Month: October 2023

The festival of Samhain

This is a time for reflection and silence. But west a mask in case the dead invade

The darkness of the night combined with the fiery orange and red aura of fire.. It’s striking and beautiful. This time of year warrants reflection and perseverance .. it requires deep solemn reflection..

While we aren’t performing sacrifices today we still perform rituals that date back to ancient Celtic customs during the festival of Samhain. Others say that the origination of this Pagan holiday travel back even further in the annals of history. But the Celts did it so well that even a Pope had to create a religious All Saints Day to counter it.

And while some may say religion ‘took over’ pagan holidays, it’s interesting to consider that we still basically memorialize each pagan custom annually while religion falters as time beats on.

The bobbing for apples to see which young woman will marry a heroic male. The orange and black colors to symbolize death and the bright fires to honor the sun. The harvest. The end of summer.. the story of Stingy Jack tricking the devil only to rummage across the countryside forever cursed.

And the costumes. The idea that we needed to dress like the dead only to mix in with them so they couldn’t notice us when the veil was thing between the here and there.

Something about Halloween is visceral. Real. True. Something seems to connect us better this holiday than others. We all experience the darkness and have similar reactions. The seasonal depression and lack of vitamin D start to hit. We feel we can’t escape the encroaching night and vanishing act of the sun. There seems to be hopelessness but yet it’s supposed to be like this.

Samhain is the time for reflection and melancholy thought for those who have gone. Maybe tonight, with the thinness of the earthly realm, we’ll get to see them.

We all feel connected on Halloween even more than Christmas. During the Christmas season we spend time with friends an family. But on Halloween we present ourselves in costume or parties in groups of strangers. We all rummage the streets together and go to houses owned by people we never knew or saw. To give them tricks.. or ask for treats.

All of this is experienced as a communal event.

The connection is real..

While people may be brave and not prone to cheap frights, Halloween gives opportunity to be a little uneasy. What’s lurking behind shadows or in street alleys under a light. Which spirits were strong enough to get through…

And when, just when, will that light return. When will the sun be born again… we all crave light.

So reflect again. Be one with this planet and your soul.

It’s Halloween. Everyone’s entitled to one good scare.

Enjoy it now. Because Mariah defrosts earlier each year.

$78 MILLION AT FREDDY’S!

OPENING WEEKEND WAS BIG

Move over movie critics.. You officially don’t matter.

The reviews are in. They aren’t pretty. And no one who wanted to see the film cared.

Now did people want to enjoy or just laugh? Tough to tell..

But Blumhouse will laugh to the bank regardless with a $78 million weekend for a film that was not predicted to get close to MARIO BROS levels..

Other poms poms for Freddy‘s:

–Biggest opening weekend for a horror pic YTD, besting Scream VI ($44.4M)

–Third biggest opening ever for a videogame pic, behind Super Mario Bros ($146.3M) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($72M)

DEVELOPING..

Friends Star Matthew Perry dead at 54

The star in an apparent drowning

A shock in the entertainment industry this Saturday night, FRIENDS TV, show star Matthew Perry is dead at the age of 54.

TMZ reported that first with other news outlets following up, rumors initially have it that’s a Star died in an apparent drowning.

Just days ago that star posted a social media message about his appreciation of water with a photograph that had a haunting aura.

There is tons of speculation–as would be expected.. Police are saying no foul play as Perry was found dead in his JACUZZI..

Another select few are speculating about what he was about to “reveal”..

However those who followed him know of his terrible plight of addiction that overtook his life in the past several years..

Developing..

Box Office: Five Nights at Freddy’s Sees ‘Oppenheimer’-Like $10M Previews

This is amazing! Keep spiting those reviewers who don’t matter!

Enjoy the season!

This from DEADLINE:

SATURDAY AM: Refresh for more analysis and chart Universal/Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is meeting the expectations of all those crazy projections that were out there. Since yesterday midday when we saw $68M, the Emma Tammi directed feature take of the videogame, which is also co-written by the game’s creator Scott Cawthon is looking at $78M weekend. Some have this movie at near Oppenheimer‘s opening ($82.4M), not that the movie will leg out to north of $300M in the end, but it’s fun to see how Universal in its marketing, literally repeated that type of moviegoer turnout again; another title here that’s harnessed the spirit of fans.
— Read on deadline.com/2023/10/box-office-five-nights-at-freddys-1235584788/

Michael Myers: The less than minimum wage serial killer!

MICAHEL MYERS WAS A CHEAP KILLER..

The original Halloween was low budget.

But this low budget!?
Whoa!!

Michael — called “The Shape” — was played by Nick Castle.. As a small boy, Michael Myers was played, in one scene, by an actor named Will Sandin in his first and last role on screen. In POV shots, the hands of young Michael were provided by co-writer and producer Debra Hill, while the unmasked Michael — who appears only briefly at the very end of the movie — was played by Tony Moran. 

There were certainly a lot of Shapes.

The shooting schedule for the original “Halloween,” filmed in Pasadena, was a mere 21 days back in 1978. The film was famously completed for a mere $300,000 to $325,000 … although little of that, it seems, went to Castle. According to a 2018 interview with Vanity Fair, Castle’s pay was $525, in total.

Vanity Fair adjusted Castle’s paycheck for inflation, saying that $525 in 1978 would be about $2,509 in 2018. By 2023, that inflation only equals $2,583.43. According to Rent.com, the average price of a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles is about $2,853..

