"The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead."

-W.H. Auden

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Spooky Scary Skeletons

It's late October, the year is turning, the weather is cooling and leaves are beginning to fall. Along the streets, signs of Halloween appear. In the shops, ghostly figures gather.
There are a lot of things to do, like planning hayrides and carving pumpkins. The little one wants to be a crow this year, so there's a complicated costume to make. But for me, personally, the most important thing about Halloween isn't dressing up or trick or treat, though naturally this is great fun. It's a spiritual night, the time I feel closest to my ancestors and loved ones who have passed on. They have been known to drop by at any old time of the year, but Halloween is special. The air fairly crackles with it.

My favorite Halloween memories are not of anything dramatic, but small moments infused with an ineffable...something.

The school Fall festivals and playing games under the full moon. Baking pumpkin pie.Crossing the bridge above the creek and hearing the leaves rustle ominously. And then there is my very favorite memory, the time I saw the last trick-or-treater of the night - a young girl dressed as a witch - jump the wrought iron fence on the corner. She could have walked around it, but she jumped instead, and I was so glad. She was about 11, and I knew, with a certain melancholy, that her fence-jumping days would soon be over. For that moment though, she was truly a little witch.
 
And as always, there is the sense that spirits are close at hand.

After midnight, when everyone has gone home, it's time to leave offerings for the dead. There is candy, fruit, and (when I can manage) bread baked in the shape of little men. Scoff all you want, but when you have guests, you should always show them hospitality. Most times the weather is warm, but sometimes cold wind whips around my ankles as I make my rounds. Regardless, it must be done, because this is the essence of it all, the point of connection between the living and the dead.

In our family, we often joke that Halloween is a more important holiday than Thanksgiving or Christmas, our equivalent, and we'll be like the family in the Ray Bradbury story, Homecoming. Perhaps this will be the day everyone will come for the holidays every year, fluttering home like bats through the moonlight.

It's not a bad idea. They know we'll always leave a light on for them.


Saturday, October 29, 2016

Supernatural Domestic Gothic 5 - The Craft, Or Never Trust A Man In A Bolo Tie

A charm to ward off evil spirits and diaper rash - you know she's going to need it.
More commonly known by the rather dull title To Save A Child, this TV movie was broadcast as The Craft back in 1994. This was the only name I'd known it under, which made it onerously difficult to find, not the least because the big budget film "The Craft" buried any search results. Luckily, the site What Was That Weird Movie came through and revealed the facts, assuring me that it did indeed exist. I'd searched for it so long I was beginning to wonder.

Isabella is a young bride, a doctor's wife who is expecting a baby. She moves from her hometown to her in-laws' ranch in the Southwest, but before she does, the religious studies professor she works for gives her the charm seen above - he must know something she doesn't.

At first everyone in the remote desert town seems friendly, almost overbearingly so, and soon there are signs that something is amiss. Her mother-in-law is all up in her business, her father-in-law is gropey and her husband is always away, leaving Isabella to cope on her own. What's more, there is something not right about the townsfolk. In fact, the whole town is chock full of not right. It makes Twin Peaks seem normal in comparison.

Isabella's only friend is Janelle, a battered wife who warns her that "when the light hits a certain way, the townspeople don't even look human" and that she should leave because "they're gonna get you, and for sure they're gonna get your baby."

See? Chock full of Not Right.

When Isabella sees something nasty in an outbuilding on the ranch, we know that all bets are off.

To Save A Child (Aka The Craft) 1991
https://youtu.be/nLvIUhqohXM
  
Because I consider this (only slightly acerbically) to be the best TV movie ever made, I was surprised to learn that it had actually been a failed series pilot that was repurposed as a stand-alone film. Perhaps this is one of the things I like about it so much, that it's necessarily open-ended to leave room for a series that never happened. That adds something to it, I think. Despite plot similarities to The Lighting Incident, the somewhat surreal camera work and twangy guitar soundtrack owe quite a bit to Twin Peaks. Just more overtly sinister and in the desert, which is fine by me.

Some may question my taste - after all, I thought Two Moon Junction was great - but I maintain that they just DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Supernatural Domestic Gothic has fallen out of favor in recent times, replaced by hackneyed teenage vampires and more straight-up horror themes, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one day, one day, it will come back into vogue.

