Ghost Upon the Floor

 

 Life has been a lot for this Ghost this year, even more than last. I am going to be doing my best to write everyday; even if it is just a few shorts words, or a photo, about where the Ghost is in October, and what his spirit is out there doing. 

 So, today. The first day of our month. I saw this, admittedly spotted, leaf, that is a gorgeous shade of red. And later I watched 1931's "Frankenstein" and, as always, fell in love with those all black and white monstrous voices and images. As always, James Whale's production design took me in, and didn't let go for it's nearly one hour and ten minutes run time. 

 

Happy October, to all you ghouls out there. 

 

 This October night, something different. Now, is the time when ghosts are present. We have some new ghosts being wrought across the floor. The ghost of Halloweens yet to come? What a ghost, what a trio of ghosts, indeed. 

 Boo! 

 

 

 Tonight’s film was one I have found myself returning to most years in early October, for my witchy fix: “Practical Magic.” 

 To me, this film will always be perfectly immortal. The right amount of humor, horror, romance, schmaltz, with an incredible heart. The cast is, of course, amazing. Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Weist and Stockard Channing (who have quite a few Oscars between them) are incredible. As well as the little girls who play Sally’s daughters; they are incredible little actors.

 I believe, for the first time, last night I noticed that the woman from the opening of the film when Sally and Gillian are children, wanting the love spell with the pigeon, comes back at the end as a part of the phone tree coven.

 I will also eternally plug what is now a series of books that Alice Hoffman has now written. While the first novel this film is based on is incredible, the follow ups manage to be even more meaningful; with “The Rules of Magic” being perhaps my favorite, the origin stories of the aunts Franny and Jet. If you love this movie and haven’t read them, why are you reading my blog? Go read those, instead.

 Before the film, I found myself in the lower gorge of Niagara Falls for my brother’s wedding. A beautiful place in the fall.

 

  

 Every October, I return to and linger a long while in Sleepy Hollow. The town, in reality and fiction and folklore, embodies the spirits of October in more ways than there are headstones in the church yard. Washington Irving’s story is, quite possibly, the most perfect ghost story. The mystery, the doubt, the fear, the urban legends— it is so perfectly the stuff of ghosts. 

 Tonight I went to put on Robert Van Nutt’s animated story book version of the tale, narrated by Glenn Close, which is such a perfect, and book accurate, adaptation. In the process, I found and rented Hobey Ford’s “Ichabod: Sketches from Sleepy Hollow,” which while a very short short, was highly entertaining and worth the one dollar and ninety-nine cents.

 I still watched the Van Nutt version, after. The slowly moving illustrations are the perfect, nostalgia-tinged way to experience the story, in as close a way to reading the text can be without reading the text. 

  

 And run there. And take photographs. And, sometimes, I just read under a tree. I have a favorite tree. 

 This afternoon I went to read there, but ended up taking my camera (and phone) and taking countless photos, too. The ones here are all from my phone.

 This area of the cemetery is one of my favorites. One of the oldest areas on the oldest grounds, which was also used as a cemetery before the cemetery was officially incorporated. Here, in the fading afternoon light, the world, and even October, stands still. Every now and then a leaf will fall to the ground. If you’re listening, you can just hear it.   

 

 Tonight, I kept going with the Universal Monsters. You can’t beat them. “The Bride of Frankenstein” truly is one of the greatest film sequels of all time. The continuation of the story is seamless (though there is some reworking of the original “Frankenstein’s” ending), and the horror, the humor, emotion, the creepy atmosphere, even the acting and characters— all feel elevated. Even the new characters like Dr. Pretorious and Minnie feel both elevated and like they have been there all along.

 Karloff’s performance is perhaps a huge reason for this. No doubt, more time to live within the character gave him more depth, but the addition of being able to talk some of his lines gave Boris the opportunity to add layers to the character that seem the most true connection to Shelley’s original novel, where our Monster (?) famously speaks eloquently and waxes philosophical. 

 Tonight there was some rain, to break the humidity, and the brightening leaves feel more like the season. 

  

   I write this from my desk overlooking a yard full of trees. Leaves to my left, leaves to my right, leaves everywhere I look are starting to blaze. Deep red, yellow, orange. And it is just under 80 degrees. Which does not seem right, to this Ghost, at all. 

