The Guild - Halloween Special

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like Christmas comes earlier every year. October barely ended before signs of Yuletide were popping up everywhere. Stores were taking down their black and orange Halloween decorations only to put up red tinsel and giant smiling snowmen (those ever-smiling snowmen somehow seem creepier to me than any zombie or vampire, but that's another subject entirely).

It feels premature. What happened to November? Thanksgiving? Since when did December 25 come directly after October 31. Not that I'm that attached to Thanksgiving. Aside from the food (my father makes a mean deep-fried Cajun turkey and my mother's stuffing is legendary), I could really care less about Thanksgiving. It always felt like a second-rate holiday anyway--just a reason to get off school/work. The thing that truly disturbs me is that Christmas might actually further encroach on the autumn season and endanger my favorite holiday: Halloween.

Maybe this is my one-woman stand against the marching army of Christmas, maybe it's my uncanny knack for wasting time on the internet, but I happened upon this video. I was late to The Guild--a friend recommended the show a few weeks ago. She warned me that it was addictive. I laughed off her warning. I could handle it, I assured her.

I was wrong.

In the course of just a few weeks, I have become the queen of procrastination. Why would I want to write when I could watch The Guild? After all, each episode is only a few minutes long (of course, like any delicious temptation, you can't have just one). I have now caught up with all four seasons, and in my yearning for more, I found this Halloween special.

So, here's to letting Halloween last just a little longer and keeping the Christmas music on mute for just a few more weeks. And here's to me getting back to my writing...

Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead

The much anticipated television series The Walking Dead premiered on AMC last night. I know I was like a little kid at Christmas, practically giddy as I waited for the show to start. And it did not disappoint. While the pilot had its weaknesses (some overacting, a bad Southern accent or two, a few trite plot devices), I must say I am hooked. The special effects are absolutely amazing. Quite frankly, I found myself shocked more than once. I don’t know when I last saw zombies that looked that good (or that bad, as the case may be). The makeup effects were better than most big-budget movies. And bloodier.  Much bloodier. There were more than a few times that, squealing through fingers half covering my eyes, I exclaimed, “They can’t show that on television!”

Well, they can and they did. And I for one am ecstatic.

I will be tuning in again—and not just for the gore, though that will be a guarantee for future episodes, I am sure.

What really struck me was the humanity that the show itself has been built upon. The show appears to be written as more of a character study than pure survival zombie apocalypse story. At times, this seemed forced: the mother zombie causing her still-living son to burst into sobs. At other times, the humanity was gut-wrenching. One particularly difficult scene to watch was when Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) sees a zombie woman crawling on the ground and decides to kill her out of mercy. The woman was in an advanced state of decay (missing a good part of her face, her legs reduced to fleshless bone), and it was the visual that first stopped me. I found the image profoundly disturbing. Zombies from recent films have seemed much more cartoonish—fast moving, strong—certainly not like this woman, who reflected the true horror of death. It is this, the idea of death, that makes zombies a lasting trope in movies and literature. As a culture, we are both fascinated and disturbed by the idea of death—dying, what happens after death, the possibility of everlasting life.

Perhaps my viewing of the show last night was colored a bit by a recent suicide in my community. The death shocked everyone, leaving more questions than answers. I don’t always have the right thing to say, and certainly not in this situation, but I do know a few things that I feel compelled to share, particularly in light of the rash of suicides that I hear about every time I turn on the news: We are not alone in this world. God made us to love each other and to take care of each other. More than that, God is a loving God, who is in control, even when it seems like the world itself is spinning out of control.

Hebrews 13: 5-6: Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

1 Corinthians 10:13: No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

The Green-Eyed Monster

The most wonderful time of the year is almost here: Halloween! Carved pumpkins are being put out on every door step. Television channels are showing horror movies in all day marathons. Zombies are invading AMC, vampires are walking the streets (or at least kids everywhere are letting their Goth flags fly high), and bloggers from across the globe are suddenly espousing the love of horror movie greats, like Robert Englund, Bruce Campbell, and Lon Chaney, Jr.

If only every month of the year could be October!

As a self-proclaimed addict of all things horror and Halloween, I am like a kid in a candy store right now…which brings me to today’s topic: candy. When this time of the year comes around, so does all the wonderful Halloween candy. Normally, I don’t have a big sweet tooth, but there’s just something about Halloween that makes me crave it. Maybe it’s all the bags of the good stuff that the stores put out around September. Who could resist giant size bags of Reese’s? Or M&M’s in orange and black colors? I love it all.

With one exception: green candy.

I don’t care if it is lemon-lime flavored Skittles or just green-colored peanut M&M’s; I just cannot bring myself to eat any of it. There is something in my brain that won’t let me. Sounds crazy, I know, but it’s true. I won’t eat the green stuff. It’s the color itself I can’t get past. I don’t trust green.

And I have horror movies to blame.

Let me explain. After a lifetime of watching horror movies, I have found that if something is green, it usually is BAD.

Case in point: Re-Animator. Stuart Gordon’s 1985 movie is proof that the color green is evil. Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer below and pay particular attention to the liquid that is injected into the cat. Yep, you guessed it...green.

This particular color of neon, lime green is stock standard for the horror/sci-fi genre. Anything radioactive is this particular shade of chartreuse. Think Toxic Avenger.

 Need more proof? What color does the Hulk turn when he is crazy, angry Hulk? Bright green. The color of the stuff vomited during The Exorcist? Green. And let's not forget the Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West. Almost every kid that has dressed up as an evil witch has painted his or her face green thanks to that movie.

It’s enough to put anyone off the color.

So, this Halloween, have fun. Dress up as your favorite character. Carve a pumpkin. Trick or Treat.

Just watch out for the green stuff.