When it does, I'll have the popcorn ready.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Supernatural Domestic Gothic 4 - The Lightning Incident

Also known as The Lightning Field. I could swear it was broadcast at least once under the name "The Night Of The Lightning", but I can't find any confirmation of that. Perhaps, like the heroine of the Lightning Incident, I was having a visionary experience.You can never be too sure about these things. ;)

In this film, Nancy McKeon plays a pregnant sculptor who is working on an art installation meant to attract lightning in the desert. (Pity no one told her there already is one ). After she begins to have the aforementioned visions, she discovers a connection to a sinister South American cult. This is bad news for our heroine, because the cult happens to want her baby for nefarious purposes. As you can imagine, Drama ensues.

Sadly, there's no way to link to the film because the only one on youtube is private, but there is a trailer:
https://youtu.be/0GpJpAXbsmk

I liked The Lightning Incident because it delivers most everything you'd want and expect from this type of TV movie, and the desert setting is a refreshing change from the usual New England (or very occasionally Old South) locales where TV movie producers must assume these things happen.

 I have to confess though, mainly I liked it because of the strong similarity it bears to my very favorite TV movie of all time, the one where the genre reaches its highest heights, the ultimate triumph of the form. That one will be the next and final post in this series, so stay tuned.

 Obviously, you'll be waiting with bated breath...

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Supernatural Domestic Gothic 3 - Midnight Offerings

While Midnight Offerings does involve domestic settings, this classic piece of 80's pop culture is more of a teen/school drama. Instead of the mean girl vs nice girl trope, however, we have bad witch vs good witch. And Vivian is a bad, bad witch indeed.

Seriously. I mean, look at that set-up in her room. No teenage occult dabbler I ever knew had gear like that. It must have cost a fortune. Girl was dedicated.

If you've ever had dark suspicions about the fumes emanating from your teen's bedroom, this is a film for you.

Midnight Offerings, 1981
https://youtu.be/DacsxjzSLZc


Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Supernatural Domestic Gothic 2 - Midnight's Child

 
If that Swedish Au Pair seems too good to be true, she probably is.

Midnight's Child, 1992
https://youtu.be/tjGGxCs0Ug4

Midnight's Child is genuinely eerie and does a good job of playing on unconscious (as well as conscious) feminine fears. One issue, though, is that the heroine is so often cranky that I find myself rooting for the nanny. Then again, maybe that's what we're meant to do...

Supernatural Domestic Gothic Part 1 - Bay Cove

I confess to having an inordinate love for Domestic Gothic. Your nice new neighbor is acting a bit secretive? Well, perhaps he/she is a psychopathic killer or member of a sinister cult. Your husband dismisses your sudden, uncharacteristic bouts of memory loss? Watch out, he's probably drugging your tea. Before you know it, you'll be committed to a psychiatric ward and he'll have control over your grandfather's fortune. Dastardly!

While TV shows like Desperate Housewives were big hits, I claim that Domestic Gothic reached its most perfect televised form in the Lifetime Television Movie. Back in the 90's, I was an eager consumer of such things, huddled in my darkened living room with endless bowls of popcorn. Will the heroine foil the evil plot? Will she escape in time, hopefully with the remnants of her social and/or family structure intact? Of course she will, and in a suitably dramatic fashion, too

While Domestic Gothic comes in many forms (you know you're watching Domestic Gothic by the way the camera follows the heroine around like a creepy voyeur) my favorite subtype is Supernatural Domestic Gothic, which is what I'll be highlighting in this series of posts. What could be better viewing for this spooky Autumnal season? Garden-variety psycho killers are nothing compared to fighting posses of witches or the devil himself!

First up - Pamela Sue Martin discovers there is something very strange going on in the sleepy village of Bay Cove. Why has no one been buried in the church yard since the 1700's? Who is that old man watching her? Why is there a flaming pentagram in the basement of the general store?

Bay Coven, 1987
https://youtu.be/5Ftsu9xbFx4

I can't embed the video here, but please click the link for thrilling, cheesy fun. :)





Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Tree In Silver

Just to make this a trio of trees, a lovely talisman I found last Summer. It has a most lucky feel to it.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The Witch Fire Tree

Yesterday's post about The Witch Tree Symbol reminded me of this photo from California's witch fire, in 2007. Sort of a fiery twin of the other. If you look carefully, you can see the simulacra of a witch in this one, too.

Monday, October 17, 2016

The Witch Tree Symbol

During a discussion of favorite book covers this weekend, I recalled this one from back in the day. The right cover can make a book memorable, and this is a good example. I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a kid, but the plot of the Witch Tree Symbol wasn't my favorite -  that honor might have to go to The Secret of The Wooden Lady or The Mysterious Mannequin. However, the cover painting was truly awesome. Girl detective, dark night, spooky tree - what's not to love? But the best part, the very best part, is the witch.

Can you see it?