Adam Baran

Happy Halloween kiddies!! I’m just going to make this a rambling, delirious blog post about everything I like and everything scary and everything I think you should do tonight to have a great time. Last night’s party was a really fun time, I showed Black Sabbath, the Bava anthology, which was a big hit. Then I put on the Mexican film The Brainiac, also known as the Baron of Terror (a nickname I’ve co-opted, since I’m the Baran of Terror, sort of, not really.) Then I put on Lady Terminator but by then everyone was playing with a toy my friend Dan brought called The Grossinator which made stupid sentences like “Here comes a disgusting, gross, oozing BARF.” Or “I’m gonna make a smelly FART.” It was hilarious.

So what about tonight. I’m going to see the B-52’s and then probably off to Nowhere or Slurp. But what should you do? If you’re going to stay at home, and actually want to watch something scary, here’s a few choice selections from my fingertips.

THE ENTITY - This is probably my favorite scary film. It’s one of the many possessed/demonic spirit films that came in the wake of the success of Poltergeist, starring Barbara Hershey in the only other film of hers worth watching (Besides Beaches, obviously..) You know that scene in Poltergeist towards the end when you think everything is fine and JoBeth Williams is blow drying her hair and all of a sudden she’s floating up to the ceiling and the Poltergeist is pushing her jersey-t up and you start to see her 70’s panties (didn’t she see Alien - when you show your thong, you’re a goner) - anyway so that scene in Poltergeist is taken to it’s nth degree in The Entity. Barbara Hershey plays a single mother with three kids who one night is grabbed by an unseen spirit thrown down on her bed, and raped. She can’t see her attacker, but she can feel him, and we can see the indentation on her body to know something’s going on. It’s really fucking creepy, as she’s raped several more times by the spirit, once in front of her kids, until skeptical scientist Ron Silver tries to come to her rescue. The end is whatever, but you will jump outta your seat more than a few times. Guaranteed. Great score too.

Inferno: Most people who know Dario Argento know Suspiria, and it’s a pretty brilliant film with the kind of primal dream logic and intense imagery of Psycho. But fewer know Inferno, his follow up and second in his Three Mothers trilogy, which he’s recently completed with daughter Asia Argento. The film’s about the second location of a coven of Witches, the first was the school in Suspiria, and the second is this high rise apartment in New York City, Central Park West. The film is just so gothic and strange and moves from one bizarre set-piece to the next, colors exploding all over the place.

Here’s one of the strangest and creepiest scenes, where the lead girl decides to go underwater to try and find this painting that will reveal if the house is indeed a Witch’s hideout. Plot doesn’t matter. Check this out.

For more funny horror, I’d recommend the recently released DVD Murder Party, which is a really geniunely charming horror flick about a loner who winds up going to a Halloween Party at a loft in Williamsburg where he’s the only guest. The people throwing the party are a group of semi-deranged art-students who plan to murder the loner as the ultimate art-project, in hopes of winning a grant. There’s a great indie aesthetic, and cute Williamsburg references - nobody can decide whether to order Pizza or Thai, giving the tied-up victim a chance to escape. One of the killers is dressed like the baseball gang from the Warriors. Another is Darryl Hannah in Blade Runner. There’s some gay sex (briefly) for all you gays, and some fangoria-worthy gore. But it’s all not-taken too seriously, and it’s very winning.

For older viewing, if you have seen Tod Browning’s freaks, and are looking for something similiarly weird, check out his equally brilliant The Devil Doll, which is actually about a man who escapes from prison to his scientist friend’s house. The scientist has perfected a way of shrinking humans to doll size, and then controlling them so they can wake up and kill people. The escaped prisoner, brilliantly played by Lionel Barrymore, takes the dolls to Paris to get revenge on the people who wrongly imprisoned him, disguising himself as a woman named Madame Manderley and selling the dolls to all his enemies. The dolls are super cheesy, film with silly special effects tricks, but it’s really fun.

If you want to read, you should go to Barnes and Noble and pick up a copy of Sara Gran’s Come Closer. This is probably the scariest book I have ever read and when I say something’s scary…. I could not stop thinking about it for weeks after I read it. It’s written in sparse, chilly prose, telling the story of a woman with slight marital difficulties who slowly realizes she is possessed by the spirit of a nymphomaniac demon, or is she just crazy? It’s been described as a cross between The Yellow Wallpaper and Rosemary’s Baby. It’s pure genius, one of the best books I’ve read in years.

If you want to watch porn, you should rent The Hole, Wash West’s hilarious spoof of Japanese Horror flick The Ring. If you watch the pirated video in this one, in seven days you don’t die, you turn gay, accompanied by a phone call that when you answer it, says, “You’re gay, now.” The lead watches the tape and tries to discover the source of the tape so he can not end up gay, but when he finally turns gay at the end, he’s really happy.

For TV, Twin Peaks is out on DVD in a full boxed set that I have to get soon. Watch the last episode, the one that takes place entirely in the Black Lodge and ends with that shocking twist ending that completely freaked out all of the fans who knew that the show had already been canceled. Or better yet, why don’t I just post it here - the black lodge scene, not the twist ending: Happy Halloween! (Btw: I Love that this isn’t in english. It makes it creepier.)

PS. More focused writing to come soon, I promise. Eat lots of candy and cake.