good laugh at flying bats on strings or whatever.
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Sep 28th
2006
4:06 pm
smile0303 Said:
Speaking of Phantom, the same theater is showing the 1925 version w/ Lon Chaney featuring the live on-stage accompaniment by the world-famous Alloy Orchestra.
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Sep 28th
2006
4:46 pm
Kimberly Logan Said:
Shirley, the first Nightmare on Elm Street was the best of the bunch. Unlike the rest of them, I felt like it actually had a few genuinely scary moments. And of course, it’s notable for the debut of a very well-known actor whose name escapes me right now. I think it starts with a J…?
I agree, Rainy. Very rarely did I think any of Stephen King’s books translated well to the screen. It’s funny. Aside from the Steven Weber version of The Shining, I wound up liking the made-for-televison movies better than the big screen versions. Maybe because I never expected as much from them going in. Salem’s Lot and It were both really good.
And yes, I’ve seen Skeleton Key. I actually wasn’t too crazy about it until the ending because it seemed a bit slow. But I thought the twist really saved it. Very unexpected. And I love The Sixth Sense. Easily one of my top favorite spooky movies ever along with Scream.
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Sep 28th
2006
6:39 pm
Shirley Karr Said:
Ooh, yeah, Sixth Sense is good. It doesn’t seem that creepy on first viewing until you get to the end (or if you’d read Entertainment Weekly’s review, which gave away the twist in the opening paragraph — grr.) First saw Haley Joel Osment in the short-lived Jeff Foxworthy sit-com. Hope he does more acting when he finishes school.
M. Night S’s movies are hit and miss, though. The one with Mel Gibson and the little girl (“There’s a monster outside my window, can I have a glass of water?”) is downright funny. They even mocked it on an episode of Stargate SG-1.
At the NOES screening, most of the crowd was 20-somethings, and there was an audible shock at the “And introducing Johnny Depp.” How many times have we seen “and introducing so-and-so”, and we never hear from that actor again? What’s funny is that Glen was written as a tall blond jock, but the director’s daughter just went *nuts* for JD when she was watching audition tapes. Dad knew his target audience. Smart family.
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Sep 29th
2006
3:46 pm
AndreaW Said:
I love scary movies! My hubby won’t watch them, so I usually view them with my sisters. I like most of the ones mentioned. I saw one recently that freaked me out…Hide and Seek w/ Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning. It threw me for a loop!
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