Halloween Die-ary: September 27, 2018

The Halloween decorations seem to have made it through the storm unscathed. In fact, as I entered our cul-de-sac after returning home from work, dusk just settling (earlier and earlier as it does this time of year), I could see it looming and flashing its 30 feet of purple light at the end of the street. A flashing purple light that, as our neighbor remarked to my wife today, “Is making our living room flash purple.” You’re very welcome for that.

I haven’t talked much about my reading so far this season. That’s because I’m an embarrassingly slow reader and only make it through a couple of books in a month. This season, since The House with a Clock in Its Walls hit theaters, I decided to read a John Bellairs series. Except instead of the Lewis Barnavelt series that includes House with a Clock, I chose the Johnny Dixon and the Professor series, because I had easy access to it.

I read the first two books, The Curse of the Blue Figurine and The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt. I…didn’t like them as much as I liked House with a Clock. In fact, the one thing I dug about them is that the books are set in Haverhill, Massachusetts, with forays into the surrounding New England area, so I recognized a lot of the places and allusions.

All that to say I’ve decided to quit on the series instead of keeping it my seasonal reading. Right now I’m reading Norman Prentiss’s Life in a Haunted House (mainly because I dug his Invisible Fences novella), and then after that it’ll probably be time to dust off one of my copies of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree for my annual read.

Got some great plans for the weekend: Deerfield Fair (which I’ve written about before here) and Salem (which I’ve written about everywhere). It’s going to be a lot of Fall fun. And a couple of days in a row where I don’t have to write in this die-ary about what movie I watched.

Which, by the way, tonight was the 1987 The Curse starring Will Wheaton, Claude Akins, and John Schneider. It’s based on Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space and was one of those low-budget American-Italian jobbies (produced by Lucio Fulci), filmed in Tennessee and Rome.

The first half reminded me of a made-for-TV movie, but then the second half ratcheted everything up into just a morass of that grossness that those Italians did so well for so long in the horror genre. Overall, it reminded me a lot of one of those random horror movies I’d catch 15 minutes in on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. It also reminded me of that because I had a bowl of Count Chocula while I watched it.

I also watched half of Rob Zombie’s 31 while on the treadmill working off that bowl of Count Chocula. I probably don’t really need to write about that movie.

All right. It’s late, and I need to go turn off the ghoul before my neighbors get too ticked.