I was telling someone earlier that I like when things are spooky but I don't want to be jump-scared. Like I want to go to a wax museum (where I look at ghoulish automatons), but I don't want to go to a haunted house (where teenagers shout at me). I don't want to go on a tense psychological hellride-- I'm already on a tense psychological hellride. I want to see eerie figures romp in merriment because it helps me feel like this world is for me too.

So anyway for this week I went through my movie notes and picked out a few movies I've seen recently that are spooky but not scary. They aren't weak and "for kids", they're just cozy, like a Hot Toddy. Would also be good for just having on at a party with the volume on zero.

If you have a favorite spooky movie with either lots of colored lights in it, OR ghoulies partying in a crepuscular demimonde, PLEASE leave a comment! Also what are we doing this Halloween? I don't have plans yet.

• Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) - Mario Bava directs a masterclass in colored lights and mist for this movie about a beefy hunk trapsing through the underworld. There's crypts, ghoulies, rock monsters, stalactites, bubbling lava, cobwebs, moving walls that crush you, main characters getting stretched out on the rack, everything you could want, and it all looks amazing. Even the regular shots give you some flavor of colored light bouncing off a cheekbone. Bodybuilder Reg Park plays Hercules, he was Mr Universe 1951 1958 and 1965. Christopher Lee plays the baddie and he simmers of course. If you watch this and then want to buy some colored gels to put over the clip lights in your house there's a few people selling rainbow packs on eBay for $20, which should be fine as long as you only use 2 or 3 per room and pick the combinations well. That's a small price to pay for even a demitasse of Bava allure.
• Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) - A bunch of neighborhood ghoulies find their turf invaded by a Babylonian diety (based on Pazuzu??) and team up to fight him off. If you're like me and you've always longed for a crepuscular demimonde where non-evil sprites collide in merriment, I bid you welcome. And if your special interest is Babylonian deities and you wish the guy from Exorcist was in more movies, ahhhhhhhh get in here. There's a lot of weird dudes from Japanese folklore here and no one gets a backstory or any explication, which this reviewer finds DIGNIFIED. Spooky and comfy, I could picture having this on tape and falling asleep to it over and over again. File under: cantina guys. I also LOVED Takashi Miike's Great Yokai War (2005).
• Retribution (1987) - wow, I loved it!!! VERY cool 1980s "scuzzy city" movie but it's LA not New York, so instead of taking subways in the wet night our hero takes buses and cabs in the charitable light of a pleasant afternoon. And instead of being possessed by a demon it's just like, trauma bouncing through the system. CW: suicide, but it isn't successful, and afterwards his friends at the fleabag hotel throw him a VERY cool surprise party with barrelhouse piano music and indoor motorcycles. Party hats, streamers, confetti, the works! His girl is a sex worker and no one's upset about it. They get stoned and go to an art gallery, and their relationship seems honest and real. Movies where the guy is a painter. Movies where babes wear zebra print. Movies where it's Halloween. There's some cool gore. No punks per se but they do go to a cool reggae club. Art comics fans: his paintings kind of look like Jerry Moriarty's. The credits say "paintings by Barry Fahr"-- I looked him up and he didn't do a lot of paintings for movies but he's a professor at Otis College in LA and his students absolutely love him.
• Inferno (1980) - Hell yeah. If you like evil buildings, colored light bulbs, wet silk, cats, candleabras, weird valets, and horrible hands that kill, buckle up. If you hate all those things or you need things to make sense in an extremely basic and rational way, pass. Personally I loved it. There's a few cool basements in this, including one that's inexplicably under water. There's really a lot of inexplicable in this, hopefully you can groove on that. OK I'm going to issue a Content Warning in case someone I know wants to get high and watch this-- there's a part where a guy drowns a bunch of cats in a bag, that might spin you out. Immediately after that he's getting eaten alive by rats though, that kind of turns it around. You can't miss it because he goes "ahhhh! I'm being eaten alive by rats!". Again, I loved it. 2 questions though: 1, was this an inspiration for Ghostbusters? 2, Why did they hover over a "Gurdjieff lived here" plaque in front of the evil building? Did Argento have a bone to pick with the Fourth Way crowd? Or were they just throwing more sauce on the landscape?
• Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) - Growing up my video rental place was an incredible independent store with an honest to god ARTHOUSE section, so as a teen I was already exposed to the movies of Jan Svankmeyer. Luckily they didn't have this one because I don't know if I'd want to watch this in a house where my mom might walk in the room at any moment and say "what are you watching". Although honestly the perversion in this is so wholesome I could see myself replying plainly "all these people have these elaborate jerk-off rituals" "oh. why is that guy making a chicken mask?" "I don't know, I think it just freaks him out". There are fantasies of power and domination but they're so regular that the whole thing comes across as cute. Oftentimes in a freaky movie there's a power dynamic and the filmmaker uses their skill to conscript the audience into alignment with the powerful. I don't like that. I don't want to build a world, even a temporary one, where people have to do what I tell them to. This movie invites me into a world where everyone has some weird thing that freaks them out, and that's a much better scene for me. Also this movie has the energy of "getting ready for the big show", which I LOVE. This isn't really spooky but I'm adding this to the Halloween playlist because the whole movie is about getting your costume ready.

  I'm sure I've said "Amélie for perverts" before but this really is that. Although Amélie is also Amélie for perverts. Shoutout to Lavender for the recommendation and shoutout to Rob Newton at Starship Video, which honestly changed the course of my life.

• The Girl on the Broomstick (1972) - wow, if you're looking for a whimsical 1970s Czechoslovakian movie about a cute teen witch, this is the one. I loved it. great vibe all the way through, all the witches and warlocks looked cool and imaginative, a perfect little Halloween romp for all ages.
• Face Like a Frog (1988) - absolutely perfect 5 minute "fun nightmare" from Sally Cruikshank where everything blinks, grins, flirts, eats you, then morphs into something else that blinks, grins, flirts, and eats you. Danny Elfman score of course. Always looking for more of this 80-90s gothic oompah / cocktail expressionist crayola bold colorway scene so if you catch a good one please leave a note. What do you call this, Elfmania? New Caligari? Memphis Bleak? This is on youtube and vimeo, uploaded by Sally herself, and it looks like she reads the comments so go ahead and tell her you love her.

links / misc

• Face Like A Frog [YouTube, 5min]
• all my movie notes can be ready in the Movie Diary, which is in the TV room on the second floor of the castle. Take the stairs up and it's on the left. The Movie Diary contain short reviews of EVERY movie I've seen (even the clunkers) since January 25 2019.
• I'm playing a show in Providence on Sunday, it's going to be an old-time PUMPKIN PARTY, hosted by Sam from Baby;Baby! Potluck, pumpkin carving, music... for more info ask a pumpkin...

  

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