To start October, I want to write about movies that make me feel like it's October. Because those of us that know the true meaning of October know that it's not just a month. It's a living, breathing, phenomenon; one where life is just a little more thrilling and you can feel something dangerous in the autumn breeze if you close your eyes tilt your head just right. Legend says that Halloween is the night where the barrier between the living and the dead is the thinnest - and October's the month where we get to spend 31 days dancing with that barrier and all the dangerous things that exist behind it.
HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!
Something Wicked This Way Comes
1983, Directed by Jack Clayton
"First of all, it was October. A rare month for boys. Full of cold winds, long nights, dark promises. Days get short. The shadows lengthen. The wind mourns in such a way that you want to run forever through the fields. Because, up ahead, 10,000 pumpkins lie waiting to be cut."
There are things that get my blood pumping - a beautiful woman, a Packers victory, any type of pie that's not pecan - and then there are words like that. Words from a narrator, written by Ray Bradbury, that make me want to go running through the fields too. Words that accompany a montage of orange-hued beauty that reveals the small town setting of Something Wicked This Way Comes. That setting is Green Town, Illinois, a fictional village that's not too far from Haddonfield (I think), a village that feels like it might be the most purely autumnal place in the world.
Green Town is the home of two young boys - Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade - and a whole lot of adults that seem kind of sad about their lives. The most prominent of these is Will's father, Charles Halloway, the town librarian. He's played by Jason Robards, who gives a vulnerable performance that makes him incredibly easy to relate to. I've always liked Robards, probably because he reminds me a little bit of my Grandfather, and seeing him here as an aging father who's trying to do everything he can for his son is pretty heartwarming. That might not be what you're looking for in a horror movie, and it's probably around this point that I should mention that this is a PG horror film released by Disney.
(A quick message to the "Only R rated horror is good horror" crowd - Don't run away, please. Let me finish. It won't hurt. I promise.)
The production of Something Wicked This Way Comes was kind of giant mess, which is amazing to me considering how much I love the final product. Disney was trying to get into darker features, after other studios' box office success with films like The Dark Crystal, and green lit this horror feature as a way to get in on that market - while still wanting to maintain their Disney image. Bradbury, who adapted his own novel for the studio, and veteran director Jack Clayton (The Innocents) were basically fired midway through production, and their friendship was torn apart by disagreements over the script. Clayton hired composer Georges Delerue to do the film's musical score, but Disney execs decided the music was too dark and brought in James Horner to write an entirely new score - which is actually one of my favorite musical scores in any film. When the film tested poorly with audiences Disney decided to admit some of their errors and brought Bradbury back in for some re-writes, including that opening narration I shared above.
The film still had a chance if they could all find a way to make it feel dark enough, and that starts with the casting of the sinister carnival proprietor at the center of the film - the aptly named, Mr. Dark. Bradbury has said how his choices for the role were Peter O'Toole and Christopher Lee, two names that would have probably pushed this production into both a different budget and a different conversation among filmgoers of 1983. Instead the studio went for the younger and cheaper Jonathan Pryce, a guy we all recognize now but also a guy who was relatively unknown at the time. And, because every argument on set apparently led to a surprisingly positive outcome - Pryce ended up being the brightest star in the film.
In fact, it's hard for me to imagine the magic of Something Wicked This Way Comes without Pryce walking around town with his fancy suit and cane and giving the most menacing looks to everyone he meets. He's a bully, but not in a physical or even cruel way. He's the kind of guy that just gets his way because you can tell he's going to get his way - and also because he has some mystical powers and a henchman with a mustache and a "Dust Witch" that's played by Pam Grier.
This film is far from perfect - like I said, I'm amazed it's as good as it is with all the behind the scenes drama - but there's a heart inside it that makes me fall in love with it instantly. To me, it feels like the heart of October and the Halloween season. I've never seen another movie that feels so much like the Octobers I grew up with. You can almost feel the autumn breeze coming off the screen when you watch this one. The leaves are a perfect orange-brown color, and the nights are as dark as you hope they'd be. The town feels alive, but also feels like it's dying. And, thanks to Mr. Dark and company - we're not sure it'll be reborn in the Spring. Oof. This setting makes me dream, you guys. And the rest of the movie's good enough, too.
