MY LAMEST HALLOWEEN (EXCEPT FOR ONE DEMON!)

A CANDID CONFESSION, SOME BELATED HOLIDAY DOODADS, AND A NOTE ON THE ART OF EVOKING BELIEVABLE EVIL

Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Let’s start with the confession: yesterday, I was an absolute failure as regards my favorite holiday. I didn’t dress up. I didn’t go out. I didn’t have candy (to be fair, no children have come to my porch since I moved to Portland six years ago). 

I watched no scary movies. NO SCARY MOVIES AT ALL. I mean, unless you count the news. 

Hell, my housemates even bought me a pumpkin to carve. They jack o’ lanterened theirs beautifully. I didn’t do shit. 

I couldn’t even bring myself to post, even though I had a smorgasbord of Halloween treats from last year to share: this definitive short story, without a doubt my most reprinted; this essay on the best Creepshow episode ever; this nostalgic look back at the time I actually got to write and direct part of a festive feature (the still-legendary Tales of Halloween). 

To my credit – as of the first of October – I did select eight cinema gems for the front rack at Portland’s Movie Madness, as described herein:

CREEPSHOW (George Romero, 1982)

Romero’s original DEAD trilogy (NIGHT OF THE LIVING, DAWN, and DEAD) invented the contemporary zombie, and changed the modern horror map forever. But it was this collaboration with his pal Stephen King that is my ultimate Halloween fave (though the word is never once mentioned). Gruesome, hilarious, infinitely quotable. To my mind, THE BEST HORROR ANTHOLOGY FILM EVER!!!

TALES OF HALLOWEEN (Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee, me, and eight others, 2015)

It ain’t no CREEPSHOW, but it’s tons of good-natured grisly fun. This is one of those rare “getting drunk at a party” ideas that actually made it to the screen, as a friendly bunch of modern-day indie horror directors and actors got together and threw down out of sheer filmmaking love. (My short with Andrew Kasch, “This Means War”, stars Dana Gould and James Duval in what may be the ultimate Halloween yard display bloodbath.) ENJOY THIS TRICKY TREAT!!!

MURDER PARTY (Jeremy Saulnier, 2007)

Speaking of friends getting together to make crazy shit, this deranged debut feature by the director of GREEN ROOM and BLUE RUIN is what happens when a bunch of film school buddies who’ve been hanging out since childhood decide to pool their resources and kick down Hollywood’s gate. You want murder? You want a party? YOU CAME TO THE RIGHT PLACE!!!

ORGY OF THE DEAD (Stephen C. Apostolof, aka “A.C. Stephens”, 1965)

Many people cite poor old Ed Wood as the worst director in history. They have obviously never seen ORGY OF THE DEAD, which makes Wood look like Orson Welles by comparison. But the script is pure Wood, with dialogue so hilariously insane that you’d do well to fast–forward through the strippers and just focus on the priceless words of Bob, Shirley, The Mummy, The Wolfman, and Criswell as the “Dark Master” or something. BAD MOVIE GREATNESS ENSUES!!!

CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD (Warren Keifer, 1964)

A traveling 19th century circus (complete with a fantastic, ahead-of-his-time heroic “little person” in a major role) winds up at a castle with Christopher Lee in this creepy/cool Italian/American co-production. When I first saw this as a kid, nobody knew who Donald Sutherland was. But he clearly cherished his dual roles (as a soldier and a witch) so much that he named his son after the director. I suspect you may cherish this, too. I SURE DO!!!

DEAD ALIVE/ aka BRAINDEAD (Peter Jackson, 1992)

Long before Jackson brought us Beatlemania or Hobbit Fever (but immediately after being shut down by Jim Henson for his incendiary mad muppetfest MEET THE FEEBLES), this renegade New Zealander whipped up the goriest, goofiest zombie “splatstick” comedy ever made. Thirty years and a thousand horror comedies later, it remains unrivaled. LAWN MOWERS FOR THE WIN!!!

ROAR (Noel Marshall, 1981)

When it comes to “Nature Run Amok” thrillers, it was incredibly tempting to include the original TREMORS, LAKE PLACID, ANACONDA, or COCAINE BEAR. (And sorry, but both NIGHT OF THE LEPUS and ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES are waaaaay better titles than films.) But if you wanna watch Nature REALLY run amok, you gotta see this incredibly bad idea play out in real time. No animals were harmed, but nearly everyone in the cast and crew were! So is this a comedy? YOU MIGHT WANNA ASK THEM!!!

