5 fandom friday

5 Fandom Friday – Top Five Halloween Treats

For many parents, Halloween is the most tiring holiday. Christmas is a close second, especially if you are traveling. Costumes, parties, parades and trick or treating do take a toll on parental units. I mean, really, I could just go to the local Walgreens and buy all this same candy at 75 percent off the next day, right?

However, children will be children and just as I had my Halloween, I try to give my children the same. This year I have Gandalf, an 80s rock diva and a Black Knight to usher from house to house. And since Daylight Savings Time is kinda late the year, it’s going to be dark early. But…..I get to be Nick Fury!!

But let’s focus on the FUN!!!!

I’m not a huge candy eater, but there are some candies that I cannot resist!

Nerds – Pink and Purple

I love these crunchy, tart, tiny pebbles of pure sugar and artifical coloring. It’s like eating sweet rocks.

Twix

I don’t know about this new left/right Twix campaign, but Twix has it all, cookies, chocolate and caramel. They’re just plain great.

Peppermint Patties

Peppermint Patty….. image via Wikipedia Commons

Any chocolate/mint combo will do, really, but York Peppermint patties are the best. They’re not as pepperminty as I remember, but still, the combination of dark chocolate and white mint can take your breath away.

Milk Duds

I need to stay away from these, but I can’t. They’re the candy that makes you work for it. The thick, gooey caramel is enough to pull a few fillings out, I bet (I’ve been lucky so far), and the chocolate is sufficient. So good!

Haribo Gummy Bears

Sweet goodness, three’s 600 of them!!! Image courtesy of Americansweets.co.uk

No other brand will do. Haribo has the flavors and the perfect texture of gumminess to be just right. I love ’em!

There you go! Do you agree or do you have your own personal favorite? Leave them in the comments!

5 Fandom Friday – Five of My Favorite Halloween Movies

magic-1978-movie-poster — HOW FREAKISH IS THIS POSTER?

Magic (not the Mike kind)

This is a movie that scared the mess out of me when I was a teenager. First of all, I am no fan of ventriloquist dummies. I can’t stand them, they scare the heck out of me. Give me a movie with a dummy and you’ve got me scared.

A looooooong time ago, back in 1978, there was this movie trailer that ran on television. Mind you, this was back in the fun 70s where the cars waiting in line for gas would queue in front of my parents’ house. This trailer wasn’t anything NEAR Silent Hill 3d (which by the way also frightens me with its grotesqueness) but was creepy just in the fact that it featured a dummy.

The movie was directed by Richard Attenborough, the kindly old John Hammond in Jurassic Park. You’ll also find Burgess Meredith, Ann-Margaret, and

Here’s the creepy trailer.

According to Wikipedia (that bastion of totally true facts) : “The trailer for this film was pulled from TV due to calls from parents who claimed that it gave their children nightmares.” Oh, most certainly.

Seriously, it may not scare you now, but imagine a 10 year old watching this on the late night movie or Chiller Theatre (remember channel 9 Chiller with the six-fingered hand?)

This was Anthony Hopkins before he was Hannibal Lector, a failed magician who is basically going off the deep end. Yikes!

The movie is on YouTube if you want to watch it. Warning, it’s 70s cheesy, but the story itself is disturbing.

The Shining

I’ll be honest, I saw the movie “The Shining” before I read the book. Saw it on channel seven, ABC’s channel here in the New York area. I’m not sure how old I was, but I must have been in high school because the movie was in the theatre in 1980.

That movie frightens me to this day, even when they show it on the Arts and Entertainment channel. I’m not sure if

I’ve never seen the theatrical version and I’m not sure I want to.

The whole idea of being snowbound and trapped while the “strongest” of your party goes slowly mad and there’s nothing you can do about it is frightening enough. The fact that the HOTEL itself is making it impossible for you to escape from him is even scarier.

The scene that scared me the most was not the famous and too-often-quoted “Here’s Johnny!” scene, but it’s the scene where Jack is menacing Wendy on the stairs and says:

Wendy Torrance: Please! Don’t hurt me!
Jack Torrance: I’m not gonna hurt you.
Wendy Torrance: Stay away from me!
Jack Torrance: Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in.
[Wendy gasps]
Jack Torrance: Gonna bash ’em right the fuck in! ha ha ha

The miniseries remake with Steven Weber (from the show WINGS of all places) didn’t half faze me. I mean, this is the dude from Wings against Jack Nicholson for heaven’s sake. It’s a no brainer.

