I think it's a well known part of my backstory that I never experienced Hallowe'en as a child like others did, and thus I ended up associating such seasonal spookiness with Christmas, right? I mean, there is a precedent for that, there's a lot of rich traditions regarding scary stories at Christmas so I don't feel too left out except when it comes to this frustrating inability to "get into the season" as others do at Hallowe'en. I often think that to enjoy Hallowe'en, maybe you either need to be a child, excited for sweets, or in your early 20s, by which point the themes of the festivities have become an excuse for the consumption of alcohol and transgressive behaviour. I don't know really. I emptied out several drawers of correspondence from different exes in order to put it all in a box to go straight into the loft of my mother's house. I guess that's enough ghosts for me. You, on the other hand, may be different, and thus considering your own potential appetite for spookiness, I thought I'd recommend a few things open in my browser recently.
For starters, I stumbled across this behind-the-scenes footage from
Ring 0. I think this might be on the DVD, but it's been a very long time since I watched this. I am taken aback anew by Nakama Yukie's performance in this. I like this story a lot, not necessarily as a horror movie, but as a movie in which horrific things happen. If you also like this movie and have not looked into things of a similar flavour, I highly recommend Georges Franju's
Les yeux sans visage, one of my
favourite films of all time, and one that
Ring 0 makes direct reference to.
Secondly, Morbid Angel's video for
God of Emptiness. I mean, I'm horrified by this all year round, not just in October. I find it hard to believe this came out in 1993, the effects work is so vivid, so grotesque, so
real. I know we often talk about death metal as being perfected in Sweden, but it really is the Florida bands—Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse et al.—who represent the pinnacle of the genre for me, and
God of Emptiness is just 4:19 minutes of chilling perfection, so grotesque that you feel it in the pit of the stomach, so repulsive that you cannot turn away.
Speaking of Florida, did you know Savatage apparently helped out Cannibal Corpse a lot when they started? People laugh at me for liking Savatage, I'm sure, but I retain a soft spot for them, and especially for their out-of-control, sprawling side-project, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Like other spectral entities, TSO is more readily associated with Christmas, but their 1999 record,
Beethoven's Last Night is a perfect fusion of rumour, hearsay, fact, and Faustian pact, presenting the listener with a sense of sadness and hope in the unfolding narrative. You might not admit it, but I'm sure there are moments on this record that will have you playing air guitar when you think no one else is watching.
I felt quite good about
Sadako vs Kyako, the last time I watched it. One of the things that has stayed with me since I first saw it is Seikima-II's
cracking theme tune,
The Curse of Sha Na Na Na, complete with versions in both English and Japanese, and lyrics that call back to
Hellraiser. I've been listening to
so much Seikima-II lately, a lot of Demon's solo stuff too. They are a band that I think are unfairly written off as "Japanese KISS" when there's so, so much more to them that. The theatrics, the absurdity, the
riffs, Seikima-II are worth your time, folks. Please expect a page or two about them in my next fanzine.
Speaking of KISS adjacent matters, for one particular birthday as a child, despite it being a school night, in an act of leniency, my parents dropped me and my best friend at the time off at the cinema where we gleefully stared up at
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey on the big screen. I specifically did not tell my parents about the film's very vivid depiction of the Devil (from a child's point of view), worried that I might have to spend the next week or two "having demons expelled," but I did immediately afterwards go out after and purchase the soundtrack on cassette. I had butterflies in my stomach the first time I heard Megadeth's
Go to Hell, and then
I saw the video. As with
God of Emptiness, the colours and imagery of the video were like watching an actualisation of all of the things my parents warned me about, and, friends, right there and then, I realised that I totally wanted to be in a band. Better a prince in Hell, as Milton says.
PASSPO☆! In 2016, I visited the now sadly defunct AKB48 Café & Shop, and had a very long conversation with a girl whose cousin was in the now also sadly defunct PASSPO☆.
WING came out in 2012, and as recently as 2020, I was
still talking about this video's vampires and airline attendant crossover theme that no one knew they needed until its debut. Other famous vampires that should be mentioned as we discuss this theme are Zenbu Kimi no Sei da's dearly missed former line-up, and the video for
Romance Sect featuring both Mashiro, now in the group ONE KILL, under the name of
Rei, and Togaren, now in a number of HEROINES related groups under the name of Hakuu Coai. I don't especially like ONE KILL's debut song,
Utumi, but I
really like GILTY×GILTY, especially
ScrambleBomaye! Make of that what you will.
I don't think there's anyone who would contest the influence of Edgar Allen Poe, right? I don't think there's anyone who would contest the influence of Vincent Price either. One of my favourite Price movies is
The Fly, but my favourite by a mile is the Roger Corman adaptation of
The Masque of the Red Death. You may have heard most of the key moments in this movie as samples in songs already if you haven't seen it yet, the two notable ones for me being
No Place Here by UADA, and, most importantly,
Beneath the Mask by Bell Witch, from their 2012 record,
Longing, which, I don't know, you guys, I might actually think is a better album than
Mirror Reaper, alarming as this may be to say.
The Red Death is a story that is so rife with claustrophobia and despair that it really left its mark not just on
me, but seemingly many others. So influential is the story that the 1988 re-release/compilation of three prior Diamanda Galás records shares its
name, that, for me, the echo of it can be felt as far afield as another of my
favourite films, Luis Buñuel's
El ángel exterminador. As a bonus, here's a
clip of NECRONOMIDOL's Tsukishiro Himari introducing listeners to the work of Edogawa Ranpo, who was also considerably influenced by Poe.
Wow, this post has become uncomfortably long, so let's wrap it up with some two classics and a new release:
Halloween Night, the 41st AKB48 single, featuring my beloved Sasshi as centre. Your girl may have written
fic specifically about this video because she is clearly some kind of weirdo.
Kapuine Addiction by Yozora Mel has been on constant rotation in Château Courtney since it debuted at the end of last month, whilst, last but not least, it would be remiss of me to have written this entry without informing you that the 10+ minute video for Tommy heavenly6's Hallowe'en epic,
Lollipop Candy♥BAD♥girl is now on youtube
in its entirety.And that, dear friends, is all I have for you. Now scram—and if you think about egging my house, I will tell your parents.
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