If Something Wicked This Way Comes is the most October film I know - and it probably is - that makes it pretty hard to pick a double feature partner for it, right? Maybe. Let's take a look at some of the things I love about it that will play into our double feature pick.
(A quick message to the "Only R rated horror is good horror" crowd - Don't run away, please. Let me finish. It won't hurt. I promise.)
The film still had a chance if they could all find a way to make it feel dark enough, and that starts with the casting of the sinister carnival proprietor at the center of the film - the aptly named, Mr. Dark. Bradbury has said how his choices for the role were Peter O'Toole and Christopher Lee, two names that would have probably pushed this production into both a different budget and a different conversation among filmgoers of 1983. Instead the studio went for the younger and cheaper Jonathan Pryce, a guy we all recognize now but also a guy who was relatively unknown at the time. And, because every argument on set apparently led to a surprisingly positive outcome - Pryce ended up being the brightest star in the film.
This film is far from perfect - like I said, I'm amazed it's as good as it is with all the behind the scenes drama - but there's a heart inside it that makes me fall in love with it instantly. To me, it feels like the heart of October and the Halloween season. I've never seen another movie that feels so much like the Octobers I grew up with. You can almost feel the autumn breeze coming off the screen when you watch this one. The leaves are a perfect orange-brown color, and the nights are as dark as you hope they'd be. The town feels alive, but also feels like it's dying. And, thanks to Mr. Dark and company - we're not sure it'll be reborn in the Spring. Oof. This setting makes me dream, you guys. And the rest of the movie's good enough, too.
If Something Wicked This Way Comes is the most October film I know - and it probably is - that makes it pretty hard to pick a double feature partner for it, right? Maybe. Let's take a look at some of the things I love about it that will play into our double feature pick.
- Robards and Pryce are the grown stars, and they definitely shine (as does the amazing Royal Dano in a brief role as a lightning rod salesman who I want to be best friends with), but the real stars of the film are the two young boys who are trying to confront the evil Mr. Dark. I'm not a big fan of child led horror films, but sometimes they work - and they especially work when the children at the center of the film are open to the possibility of the supernatural.
- I'm a small town kid, so there's something magical about a small town October to me. I'm looking for something else with that.
- Halloween is obviously the big event of October, but I don't want movies that just focus on that. Something Wicked This Way Comes isn't really a Halloween movie, it's an October movie. I want another movie that isn't directly about the holiday, even if we can feel its presence when we watch it.
- There are a lot of grown up themes in this film, mostly dealing with loss and the cruelties of aging. The message the challenge the characters face, of course, is that the young are open to possibilities and the old are just too worn down to care. That's a neat concept, and one I know some other horror movies deal with.
When you sum that all up, it sounds to me like we're looking for a campfire tale. And I think I found a pretty good one.
Lady in White
1988, Directed by Frank LaLoggia
I'm cheating a little bit here - the events of Lady in White run over several months and only begin in October - but when you watch the first act of this small town horror story it's impossible to not think about the ghosts of October. That's kind of obvious, since the film is a ghost story, but just look at the orange leaves and the pumpkins and the Halloween masks. You'll get that October feeling
Set, via flashbacks, in the fall of 1962 - coincidentally, that was the year when Something Wicked This Way Comes was first published - Lady in White is the tale of a young boy named Frankie, who has since grown up to become a famous horror author. After a little narration (by writer/director Frank LaLoggia, who also plays the adult version of Frankie) sets the mood for this small town, there's a marvelous moment where the cab driver that's bringing him home asks "You don't really believe all that spooky stuff you write about, do you?"
Buddy, that's a question you should never ask someone in a horror movie.
We know young Frankie is cool from the beginning of the film, partially because he's going to become a famous horror author but also because he's already a child horror author who happens to be dressed up as a vampire for Halloween. His stories as a child need a little work, but there's a pretty fantastic flair for the dramatic in his work and the film does a marvelous job of letting us know that Frankie is a special kid by showing us the effect his writing has on his classmates.
An old proverb says that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down - which is a good analogy for why so many bullies do what they do - and it's true in the case of Frankie. A couple of his "friends" decide to play a trick on him and get him locked inside the school's coat room after school (Note to young folks: A coat room is exactly what it sounds like), and while he's trapped in that room overnight he gets his first glance at one of the ghosts that would change his life over the next few months.
