Well, I had a good Halloween this year, with a few caveats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Felt I should blog about this since I just paid for another 3 years of hosting, lol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soooo, yeah, Halloween was fun \/ enlightening. I learned a lot, watched a ton of movies, and felt quite satisfied with the whole holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The good parts, of which were many:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) The movies. I watched a lot of them, mostly old-ish movies from the 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s, and in doing so I took many lengthy walks down memory lane. Some of them in fact I had missed the first time around so in those I learned new things about myself and my distant history, and, bizarrely, of my very recent history as well, which I guess shows how planned and organized this has all been, unbeknownst to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Example: In two of the movies I watched, I saw my recent (5 years or so) health problems referenced in regards to me, specifically. And these movies were 20 to 25 years old! I was\u2026 baffled. Confused. And disoriented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw Urban Legend,<\/em> a late 90\u2019s slasher movie that used my freshman year in college as a reference point. Near the end, a pointed remark was made about injuries to my kidneys and my liver, both of which I was hospitalized for in recent years. Verrry specific, that one. Kind of\u2026 incredible, and frightening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reallllly creepy, which I guess goes along with the holiday, but still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a lot of very personal stuff in the movies I saw. I Know What You Did Last Summer <\/em>and it\u2019s sequel were interesting explorations of my past relationship with Jen Hewitt. Wow, they were kinda mindblowing, lol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Man, too much to talk about, there. But the movies themselves are critically underrated. Not by a lot, but they certainly were. The sequel was the better of the two. It was quite good, much better than I had been led to believe by the critics. I missed it the first time around because of the reviews. I wish I hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s see\u2026 I saw Aimee\u2019s Beneath the Darkness<\/em>, all 3 Urban Legend<\/em> movies, Scream<\/em>, The Craft, The Faculty<\/em>, the two \u201cBoogedy\u201d movies on Disney+, the Disney vampire flick, Don\u2019t Look Under the Bed<\/em>, When a Stranger Calls<\/em>, Piper Curda\u2019s School Spirit<\/em>, Casper<\/em>, the 90\u2019s The Adams Family<\/em>, and some other flicks, which I\u2019m kinda drawing a blank on now lol. And a bit earlier I saw Kelli Berglund\u2019s Ghost in the Graveyard.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yeah- and I also saw the third Crow movie- the one with Kirsten Dunst. I missed it the first time around, since it was a direct to DVD release. TBH I hadn\u2019t even heard about it until a few years ago. It was good. The low budget didn\u2019t give them much to work with but they did what they could with it. It was a fun watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually- now that I think about it, I think that the lower budgeted movies were the ones I liked the most out of the group. An interesting thought. Perhaps budgetary constraints forced creativity on the part of the filmmakers, or something. Or perhaps a smaller budget just means more creative control for the director, since the studio would likely be more concerned with higher profile projects. I don\u2019t know. But it seemed to me that the direct to video or television releases that I saw were more personal and a bit more\u2026 impactful, I guess, then the glossier theatrical movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, wait. I also saw the last two out of the four Halloweentown<\/em> flicks. And Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em>, again.<\/em> And Frankenweenie<\/em> the original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I saw a lot of stuff, lol. Well, an in depth discussion of all this would take hours, so I think I\u2019ll move on at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) Trick or Treating. This is always fun. I handled candy duties this year and it was interesting. I like to people watch in general I guess, but I did the usual analysis of things while doing so. My recent understandings of things made this kinda different. In particular it was odd seeing Trick or Treaters dressed up like Harry Potter. Imagine that- a kid dressed up like Harry Potter on Halloween, and the man who hands him candy is the actual Harry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3) Music. As usual, I used Halloween as an excuse to goth out. I ran through a few playlists of goth this and that- some death rock, synthpop stuff, gothic rock, and darkwave. I even played some graver and gothabilly stuff. Gawd damn goff stuff can be just delicious. You can just kinda sink into it and get lost; it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used to just adore this stuff before\u2026 ah\u2026 IDK, I guess before Selena Gomez and Co. expanded my palette. But it\u2019s still there, always in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yeah, I saw that Olivia Holt and Kiki Shipka movie Totally Killer<\/em>. So I guess this paragraph belongs up in section 1) somewhere, so please put it there, mentally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where was I? Oh yeah, ummmmm music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, aside from the gawth stuff, this year I included in my rotation some more mainstream-ish songs, like some from the Rocky Horror<\/em> soundtrack. And, believe it or not, even some from people like Elvira, whose music I was introduced to on the Sounds of the Seasons channel. Not really heard her stuff before but I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, it\u2019s pop, but it\u2019s listenable. Pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4) Life stuff. I like to use Halloween as a life barometer of sorts. So every year I take stock of how things are going, and I think they\u2019re going pretty well in general this time \u2018round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d explain more but this post is getting a bit lengthy, and any further detail here would take things too far off-topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, on to the not so good if not downright bad stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1) The candy. It\u2026 wasn\u2019t good. I\u2019m not sure how to account for this, but seriously. It sucked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year my dad went to Costco and purchased the same big