 Yesterday morning I ran in the fog. The mysteries of the earth really seem to hover over creation when the fog comes, and, somehow, it was just what we needed here to feel autumn's warm, cooling embrace. The world hides in the fog, and what is hidden always feels like such a celebration of Halloween. 

 

At the Ghost's haunted house, interior Halloween decorating remains on hold for a few days, as life has thrown us new furniture and such we are in the process of assimilating. Nevertheless. October carries on, and I have been putting up what I can. 

 

Again last night, about midnight, I poured myself some apple cider in a wine glass-- why not?-- and followed up "Frankenstein" with Todd Browning's 1931 undead classic, "Dracula." The sets. The ghostly nature of it all, looking so far back into the past; somehow, this film gets better each year, and each time I watch it. Toward the final half of its short running time, the day began to catch up with me, and I started to fall asleep. Bela, his Count Dracula, Mina and Renfield and Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker, somehow, all showed up in my dreams. "Dracula" is such a dreamlike film, falling asleep to it, which is something I have done before, seems like a particular type of black magic. When I woke, Van Helsing was standing above the Count's coffin with a stake; I rewound the DVD and watched the last half in its entiriety, before retiring, dark and dreary, to my bed. 

 Sadly, I did not dream of vampires. That I remember. 

  Hello, old friend. Welcome back to the nights of breeze taking leaves, the red orange bursting from the green in the trees, the flickering candle light behind pumpkin flesh on a porch. 

 Life, as always, continued to challenge this year. In some ways, I have been less prepared for this Season of the Witch than any in recent memory. But when the heat begins to leave us, and make us create our own with sweaters and hoodies and baking ovens and candles for the sun leaves sooner; that, is a challenge, the Ghost is always up for. 

 I started the (no fewer) than 31 Days of Scary Movies a bit early last night, as soon as midnight brought our favored month with it. As I have the last several years, I have started the month of night off with not my fancy, gorgeous 4k print of James Whale's 1931 immortal classic "Frankenstein," but with the nostalgia-dripping box set of Frankenstein from the early-mid 2000s, which the Ghost bought at a time he did not have much else, and each cent has been worth it tenfold ever since. I love the ambient menus with thier old movie sound effects and voices and sound effects of real ghosts, nearing the age of almost 100 years, and listening to the rain, the wind, and, of course, the electric volts used to summon the monster. 

 As always, the sets hit me first. What would it have been like to be on those sets, all those years in the buried past, and see the graveyard with the tower reaper, the stairs leading up to the lab, and the high-vaulted rooms of the Frankenstein estate-- up close, in living color, in person? Also of not much note, on this viewing I noticed more than usual how Elizabeth and Henry seem to have the beginnings, or want for the beginnings, of a relationship even when they are first introduced, and it's a nice detail to wonder just how long Henry's descent into his experiments have been, and what Elizabeth's motives are for staying around and still wanting to marry into all this wealth. 

Sometime while I was watching this scary movie, the fog crept in al lover my world. I looked outside and it was as if Carl Sandberg's poem had come true; and, this time, it was a little black cat who's feet the fog crept in on. I had one more glass of apple cider-- perhaps too much sugar before bed-- and went to sleep with the theme music and scenes from John Carpenter's classic ghost movie, "The Fog," playing in my head. 

 Oh, and earlier in the day I placed this lovely Bat! gifted from a dear friend on our door. 

 I have missed you, October. 

 And now for something new. From 1988. Narrated by Glenn Close, this version of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” is part storybook, part narrated moving painting. With gorgeous images and narration that are both accurate to the original text, this version of the tale is a spellbinding autumn treat. 

 I hadn’t even heard of this before a friend turned me on to it. Clocking in at under 40 minutes, this is long enough to take its time to adapt the tale fully, and short enough to not fill itself with too much unnecessary filler. And I thought I’d seen them all. 

 The illustrations and paintings are lush, gorgeously detailed and real in a way many— possibly all?— adaptations of America’s preeminent ghost story are not. The bright orange crisp fall of early American autumn, the harvest, the local lore of the superstitious and Ichabod’s ride home. Just gorgeous and spooky and everything this tale needs to be told. This is now a permanent fixture on my fall film list. 