In Castle’s own words:

“I was paid $25 per day for ‘Halloween.’ That was a lot at the time! You have to remember: my interest in doing the film was being on set, so I could demystify the experience of filmmaking and directing. I expected to hang around the set for no money. But hey, $25 per day, and all I had to do was wear a rubber mask. It’s a mystery what [John Carpenter] saw in me and the way I moved. I asked John, ‘What is this character going to do?’ And he said, ‘Just walk across the street.’ I knew Michael’s movements weren’t going to be robotic. He was a real guy. He’s not rushing.”

MORE..

Reviews are in: FIVE NIGHTS at FREDDY’S tracking low in the rotten tomatoes count.. but who cares!! See it anyway!!

The reviews are in. Critics hate FIVE NIGHT AT FREDDY’S.
Will you?

…maybe the movie just needed NIC CAGE like Willy’s Wonderland..

After all the build up to FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’s, the reviews are in. Rotten Tomatoes is counting it as as rotten..

At PG-13, will the pre and just teens go see the FNAF film that they played all through their single digits??

At the time this is written, it has a 25% critic score.

But what do they know anyway!?

Just a few snippets:

“Caught between PG and R, as well as lost at the crossroads of inadvertent comedy and horror, the PG-13 Five Nights at Freddy’s has to go down as one of the poorest films in any genre this year.”

“A weird horror concoction, fleetingly clever in the early going before gumming up the gears down the home stretch.”

“One problem is that the title imposes a stop-and-start structure which keeps killing the momentum. One scary night would work better than five with time-outs for daytime plot about the evil auntie or a deep backstory.”

“Expanding the game’s simple, primal premise with a surfeit of character melodrama, it’s a Five Nights at Freddy’s that labors under the bizarre assumption that the loyal fanbase wants a lot of extraneous plot surrounding the fun-center horror.”

But does it matter???

We are getting word of this tonight: Five Nights at Freddy‘s is eyeing a $50 million-plus start and possibly even more. At that level, it would make it the second-best domestic box office opening of the fall behind Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour !!

x x x

Developing this weekend…

The OFFICE Halloween cut scene lives on in infamy

Office fans love their lore. This one comes to us from 2009, when a haunted house scene became so controversy, NBC cut it for good

BIG fans of the OFFICE here at the HORROR REPORT.

After seeing a ‘best of Halloween’ Youtube OFFICE themed video, one particular scene was foreign. That is because it was rarely seen–cut by NBC and not on Netflix when it appeared there or Peacock now in its current home.

The scene was originally featured in the episode, “Koi Pond,” the eighth installment of season 6. You will not find it now.

“Koi Pond” was one of the most memorable episodes from The Office season 6. Jim had a meeting with an important client but it was requested that Michael come along. When the duo returned, Michael was soaking wet and it was revealed that he fell into a koi pond. After a lesson about mocking fellow employees, the office learned that Jim could have stopped Michael from falling into the pond but he purposely stepped aside to let it happen.

The episode is famous in OFFICE lore for the plot. But also famous for what vanished.

The episode aired on October 29, 2009, and opened by showing the employees of Dunder Mifflin Scranton putting together a haunted warehouse for the local kids. Darryl , who Michael referred to as “gangster pumpkin”, pushed the kids around as the rest of the employees put on less than inspired horror scenes.

The cold open-ended with Michael simulating a suicide, horrifying the children while turning it into a life lesson and referencing that Christmas is not the only season with a message and that suicide is not the answer..

It appears NBC had a backlash to the episode. Some thought it was too offensive and inappropriate causing NBC to remove the scene. Michael was dressed as Saturday Night Live‘s character, D*ck in a Box during his hanging.

You an see it here, still, in all its cut and edited glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_gVDfKSms8&t=185s

Goldie Hawn recalls being touched by an alien and feeling God

The star said the incident happened in her 20s, when she was living in California at a time where there were ‘a lot of UFO sightings.’

Goldie Hawn: ‘An alien touched me and it felt like the finger of God’

That really is a close encounter with the third kind.

The star, now 77, revealed the incident happened in her 20s, when she was living in California at a time where there were ‘a lot of UFO sightings.’

‘I went outside my door, and I sat on the little ledge, and I looked up at the dark sky. And I saw all these stars. And all I could think of was … “Are we the only planet in the whole wide universe that has life on it?”‘

She said she called out to any aliens listening, saying she knows ‘we’re not alone, and I would like to meet you one day.’

And just four months later, she was settling down for a nap in a friend’s car while working as a dancer, and heard a ‘high frequency’ in her ear.

She claims she then saw three ‘triangular-shaped heads’, silver in color with a ‘tiny little nose,’ no ears and ‘a slash for a mouth.’

The aliens ‘were pointing at me … discussing me like I was a subject.’ She says she was unable to move, but that the aliens ‘touched me and it felt like the finger of God.’ ‘It was the most benevolent, loving feeling. This was powerful. It was filled with light.’

22 killed, dozens wounded across several locations in Lewiston, Maine

At least 22 people have been killed, a Lewiston police source said.

Fifty to 60 were wounded at several locations, including a local bowling alley, law enforcement officials said.

A local medical center said it was responding to a “mass casualty” event.

Officials have urged residents in Lewiston and Auburn to shelter in place.

The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office released photos of a man with a rifle with the caption “suspect for identification.”
Lewiston police said a “manhunt” is underway for a person allegedly connected to shootings.
Lewiston is a city of around 37,000 almost 30 miles north of Portland.
— Read on www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/active-shooter-incident-reported-lewiston-maine-live-updates-rcna122249