Paris Hilton and Other Scary Things

Has anybody else noticed the lack of scary movies on television this week? This is supposed to be the time of year when we have the opportunity to watch our favorite scary movie favorites like Friday the 13th, Poltergeist, and Freddy Got Fingered. This is the week when you should hear fake Halloween adjectives like ‘spooktacular’ and ‘fright-tastic’ describe upcoming events. I can remember growing up and not being able to turn on the TV without running into a Dracula movie or seeing somebody hacked into itty-bitty bits around this time of year. This year I’ve actually been searching for scary things to watch, and so far my search has yielded a strong desire to punch my couch, and nothing more.

Stupid couch.

I could start on a rant about how Halloween has become too sissy in recent years, and how the corporate commercialization has turned its collective head away from ghouls and goblins and instead begun to market things like a new Paris Hilton Halloween Special on Fox, complete with advertisements for a new politically correct costume for all ages that is family fun and environmentally safe, rather than scary. I won’t even begin to discuss the lack of blood smears and cobwebs around this office….please don’t get me started. I’m THIS close to going to a party shop today and buying some plastic spiders and skeletons to decorate my cubicle with just to piss off the prissy, goody-two-shoes* coworkers that surround me in this hell hole.

I won’t rant about corporate commercialization, or discuss the lack of spooky decorations. I'll let my favorite squirrel Foamy handle that. Today I choose instead to focus on the lack of adequate scary movies being offered up to us on this pre-Halloween week, and why it is making me punch my stupid couch.

Remember the Great Pumpkin? Sure, you do. When I was young, The Charlie Brown Halloween Special was one of the signs that Halloween was coming soon. I haven’t seen that special for years, and last night as I was flipping channels and punching my stupid couch, I ran across the tail end of it. Oh, spooktacular Halloweeney joy erupted from within my inner child as I watched those goofy kids sitting in the pumpkin patch at night, waiting for the arrival of The Great Pumpkin. As always, watching the special was my signal that it was time to get serious about Halloween.

So last night became a Halloween entertainment quest for Jen and I.

This is when I began to notice the utter lack of anything spooky or freaky or ghoulishly terrific on the television, and I began to hear that little cynic inside my head start to shout out curses at parent’s groups and religious zealots who think Halloween is a Satan holiday, so they pull holiday programming to help save our children. Ignoring the little voice, I continued to flip channels in search of something that would help keep me in the Halloween mood…to no avail.

I was thwarted. There was nothing scary to watch, and the thought of another night of sitcoms and courtroom dramas filled me with enough dread to host two of my own Halloween specials at the same time, with dancing and cake. Refusing to admit defeat, I grabbed my keys and Jen and I headed to my local rip-off video store to rent some good scary movies to help quell our desire for spooky fun.

Once again, I was brutally rebuffed. My choices ranged from Anacondas 2 to Mosquito Boy, or some such shit. Where were the good scary movies? We asked the guy working the counter if he could point us to the “good horror movie” section, only to be told that they didn’t have one. We even asked for Psycho…a great scary movie…a classic. They didn’t fucking have it.

Somebody shoot me.

We settled on the remake of The Amityville Horror and headed home to watch our movie in peace and spooky quiet. Expecting a crap film, I poured myself a bourbon and settled down for what would most likely be another boring movie night during a crappy week of non-Halloween entertainment sitting on my stupid couch.

We watched it. I peed myself. Twice. On my couch. While screaming. Like a little girl. The movie was freaky, spooktacular, scary Halloween fun that made me a kid again in the sense that I called my mom and asked her to come over and tuck me in. With the light on. Don’t turn that fucking light off, mom or I'll fucking kill you. Crack the door, too. Shut the closet. Give me the shotgun. Holy crap that movie was creepy.

I’m not saying it was the scariest movie ever made, nor am I saying that it was the best horror film I’ve ever seen…I’m simply saying that I peed myself twice on my couch while screaming like a little girl as I watched it. I urge you to draw your own conclusions.

So my quest for scary Halloween entertainment was not in vain; I scared myself silly and went to bed being wary of noises and shadows…good times!

Happy Almost Halloween.
Happy Wednesday.
Happy oh my fucking God what the fuck is that in the corner with a knife?! Ahhhhhhhhhh!


This is really scary
So is this



*I apologize for using the phrase "goody-two-shoes", but I could think of no other group of words that would adequately describe the situation.
**If you didn't check out the Foamy Halloween rant cartoon, you really should do that.