 Earlier this Halloween season, I began seeing this premade

 

 Last night, with all the orange lights up in my living room, looking out on my neighbor’s across the street with orange and flame lights adorning their house, during a wind filled thunderstorm, I took a break from the classics, and watched something new. The brand new “Hellraiser” remake/reboot/sequel on Hulu. 

 As a fan of the original film, and a bigger fan of the uber disturbing novel by Clive Barker, I found this film a mixed bag. The good is the casting, especially of Pinhead. Jamie Clayton is a perfect actor for this character; her presence on screen, and her voice work is amazing, and actually terrifying. The rest of the cenobites are perfect as well, being truly original and scary. The rest of the cast is very capable as well, and I loved seeing Goran Vinsjic in another Halloween/horror film so soon after watching “Practical Magic.” The direction is also super strong.

 The not so good is the script. I was expecting a remake, or some variation on the original’s characters; their marriage, their desires and their traumas that lead them to the box. This film deals with none of that, and is more a straight up horror film that seems to not understand why Barker wrote the novel, or why the original film was so successful. The end result is not a bad film. It is extremely watchable; I just wish, given the huge opportunity and great talent involved with this, that they had done more, and more in line with the original Barker work. 

 

Last night was one of my favorite nights of the year. The night, in October, when I watch one of my favorite movies— one that I watch several times a year— “Practical Magic.” Released to success in 1998, the film has since on home video and streaming become an autumnal cult classic among those who love magic and witches. 

 Based on the Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, the film takes several liberties from the novel, and they all work beautifully. “Practical Magic” is a beauty story of sisterhood, love, family and being different, told in only the way that witchcraft can. In more recent years, Hoffman has written now three sequel novels: “The Rules of Magic,” a prequel about the aunts Jet and Frannie and their backstory; “Magic Lessons,” the Owens’ family ancestor Maria’s backstory, and “The Book of Magic” and sequel that follows our beloved characters after the events of “Practical Magic.” For the few years, a series adaptation of “The Rules of Magic” has been in the works at HBO, and I sincerely hope it happens, as it is my favorite novel in the series, and one of my all time favorites. They also need to make it, so that a proper adaptation of “The Book of Magic” can be done; a story that practically begs for Bullock, Kidman, Weist and Channing to reunite and tell.

 Back to the magic of the film at hand. The story is beautiful. The lines I know by heart. The comfort is all around, and I will never tire of watching it. For plot points so fantastical, so much is said so aptly about human relationships, how we survive and the family we keep along the way. 

 Things that struck me on this viewing. The chemistry between all our actors; especially Kidman and Bullock and Channing and Weist. Also, the young actors who play Bullock’s daughters are so good. The house, oh goodness the house. Few houses on film, gorgeous and old and sprawling and covered with cats and books and plants and love— and a greenhouse— make me want to live in them more. Part of me always will live, however, in the house with rosemary planted by the garden gate. And where I fall in love as often as I can. 

 

Last night it was time for another newer (to me) Halloween classic: 1967’s “Mad Monster Party?” Rankin and Bass, of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and other stop-motion animation Christmas classics fame, made this lesser known special as their answer to Halloween.

  Part love letter to the Universal Monster movies, part 1960s music extravaganza, “Mad Monster Party?” is an all that and the kitchen sink special that is incredibly endearing. Perhaps the program’s biggest claim to fame— and arguably best feature— is the get of having Boris Karloff himself voice, and sing, the part of Baron von Frankenstein, our Dr. Frankenstein character who’s discovery brings together our gallery of monsters— from Dracula, the Werewolf, the Creature (from the Black Lagoon) and others. And, of course, the Mummy. It’s the Mummy. It’s the Mummy.

 

 The first time I watched this, the songs didn’t make much of an impression of me, but, with their zany cheer they, they enchanted me. And that happens all the more so with each viewing.  On this viewing, I also realized that one of the things I love most about this is the incredible, gorgeous and painstakingly made and designed sets. The creepy ship, Frankenstein’s Castle, the island and the lagoon. This is art made by people who love the classic monster movies, and it shows.