bag of candy he always purchases, but this year, it was\u2026 different. The mixture in the bag, I mean. He was really disappointed. In the past, there\u2019s been an even assortment of different kinds of candies, like M&M\u2019s, Snickers bars, Twix bars, etc. in this bag. This year, there wasn\u2019t. For some reason, three quarters of the bag was divided up between Yorks and Twixs, with the remaining 25% being a small mixture of everything else. There were two small bags of peanut M&M\u2019s in the whole thing, and I think like 5-6 plain M&M\u2019s, and like 5 Snickers bars. And aside them, a gigantic pile of Yorks. The weird inequality of the whole thing was glaring when it was all sorted out by product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not sure what was going on, but it looked like the manufacturer was stuffing the bags now with the least popular candies and not letting the consumer know of the change. Typical of a modern company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The candy itself was\u2026 strange, too. My mom remarked that the candy bars seemed smaller than they used to be, like when I was a kid. IDK, but I don\u2019t think it impossible. Some of the plain M&M\u2019s bags were so empty I was shocked. One I opened myself had 5 M&M\u2019s in it, total. Seriously- just 5. At first I thought maybe it was just a manufacturing one-off but there was another bag with only 6 in it. Wut? Even a 9 year old would feel ripped off by these things!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the candy tasted\u2026 weird, too. IDK. After the holiday was over I ate some of the remaining candy myself and it didn\u2019t taste right, like at all. It didn\u2019t taste good. It was too artificial. And I know that I\u2019m talking about Halloween candy here but still, this stuff tasted really<\/em> artificial, and not in a good way. It didn\u2019t taste how I remember it tasting back when I was a kid, that\u2019s for sure. It wasn\u2019t satisfying. It didn\u2019t taste like a unique treat, it just kinda tasted odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the 90\u2019s candy tasted artificial too, but I remember it being\u2026 a measured kind of artificial. It tasted like something created to maximize enjoyment of taste. Like it was artificial, but it tasted good<\/em>; on some level it was indeed satisfying. This stuff wasn\u2019t. It tasted like candy-product. The M&M\u2019s didn\u2019t taste like M&M\u2019s, they tasted like imitation Chinese knockoff M&M\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I though it might just be me but man, after eating the candy I got sick for a solid week! Hence the lateness of the post. That never<\/em> happened back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IDK. I don\u2019t follow these things, but I suspect that the ingredients for these products have been futzed with a LOT in the last 30 years. Things swapped out with cheaper things that are only close-ish to the original product. And perhaps my crack about the Chinese knockoff type product wasn\u2019t off the mark, either. Maybe these things are manufactured differently, now, in different places. Yuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At any rate, they taste bad. It kinda sucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ohhhh that\u2019s right. Speaking of candy, I saw Fun Size<\/em> too. And also Idle Hands<\/em>. So this paragraph belongs up there with the other 1). So please put it there mentally, thanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2) The costumes. Not a huge gripe, but still, are costumes these days kinda bland to anyone else? It\u2019s just\u2026 where\u2019s the gruesome? Where\u2019s the disgusting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at the kids this year I was struck by how, IDK, samey they all were. There were a lot<\/em> of Spider-Mans. A lot of Marvel, I guess purchased as whole units by parents who didn\u2019t know what else to do, probably at those Halloween shops that pop up annually every October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the day there were a lot more DIY costumes. I know that this is kind of an old-man-yells-at-cloud complaint but seriously tho, lol. Back in the 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s a lot of kids and parents made their own costumes and they came up with some very cool stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One year I went as a diseased hunchback and I got some weird reactions I remember to this day, lol. I had this swollen irregular hump on my back and huge, bloody, oozing pus filled welts all over my hands and face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My mom and I took great pains to make the welts and sores as realistic looking as possible. At the time she worked in an emergency room so she knew what real blood and skin infection looked like. So we made it seem \u201creal\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reactions I got made all the work totally<\/em> worth it. More than once I caught moms doing double takes, lol. I swear that on at least one occasion there was actual concern. The other kids loved it. The dads were in awe. \u201cGod damn kid, who beat the shit out of you?!?\u201d LOL. Good times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One year I went as \u201cSpider-Man\u201d. No, not that<\/em> Spider-Man. I had a different one in mind. I went as a normal kid being overrun and eaten alive by a horde of bloodthirsty man eating spiders. I painted some fake blood on, glued a few dozen spiders of different kinds to my clothes and covered myself in webs. It was a ton of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing is is that unfortunately I don\u2019t see any stuff like that anymore. Literally, it\u2019s all just\u2026 franchises. Corporate stuff. If I\u2019m being honest, boring<\/em> stuff. No imagination. Honestly I can\u2019t think of one costume that didn\u2019t seem like it didn\u2019t just come off the rack at the mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So many good memories there, of past Halloweens. It really can be a great holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well\u2026 I guess that\u2019s it for this year\u2019s Halloween installment. It was fun writing this; I hope you had fun reading it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, I had a good Halloween this year, with a few caveats. Felt I should blog about this since I just paid for another 3 years of hosting, lol. Soooo, yeah, Halloween was fun \/ enlightening. I learned a lot, watched a ton of movies, and felt quite satisfied with the whole holiday. The good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4958,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4956\/revisions\/4958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighinide.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}