October, every horror fan’s favorite month of the year. An entire month dedicated to finding the spookiest things to do and entertain ourselves with. Whether it’s planning horror marathons, purchasing horror and Halloween merchandise, carving pumpkins, or visiting haunted houses and attractions, every year more and more events take place in the month of October to capitalize on the season. This past year I lucked out and it just so happened that I was traveling back to NYC for the final week of October while the FEARnyc horror film festival was in full swing. On the same night I was due to arrive back in the city they would be premiering a film I had been keeping track of for a while, that film was Dead Awake.  Rather than doing just a traditional review, I decided it would be fun and different to look back on the fun night out I had going to see the film.

In 1992 director Bernard Rose adapted a short novella by Clive Barker entitled “The Forbidden” into a big screen horror film: Candyman.

It starred Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle, a Chicago Grad Student doing a thesis on urban legends, and Tony Todd in a career defining role as the titular boogeyman. The following year it hit home video and my friends and I (probably in our final year of Junior High at the time) finally got around to seeing it. I still remember going over to my buddy Joey’s apartment on a Saturday night, his dad, Bruce had rented it for us to watch (Thanks Bruce). I still remember the “ooooh shit” moment we both had as soon as the opening credits started playing and Philip Glass’ brilliantly haunting score began to blare out of the surround sound. We knew were in for something frightening and different. Turns out, it was one of the scariest movies we had seen in a long time. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Horror movies are “getting deep”. It might as well be the new “Horror is dead” given the number of times I’ve seen that headline or some version of it over the last few days in the wake of the release of Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out. The mainstream media, including some film sites that I love very deeply, seem convinced that horror is this mindless, bloody form of entertainment and that it took a maven from outside the schlock system to come in and shake things up and give it some meaning, damn it. 

My name is metrofudge and I am 27 years recovered from being the child of a former Jehovah’s Witness. There. I said it. That felt good. What didn’t feel good was missing out on everything fun that every friend of mine did growing up. Right off the bat you’d probably think Christmas but you’d be wrong.

One common statement I often hear come up in discussions between horror fans is “Man, I wish I could have experienced that on the big screen” or “Would have loved to see that when it was first released in theaters!” They are generally referring to older films that saw their release when the person was too young or not alive at all to have seen said film in theaters.  As a life long horror fan, I will always be a bit bummed I missed theater viewings for so many films.