sweasel.com

It’s not the dead you have to fear…

That is a scary photo. Ever hear the tale of the headless weasel? Me neither. But it is worth writing. 🙂

I need some movie suggestions, myself.

howzabout “an inconvenient truth”….that’s pretty frightful.

“The Changeling” with George C. Scott (1980). One of the best ghost story movies ever made,

I’ll note that “The Changeling” is available on YouTube, and in decent quality as well:

https://youtu.be/jU-_neFp-QA

One of the reasons I love the movie so much is that Scott (or Scott’s character) acts like a rational adult thrown into difficult circumstances.

I was rather surprised that not only did my grandchildren on the opposite sides of two oceans dress for Halloween, my Norwegians actually had trick or treaters. My son’s company had a Halloween party, even. The HK kids had a party, too.

America is taking over the planet. 😜🎃

Check out Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp…very well done movie.

Hallow-e’en may be new over there, but Samhain has been around a good long while, yes?

1963 The Haunting

1956 The Bad Seed (not so much spooky as disturbing).

1959 The Tingler (OK, this one is terrible, but in a wonderful way. Vincent Price!)

“The Babadook” is pretty f’ing scary and it’s on Amazon Prime in US

“The Others” with Nicole Kidman. One of the few movies whose ending I didn’t see coming.

“The Lodger,” 1944, Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Laird Cregar.

We are watching the “Over the Garden Wall” miniseries. It’s from one of the minds behind Adventure Time. It’s an autumn/ Halloween folksey story of two brothers lost in the woods. Of course there’s always The Peanuts Halloween.

On a more adult note, “Pans Labyrinth” is amazing.

Ah. This is in my wheelhouse, for sure.

Curse of the Demon from 1950-something, with Dana Andrews and based on an M.R. James story, “Casting the Runes.” Directed by Jacques Tourneur, who really knew how to use light and shadow, and with a built-in ticking-clock deadline. When, a couple of years ago, TCM ran an entire month of chiller films in October, this was the one they saved for last, the 31st.

The original Poltergeist, though you’ve probably seen it, from 1982. Incomparable sound effects and dialog. “It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning.”

The Uninvited, from the Forties, with Ray Milland. It’s not so much scary as it is riveting, with the mystery being, Why is this ghost haunting this house?

Wait Until Dark (1967), with Audrey Hepburn as a plucky blind lady in NYC and Alan Arkin as the leader of a trio of criminals — a performance Stephen King called one of the masterpieces of screen villainy. Not supernatural, but still intense, suspenseful, and frightening.

The Dunwich Horror – which was horrible. From what I recall very drug culture late 60’s early 70’s.

But Sandra Dee.

Samhain was more or less unheard of in England, Uncle Al, apart from among self-styled pagans.

It appears that it was quite widely celebrated in the Celtic fringes (notably Ireland and Scotland, though not Wales) and that is one of the reasons it took hold in the States as so many colonists came from those two countries.

Thirty years ago, an American friend of mine living in the UK told me he was busily growing pumpkins to help encourage the local English kids (who had no idea about Halloween).

Over the years, US imported TV and movies have spread the idea so that it’s pretty much universal here, now though, curiously, none of our main TV channels made any concessions to it yesterday, which seemed strange.

Thanks for the suggestions, BTW. In the end we found an MR James story on a minority BBC channel and watched that – A View From A Hill – and it was very well done. We will check out the recommendations as well I’m sure.

BTW, just to put this on record, Amazon Prime is complete rubbish over here. The selection on offer is pitiful. I suppose Bezos needs the money for virtue signalling!

Thanks, yawl. Those of the above recommendations I haven’t seen will go straight on my To Watch list.

I still think “Bezos” sounds like the lead singer in an interplanetary grunge band.

Uncle B: It makes perfect sense that none of your main TV channels made any concessions to Halloween. It’s not a moslem observance.