DR. CALIGARI (Stephen Sayadian, 1989)

No, this ain’t yer great-grandpappy’s German Expressionist nightmare fuel. Instead, Sayadian (director of the notorious sex-negative porno classic CAFE FLESH) brings this eye-popping, brain-melting hypnogogic psychosexual assault of creepy neon-bright dimestore surrealism to your brainhole, now available for the first time on BluRay and DVD. Come for the giant tongue! Stay for THE GREATEST ALBERT FISH EVER FILMED!!!

So, I mean, I guess it’s not like I did nothin’. But I must admit, I was fighting off waves of depression as I drove to acting class at 9:00 in the morning. And in our weekly “catch-up session” – where we sit in a circle and share our recent accomplishments, disappointments, and dreams – I basically lamented the fact that I was being a terrible ambassador for horror this year.

“Well, we’ll make up for that!” said Kristina Haddad, our astounding instructor. And then proceeded to throw us into a Halloween-flavored improv version of The Dating Game, wherein we all took turns playing popular monsters (vampires, ghosts, witches, et all) vying for the attention of some OTHER sexy monster, in the hopes of winning a dream date in one of America’s dullest cities. (Des Moines, anyone?)

I had a blast playing Igor, slipping the hood of my hoodie over my right shoulder to help accentuate my hump. I didn’t get picked by the gorgeous Cat Lady – I guess opening my pitch with “You don’t find me repulsive, do you?” didn’t help – but we all laughed a lot throughout. Improv with these people is the funliest thing in the world.

This got us warmed up for the main exercise, doing a scene from some unnamed Exorcist-wannabe script, where a former priest first meets the possessed young woman who’s strapped down in her psycho ward cell.

I opted, of course, to play the demons (“I am LEGION!”, they scream)  inside the possessed young woman, because that was where the real action lived. 

And as I watched our gifted gang take turns playing the scene, at varying degrees of your basic seasonal spoooookiness, I was possessed by my insider’s sense of how serious horror really works.

Cuz here’s the thing. In real life, evil doesn’t act spooky. That’s the cartoon version that we use to soften the blow. It’s why villains in classic silent movies were compelled to twiddle their mustaches, and all the bad guys in Westerns used to wear black hats.

The thing about real evil is, it’s fucking insane. That’s what’s scary about it. It’s fucking insane, and it wants to hurt you. Will get off on hurting you. But like a cat with a lizard, it will play with you first. Take one limb at a time. Because it feeds off your terror, every bit as much as your meat.

So when my turn came, I simply channeled my own madness, all the broken parts inside that had ever tormented me in the depths of my despair. My ugliest internal voices. My deepest self-loathing. All the terror and rage I ever felt, when finding myself in the grip of pure terror and rage.

 By the time my brilliant scene partner strode up to interrogate me, I was already shaking in my chair, and my breath was rough and shallow. I let the sounds of madness crawl out of my throat, rattling low and unnatural. A sickly animal growl.

And when I laughed, it wasn’t funny. And when I spoke, it wasn’t remotely larger-than-life. It was intimate. Insinuating. Awful. 

It was horrible madness, distilled.

Have I mentioned what a great fucking actor Jesse Benefield is? (I believe I have, here.) He matched me beat for beat, his open curiosity melting into shock, contempt, and anger. I fed off his feelings, looking deep into his eyes, and pushed at him, mocked him, threw his own shame in his face. 

By the time he stormed off, repulsed and enraged, I was shrieking “I AM LEGION!!!” with no spooky camp at all. The demons had taken over.

I was fucking insane.

Then the scene ended, and the class went, “WHOA!” And Kristina said, “Holy shit, Skipp! I think you found your calling!” And I shook my head, laughing the demons out of my system. Then Jesse and I hugged it out, and the class went on.

But my point is this.

As it turns out, I’m really glad we did that scene. Because I’m about to do a horror film with a bunch of these actors. And I want them to know how to step into horror’s shoes. 

This class leans primarily into comedy and drama, with an emphasis on the realness that makes performances ring true. These are the essential skills. And Kristina’s training us brilliantly. She is an absolute master at teaching mastery.

She also trains us in fearlessness. Which is to say, profound openness to our deepest selves. She has created a safe space for us to explore the depths, and then bring them back up in their rawest, purest forms.

Because horror is the fiction of worst-case scenarios, it demands that we go to the darkest possible places. And when it comes to portraying madness so starkly terrifying that it’s virtually indistinguishable from demonic possession, we’re talkin’ very dark indeed.

So I’m excited to see who can go there with me. Who even wants to, when soul-push comes to art-shove. 

Because everybody’s got it. They just have to let it fly.

And that, I guess, is my post-Halloween message for the year!