The upcoming Halloween season…
Hello, After Darkers! Dino Drac’s Halloween Countdown begins in a little less than a month, so I wanted to throw you some thoughts on how After Dark will be run from that point on.
My gut instinct is that trying to do daily After Dark updates during the Countdown won’t work out. Between the severe increase in streaming options and all other considerations, tossing up YouTube videos every single day seems like it’ll taper off into pointlessness.
Instead, I’m mulling over a few different ideas — namely these two:
1. Work on a thrice-a-week schedule, with different themes on the particular day. For argument’s sake, say Mondays are for movies, Wednesdays are for surveys and Saturdays are for “talk about whatever” threads.
2. In a variation of the above idea, I’d instead post *three* posts at once, probably on Friday nights. This would include a movie post, a survey post, and a “talk about whatever” thread. You’d then have an entire week to dance between them — meaning you’d have a “chat post” to be used at all times, a survey post to interact with as you see fit, and a movie post (probably with more than one video) to enjoy at your leisure.
I’m strongly leaning towards option 2, for several reasons:
– My feeling is that the “chat threads” will be more fun for you if they each have an entire week to sit on top of After Dark, as opposed to getting buried the very next day. It’s not much different from what you’ve been working with during these “cold months,” except that there will be increased attention on After Dark, so, hopefully, a little more action!
– The daily movie posts of years past were fun, but the truth is that very few people have time to *immediately* watch a movie the day it’s posted. Also, trying to fill 60 slots with valuable videos is challenging. Wouldn’t it be better to make sure the videos are especially cool, and give you more time to absorb and talk about them?
– Survey posts would theoretically see action all week long. We’ve always had a good response to those. I’m really digging the idea of separating the survey and chat posts while still having both be “current.”
All told, if we went with Option 2, I feel like you’d actually have MORE to do here than if we stayed with the original nightly updates. LMK your thoughts!
My Best Friend is a Vampire!
Well hey, it’s a holiday weekend. Probably time for an After Dark update, huh?
I was pleasantly surprised to see My Best Friend is a Vampire available on YouTube, totally free. I’ve long had a soft spot for this 1987 horror-comedy, which I guess lands somewhere between Deadly Friend and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enjoy!
Kind of a wash of a summer, huh? As I’ve been telling friends, I think it’ll still be a long time before anything resembles “normal” again. Between what’s already going on and all of the combustible elements yet to come, the rest of 2020 will probably live up to all of those memes about 2020.
In brighter news, we just upgraded some backend stuff on the site which greatly improved Dino Drac’s speed, especially on mobile. So if you’re a regular commenter, there should now be less of a lag!
Oh, and to help stir up some discussion after such a long break between After Dark updates, let’s add a survey!
In the comments, name three random memories about your childhood summer vacations.
I’ll start:
1) On one of the many Wildwood vacations of my youth, we stopped for zeppoles, as we always did. (I don’t think you’re supposed to pluralize ’em like that, but old habits die hard.) My aunt, who was and is a smart woman, told me that zeppoles were made from chicken. She wasn’t pulling a fast one. She actually believed that, and for a year, so did I.
2) The summer of 1989 was the summer of Batman. One neat side effect was the renewed interest in the 1960s series. I watched it endlessly that summer, because IIRC, it was the only “Batman thing” available on television at that point. WPIX ran at least two episodes a day, and I’m sure it wasn’t much different anywhere else in the country. It’s a big reason why people my age — old, but not quite that old — have such nostalgia for the show.
3) On separate occasions, I ate Jumpin’ Jack Doritos and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios while swimming in our old pool. I left them on the little deck that led into the pool, and would swim up for handfuls whenever the mood struck. I was alone both times, and have no idea what led me to bring food out to the pool. In any event, to this day, I cannot hear about either food without immediately remembering the times I ate them while swimming.
1990s Action Movie Trailers!
Well, would you look at that? A new post! Thanks for keeping down the fort, guys. I know I’ve been beyond spotty with the After Dark updates, but it tickles me that there always seems to be at least a pulse in the latest thread, night after night. That said, I’m sure it was frustrating for the regulars to see nothing new here for that long, so here you go:
Here’s an IMMENSE playlist of 1990s action movie trailers. Well, action movies and sci-fi movies and other, weirder movies. When I say “immense,” I mean it: With hundreds of trailers, you’ll never get through it all. Seems like tremendous background noise, tho!
Things are still crazy, so I hope you guys are all hanging in there. Living in NY, I can never be sure if I’m getting an outsized impression of just how nuts all of this is, but yeah, at least around here, our “new normal” isn’t normal at all. We limit outings unless absolutely necessary, and need to “suit up” for even the tiniest errands. It’s wild, but obviously a lot better than needing to deal with the virus directly. Stay safe, and find your pleasures where you can. Like maybe with some old action movie trailers? Enjoy!
Scary Saturday Double Feature!
Well, it doesn’t look like the world’s gotten any less frightening since my last update — so let’s distract ourselves with the good kind of scary!
Here are a couple of horror movies that YouTube is now running free of charge:
CHILD’S PLAY (1988) and POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1986)
Unfortunately YT seems to block embedding on these, so just click the text titles above to watch ’em!
Child’s Play is an old favorite of mine, of course, though I’ve admittedly never seen Poltergeist II. Actually, I know so little about Poltergeist II that I can’t help being curious. Usually I’m at least aware of one or two iconic shots/scenes from big name horror movies, but I’ve got zilch on that one. Is it any good?
Hope the movies come in handy for ya tonight!
