Attack of the Giant Leeches.
It’s a holiday weekend and I’m not expecting much action here tonight, so let’s keep it simple and just watch some dumb movie.
Here’s Attack of the Giant Leeches, from 1959. The title says it all, I think.
Public domain horror movies are a tough sell when they’re absent the silhouette of Tom Servo, but I still love ’em in their natural state. I must’ve seen 75+ of them by now, yet I can only remember the particulars from a modest handful. I kinda treat them more as decorations than actual films.
We did that survey about “background noise movies” a short while ago. I can’t believe I forgot to mention all of the public domain horror stuff! They’re perfect to go to sleep to on nights like this. Quiet, creepy, and dim enough to act as nightlights. Try it sometime. (Maybe tonight?)
The Little Things.
Happy Saturday night!
I’m sitting here with my pumpkin candle and a cup of what could only generously be called day-old coffee, blasting spooky tunes in-between rounds of podcast editing.
It’s the little things.
In fact, that’s our survey for tonight!
In the comments, name some of the “little things” that make your Halloween season great.
Midnight walks? Oriental Trading catalogs? Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Everyone has a few!
To me, the little things aren’t so little. Together they become the soul of the season. Halloween is a constant excuse to make something out of nothing, and we should all try to do that as often as we can.
Hell, at this time of year, even a crappy microwave pizza mixed with the right DVD feels like an event:
So let’s hear about your favorite “minor” Halloween traditions. Maybe you’ll inspire other readers to broaden their own horizons! If not, well, at least you have a place to gush about reading those old Fear Street books for the hundredth time.
Garfield’s Halloween Adventure
First, thanks for making the first week of Dino Drac’s 2016 Halloween Countdown a smash success. Well actually I have no idea if it was a smash success. But it felt okay.
And thanks for being a part of Dino Drac’s After Dark’s first week, too! The survey responses have been tremendous. They’re now my favorite things to read on my phone when I’m hiding under blankets in total darkness. Sometimes you manage to spook me.
I’m very excited about next week’s run of goodies, which should/will include a new video, the next podcast and maybe one of those heavy hitter topics that I’m realllllly trying to portion out slowly. Stay tuned. You have to.
Get ready to watch Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, which is suddenly available on YouTube on many different accounts. (Not sure what that’s about. Maybe Jim Davis worked out a profit sharing agreement. Or maybe these uploads aren’t long for the world.)
One thing I’ve learned about Garfield’s Halloween Adventure? It’s a super hard sell for people who didn’t grow up watching it. I can’t deny that nostalgia plays a part. Halloween certainly had more than two animated TV specials, but the two that people my age remember most are Charlie Brown’s and Garfield’s. Nothing else comes close.
It debuted in 1985 and returned annually for years, though admittedly for nowhere near as many years as It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which still gets played today. I was six years old when the special began its run, and would grow to consider no Halloween season complete until I’d heard Garfield sing the “Scaredy Cat” song.
It’s ironic that I get so much mileage out of the Halloween season as an adult, because I definitely didn’t as a kid. Back then, it was like five scattered days of fun, tops. There was the day you got your costume. The day you carved your pumpkin. Mischief Night, if you were old and stupid enough. And finally Halloween itself.
Somewhere in the middle of them was the day (night, actually) that you got to watch Halloween specials on television. Cartoons, in prime time! It was one of the season’s biggest events, and the season didn’t have many of them.
So thanks, Garfield. You gave weight to my Halloween seasons back when I needed the assists. In return, I will never stop watching your silly special. Or telling other people to watch it. Demanding, really.
In the comments, talk about your favorite Halloween specials, Halloween sitcom episodes, and/or Halloween made-for-television movies. Which did you love? Which became parts of your annual traditions? Which do you wish you’d gotten to see more than just once?
Local Legends!
Tonight’s survey was based on suggestions from readers Rae and Jingo. Thanks, guys!
In the comments, let’s share stories about our own LOCAL LEGENDS.
Every town has their own ghost stories, or rumors about that one madman, or places that nobody is supposed to go.
From the past or present, what are some of yours?
(Apologies in advance if you’re heard this story before. I seem to tell it an awful lot.)
On Staten Island, the “satanic panic” craze was in full effect during the ‘80s. (Ever see that Cropsey documentary? Yeah.)
For kids my age, this amounted to parents warning us to stay out of certain wooded areas, because that was where “the satanists” lived. In reality, there were very good reasons to stay out of those woods, because back when Staten Island was less crowded, it wasn’t out of the question to run into drug addicts or makeshift sex dens. None of those folks were likely to sacrifice you to dark gods, but they weren’t exactly good company for eight-year-olds, either.
But were there actually satanists? Consistently? To this day, I have no idea. I can tell you that even in the areas where me and my friends were allowed to explore, we’d find all sorts of spooky shit, from pentagrams spray-painted onto rocks to bundles of discarded clothes.
The thought of finding a bunch of black-clad devil worshippers may have given us pause, but at the same time, it motivated us to explore the woods even further than we normally would. We felt like little detectives, trying to solve cases that most likely didn’t exist.
In retrospect, my best guess is that — as strange as it sounds — it was just easier for parents to say “stay out of the woods because there are satanists” than “stay out of the woods because there are people getting high and boinking.”
Still, I gotta admit, this was all so weirdly fascinating to me as a kid. Just the idea that while normal society was doing its normal things in its normal places, the dungeon of fuckin’ doom was drinking rat blood fifty feet away.
What were some of your local legends? The scary ones, I mean!