The movie was made in 1980, but I’ll say SPOILER ALERT anyway.

The Shining is an example of chillingly great horror movie. The final shot of Jack Nicholson frozen in the hedge maze…that haunted me for quite a few nights after that!

Blacula

Laugh if you want at the 70s clothes and kinda bad acting, but this was one of my first scary movies. Again, I ask, how were they showing this stuff on network TV in the 1970s? Viewing it now, it’s not as scary as it was (of course). However, I loved the relationship between the police officer and his wife, especially the conversations they had about “moving out of the city”. I’ve posted the trailer, and I realize that it ruins one of the scariest moments in the movie, but since the movie is over thirty years old…oh well.

28 Days Later

I had to watch this one at noon. I simply cannot watch scary movies at night (when you’re supposed to, I know). It’s just TOO scary for me! Gah, even the trailer scares me now, LOL.

Jeepers Creepers

Before the sequel ruined the Creeper, this….just wow. I actually watched this at night, like a fool, and was up half the night staring at the closet door that I forgot to close. I just KNEW the Creeper was in there waiting for me and I was too creeped out to get up and open the door. Mind you, my husband slept peacefully next to me, oblivious to the fact there was dangers right under his suit jackets.

So what’s YOUR favorite scary movie????

5 Fandom Friday – My Five Gateway Fandoms

Color me super excited! I am so pleased to throw my blog in the link-up with The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick for this Friday’s topic – Five Gateway Fandoms.

Now, if you’ve read my blog, you know that I like a looooot of stuff. But, even little Dahlia had her predilections (I love that word) and exquisite tastes. Which of course, were the gateway to even more predilections and super exquisite tastes. So sit back, dear reader, and find out what made me what I am today!

1. Girl Rockers – Joan Jett and Pat Benatar

Back when I was a wee impressionable one, they didn’t have a lot of ladies to identify with. Sure there was Babs and a folk singer or two, but the roof was really raised when Joan Jett and the Blackhearts hit the scene with “I Love Rock and Roll” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”. The heavy, recognizable guitar riff (wielded by a girl!) along with the tough look of black jeans, eyeliner and cool-ass hair…well, you can’t get any better than Joan Jett!

While Pat had a sweeter, smoother voice and her husband and band did most of the heavy musical lifting, “Hell is for Children”, “Promises in the Dark”, and her “breakout hit”, “Love is a Battlefield” had me singing in front of my mirror with a hairbrush and cutting my hair short!

2. The Police

I don’t even know where to start when these fellas. Suffice to say that I’ve seen nearly every movie Sting was in, even if he was simply there like…Dune (all I can say is….whaaaa? about that movie.) I even tracked down a 1983 Playgirl magazine to read his interview and I’m sure there’s a stack of magazine cut outs, Tiger Beats and Rolling Stones with them on the cover. That’s not counting the magazines my friends and I would BEG to order from England because just had to have the latest Police news. Also, purchased Carl Jung’s Synchronicity.

3. Star Wars

1977 in a movie theater that has since long closed. Feet sticking to the floor (of course) I watched the spectacle unfold. I had a remote control R2D2 robot. I was Darth Vader for Halloween. I was a Han Solo girl to the max and even have an autographed picture of Harrison Ford somewhere at my mom’s house. Before les Internets, we sat down and wrote our fave stars letters….and sometimes got and answer. I remember standing in the RAIN to line up to see Return of the Jedi. Wow. When they came along with those….other films…I kinda ignored the whole thing. However, I will sit down and watch Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and to a lesser degree The Return of the Jedi when they are on.

4. Mystery Science Theater 3000

This was what Saturday mornings were all about! Terrible movies with people actually cracking jokes about how terrible they really were. My favorite of ALL TIME? The Pod People. Awfulness at its finest. You can’t beat MST3K.

5. The Chronicles of Narnia

Who hasn’t, after reading these books, gone and knocked on the back of a closet or two? I firmly believe in the “you never know” and that magic can always around the corner. I’ve gone through so many sets of these books…I order a new set every two years, so they’re always a complete set around. My son had picked up an appreciate for Narnia also, and I certainly hope it brings magic into his life.

Some Honorable Mentions

Frank Sinatra – That’s cool music, baby!
Duran Duran
The Sims
The Little House Books

Most of these in this post, I still read and listen to today.