Stephen King

Blogtoberfest – Poor Fellas and Gals: Dog Halloween Costumes

I have a dog. I think she’s a rather judgy dog. She doesn’t like it when I dress her in her winter coat, even though as a pit bull, she has zero undercoat and needs the insulation in the colder weather. Still, the eyeballing she gives me as she stands there in her Land’s End insulated doggy coat. I mean, come on, what dog can’t look good in Land’s End outerwear? Not Athena. She hates it, and makes it clear she hates me for putting in on her.

However, I won’t be a party to dog Halloween costumes. I find them unwieldy, a pain to put on and something that can really be only worn once a year. The dogs, themselves, seem so….pitiful yet revenge filled when you snap that picture. After one year of one of my dogs dressing as something or other (I really don’t remember), I’ve learned my lesson. However, some humans never learn. Let’s take a look, shall we?

All Pictures courtesy of PartyCity.com, except where noted.

Yoda’s looking like he could drink from the toilet at any moment.

This TinMan looks sad enough to be the REAL TinMan.

Oh yeah, this Superman dressed dog is totally JUDGING you.

This dog has just decided to give in and roll with it, baby.

Blogtoberfest – Not Just “IT”: More Creepy King Stories

From what I’ve heard is that the new IT movie is pretty scary. I have to say “from what I’ve heard’ because I haven’t seen it yet. Nothing like seeing something scary on the big screen to scar you for life and I’m not as young as I used to be.

While being scared on the screen is fun, being scared from words on a page can be even more fun. Yep, I just touted reading above movie watching and you all know how I LOVE reading. Following this, Stephen King has written just a tad few more stories than IT that are guaranteed to take you over the creepy/scared line. Here are five of my favorites.

From Nightshift

Graveyard Shift – Whose nose doesn’t twist at thethought of working in a mildewy, dark, damp basement? Bonus points: it’s hot and there’s rustling in the walls. This is a story that will make you wash your hands after you’ve finished reading it. Don’t forget the hand sanitizer.

Grey Matter – Strange things can grow in beer – something about those hops – and when you guzzle one down without thoroughly examining the contents, bad things happen. I promise you’ll pour your beer in a glass after reading this one. Gross, scary body horror.

Sometimes They Come Back – Like a little melancholy with the heebie-jeebies? Well, this story is perfect for you. A man gets revenge for something that happened in his childhood, but remember, the devil is hell to pay.

Skeleton Crew

The Raft – Those of you who’ve seen Creepshow 2 are familar with this story. Yes, the charactersare archetypes and the whole thing reads like a B-movie script, but you won’t be so eager to jump into the lake next summer, now will you?

The Monkey – Short, but gets under your skin. A haunted toy monkey does….bad things, for lack of a better term….to those who find it and wind it up. I’ve always found those mechanical toys weird anyway, so to find out this monkey was haunted was no big surprise.

And just like that, we;’ve come to the end of our Blogtoberfest visit! Check out some of these King shorts that I mentioned.

Dahlia

Blogtoberfest – Stephen King's Pet Sematary

Horror is different for everyone. I don’t think the “experts” can agree on what horror is and thus there are tons of movies and books that represent the horror

Cover of "Pet Sematary (Special Collector... — Cover via Amazon

genre, as it should be.

I also believe that horror is different depending on where you are in your life. What’s represents horror for a twenty-year-old might be old-hat to a forty year old. Books that resounded for me in my twenties are just “eh” now that I’m a lovely seasoned woman of a certain age.

But Stephen King’s Pet Semetary broke that mold. It’s just as frightening now as when I first read it many years ago.

Here’s the blurb

“Sometimes dead is better….”When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself…and hideously more powerful.

SPOILERS SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS SPOILERS

My goodness, what a story. It runs the gamut from the “real-life” horror of the death of a child and the grief that follows, to the otherworldly horror that awaits when the family tries to alleviate the grief that follows the death of a family pet.

The first time I read the story the scene on the hill wasn’t so horrifying. You know why? Because I didn’t have children of my own. I think I was more touched by the death of the pet than I was by the other. However, when I read it now, that scene on the hill makes my gut twinge and jump. After reading it, I had to go “check on the children”. Having children of my own makes the following scenes more poignant and so much more touching.

Sympathy turning to empathy.

SPOILERS END (they were half-assed anyway)

My theory of horror if you’re “just watching” it makes it a lot less scary. “This could never happen to me because blah blah”. When an ordinary situation turns into a “horror” situation, something that could happen to anyone, something that is plausible (with a little “what if” thrown in) that’s when the true terror begins.

Pet Sematary is about grief, loss and at its core, the horror of not letting go and where it can get you.

Five Halloween Books for Scary Reading

Yes, we like the movies, but there’s nothing like a scary book to curl up with on a dark, blustery night. When I lived alone, I used to scare myself to death with the sounds that I thought I heard when I was reading an especially scary book. And the dog didn’t help when she jump up and ran out of the room for no apparent reason. (Sometimes I think dogs do that on purpose to scare the mess out of us. Then they go drink out of the toilet and laugh at us.)

Anyhoo, here’s my top five books to read around Halloween, or any time. These are presented in no particular order.

Pet Sematary – Stephen King: I can’t tell you how much this book frightened me. I discuss this in more detail over at my blog, if you care to take a look. Suffice to say, while the movie is pretty scary, it could not come close to the frightening visions that I had conjured in my head when I’d read the book..

I Am Legend – Richard Matheson: Forget Will Smith. Forget the movies. Read the story. Get inside of the head of the last human on earth, who is plagued every night by some kind of creatures who bid him to “come out, come out…” This novel inspired George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Excellent reading.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury: Jim Nightshade and William Halloway encounter a carnival that is not exactly what it seems. To me, some of the themes that run through this novel mirror Stephen King’s Needful Things. If you haven’t read either, read Something Wicked first.

The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson: I saw the movie, yes, it was scary. However, as I wrote before, there’s nothing that can scare you worse than yourself. Shirley Jackson taps right into that terror and carries you along with her.

Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin: First of all, stay away from the “sequel”, Son of Rosemary’s Baby. That book made me so angry that I threw the hardcover across the room. Literally. (I am very glad that I hadn’t been reading it on an e-reader because the urge to throw it would have still been very strong.). The original Rosemary’s Baby is another case of the ordinary turning so hideously extraordinary that you can’t believe it’s happening. Certainly, it may be somewhat dated, but still, transport yourself back to the era before the Internet and immerse yourself in the horror.

I hope you enjoy these hand-picked scary selections of mine. Be sure to lock the doors and the windows and leave the bathroom light on. You don’t want to fumble into someone in the middle of the night.

Pleasant dreams!

Blogtoberfest – 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.

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.

There is also the helpless feeling you have that not only is there “no escape”, but it’s your spouse/someone close, the one person who you love and trust the most in the world, is the one who is menacing you.

The soundtrack adds to the dread with its Native American chants, droning underchords and well-used scare chords.

The most well used scare chord is at the very end. No matter how much I anticipate it, it gets me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Of course, YMMV (Your mileage may vary). Each person watches a different movie.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ #quotes #theshining #kubrick” quote=”‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'” theme=”style4″]

Here’s a taste of Jack Nicholson, before he became the Joker. I must say, no matter what is said about Kubrick, he got excellent performances out of his actors. You can feel Wendy’s fear of her husband. However, no matter how afraid she may be, she’s still reluctant to really hurt him.

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.

**“Come play with us, Danny. Forever. And ever. And ever.“**

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!

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