Halloween 2020

My at-home celebration began with a viewing of 2016 Korean zombie movie "Train To Busan" on Netflix. It wasn't just a good horror film, it was a good film full stop. Well made, proper characterisation, super suspenseful, no dumb Hollywood plot twists, genuinely moving. Now looking forward to the sequel, "Peninsula", which I found out about in issue #201 of "Neo" mag.

The festivities continued with a Fry's Turkish Delight, which is equivalent to a bag full of candy when you reach a certain age :-)

If I owned the new Stephen King anthology, I'd then have read one of the yarns in there. Instead, I opted for a "strange story", as he called them, from each of the Robert Aikman collections shown. (Ignore the novel "The Model" - dunno why I included that in the photo.) Rather than try to guess which were the most chilling, I simply read the titular tales...

"The Wine-Dark Sea" opens with a tourist on a Greek island who can't find anyone to take him out to a nearby islet near which he spotted an ancient sailing ship. In "The Unsettled Dust", a bloke from a historic homes trust stays in a mansion where everything is constantly being coated with dust and the custodians and staff don't seem to care.

Both stories featured mysterious women AND mysterious architecture. Creepy coincidence?

My scary videogame was side-scrolling beater "Splatterhouse" on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. Y'know, where you play a hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding, erm, hero? The first time I saw "S." in the arcade - either 1988 or '89 - it was being skilfully played by a fellow student from my Catholic high school who I knew to be in a hardcore group that held extra prayer meetings and whatnot. So that was odd.

The nostalgic button-mashing was followed by listening to a podcast, specifically the "New Scientist Weekly" pod's Halloween Special. I learnt about a vampiric medical treatment, a possible explanation for ghosts, zombie microbes and more. On a topical note, I've found this podcast is among the best sources for the latest Covid-related information.

Second portion of my spook-tacular reading was the recent Dark Horse Comics "Stranger Things" one-shot set slightly before Season 1 of the TV show...on October 31. Sitting around a campfire, the lads are sharing the usual lame urban legends when Will lets slip about a monster from the town of Hawkins' murky past. This was a fun standalone that didn't contradict existing continuity and was very easy to believe *might* have taken place. Solid likenesses and dialogue.

The last time I did one of these seasonal roundups, I threw in a pic of a professional cosplayer in an appropriately themed outfit. On this occasion, it's the talented Shirogane-sama as an original creation of her own named Pum-Pumpkin. Image used respectfully - hopefully the lady wouldn't mind. (You can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and probably other social-media platforms as well.)

While typing this blog entry, I've concluded my celebration by playing the 1.5+ hour "Digitiser Halloween Special" on YouTube on a separate monitor. A brilliant shambles of a thing. Helps if you're familiar with those retro gamers/jokers involved. Give it a go even if you aren't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00FCPMlEQjo