If you guessed that it was a lady in white, you clearly read the movie's title. Also, you're wrong. The ghost Frankie meets in this setting is a 10 year old girl, who he soon learns is one of the victims of a killer who's been targeting children in the area for years.
The town knows there's a murderer among them, but the adults - including Frankie's father, played by The Godfather's Alex Rocco - just seem to be too beaten down to do much about it. Like Something Wicked This Way Comes, everyone just seems to accept that their life is too tough to do much about anything. There's a little scene where Frankie's father is watching the news on TV that seems like a throwaway moment in the film, but - much like today's news cycle - it gives us a quick insight into how exhausting it can be to try and face everything going on in the world. There's also a surprisingly harsh subplot about the African American janitor who is accused of the murders, which feels a little out of place in the PG-13 film but also adds to the feeling of lost innocence that plagues the adults of the town.
Frankie doesn't have that problem; he's young and he's motivated to solve this ghastly mystery. So he starts digging into the case, and with an assist from the young ghost and her distraught mother ghost (she's the lady in white of the title), he begins to figure some things out. This leads to a pretty great scene where he first realizes the identity of the killer - one that kind of feels like a similar reveal in Twin Peaks a few years later - and a somewhat ham-fisted finale that wraps up the story well but has some effects that really haven't aged too well.
A shared theme between both of these films - one that I didn't necessarily intend to hit on here - is that they sure aren't perfect. Both are a little longer and a little tamer than the average horror film of the 1980s, while also not quite hitting on the emotional highs of classics of the genre that came before them. But you know what, that's fine. Few things in this world are perfect, and I'm OK with tying myself to a couple of scrappy flicks that overcome their own faults.
Nobody ever sat at a campfire on a dark October eve and heard a ghost story that didn't make them groan with a little doubt. But, as the October wind blows and the night gets that unnatural chill - a lot of people think back to those imperfect stories and the wonders they imply. It might not be rational or logical to believe in them - but what if there's a chance? October's different. October means it's possible those stories, despite all their flaws, could still have some kind of impact on us.
This isn't a double feature for the closed minded. This is a double feature for people who, like the children at the center of the films, believe in the mystical appeal of this season. I've grown up since my small town October days, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who craves stories like these when October comes around. So grab some blankets, some firewood, and some marshmallows, and join me for this double feature.
If you dare.
If you guessed that it was a lady in white, you clearly read the movie's title. Also, you're wrong. The ghost Frankie meets in this setting is a 10 year old girl, who he soon learns is one of the victims of a killer who's been targeting children in the area for years.
The town knows there's a murderer among them, but the adults - including Frankie's father, played by The Godfather's Alex Rocco - just seem to be too beaten down to do much about it. Like Something Wicked This Way Comes, everyone just seems to accept that their life is too tough to do much about anything. There's a little scene where Frankie's father is watching the news on TV that seems like a throwaway moment in the film, but - much like today's news cycle - it gives us a quick insight into how exhausting it can be to try and face everything going on in the world. There's also a surprisingly harsh subplot about the African American janitor who is accused of the murders, which feels a little out of place in the PG-13 film but also adds to the feeling of lost innocence that plagues the adults of the town.
Frankie doesn't have that problem; he's young and he's motivated to solve this ghastly mystery. So he starts digging into the case, and with an assist from the young ghost and her distraught mother ghost (she's the lady in white of the title), he begins to figure some things out. This leads to a pretty great scene where he first realizes the identity of the killer - one that kind of feels like a similar reveal in Twin Peaks a few years later - and a somewhat ham-fisted finale that wraps up the story well but has some effects that really haven't aged too well.
Nobody ever sat at a campfire on a dark October eve and heard a ghost story that didn't make them groan with a little doubt. But, as the October wind blows and the night gets that unnatural chill - a lot of people think back to those imperfect stories and the wonders they imply. It might not be rational or logical to believe in them - but what if there's a chance? October's different. October means it's possible those stories, despite all their flaws, could still have some kind of impact on us.
This isn't a double feature for the closed minded. This is a double feature for people who, like the children at the center of the films, believe in the mystical appeal of this season. I've grown up since my small town October days, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who craves stories like these when October comes around. So grab some blankets, some firewood, and some marshmallows, and join me for this double feature.
If you dare.
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