#October2011
OCTOBERFEAST – Christopher Lee
Lo! The vortex on the horizon – do you see it? Surely you must! It’s a gargantuan cyclone, an indomitable mass of swirling purple and orange and black. Those protesters who’ve spent the last month screaming at the revelers, naysaying and posturing themselves above the traditions of candied-chaos? Well, they’ll be summarily swept away, fallen victim to the natural disaster that’s been summoned by the OCTOBERFEAST celebrants to end the festival most tempestuously.
It’s the Tornado of Souls.
Look closer! At the top of the soul-storm is a wicker chair, stationery despite its position. The twister slowly diminishes as makes its way towards the campgrounds, giving all present parties a better view of both the chair and the individual sitting in it. He is aged but regal. Grey-haired but black-hearted. Avuncular but assailing.
Riding into the grand finale of the OCTOBERFEAST on a goddamn tornado-chair, this is figure represents evil incarnate in a way no other ever has.
This man is Christopher Lee. And he’s responsible for more cinematic villainy than anyone else on the planet.
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OCTOBERFEAST – Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
If you ain’t ready for a snack on this penultimate day of the OCTOBERFEAST, then you haven’t been partying hard enough. But if you count yourself amongst the hordes of mischievous maniacs that’ve been on a month-long plastic-horror marathon, then you probably need some sustenance to get to Hallow’s Eve. If only just a handful of somethin’ or other.
Fortunately, today is the day for Heretical Confirmation known as Jack O’ Lantern carving. Yes, the day before Halloween is when many of the Feasters disembowel their pumpkins, recite the unholy words, and transform them into gourded sentries. While this rite is important in that it helps cast an orange glow over the conclusion of Satan’s Snacktime, it also yields a most appetizing byproduct.
Pumpkin seeds.
It’s hard to find a treat as intrinsically connected to the OCTOBERFEAST as roasted pumpkin seeds. Sure, apple pies and pumpkin pies and candy all certainly play their respective parts, but they also periodically pop up at other times of the year. But roasted pumpkin seeds? When was the last time you snacked on some of those sonovabitches at Christmas? Most likely, never. Which is a damn shame, because they’re crunchy and salty and fun as junk to make.
Tomorrow’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. Samhain. Hallow’s Eve. The Big Orange and Black Dance. Make sure that you’ve got enough energy to last through its day and night. So just as marathoners gorge on pasta the night before their twenty-six plus, make sure you chomp on pumpkin seeds until they stab your gums and make `em bleed.
Need a recipe? Look no further!
OCTOBERFEAST – Inferno
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
Like any worthwhile annual event, OCTOBERFEAST owes its greatness not only to the current torchbearers but also its precedent-setting pioneers. If not for John Carpenter, we’d be without Halloween and They Live. How many of us would’ve ever embraced horror if R.L. Stine hadn”t made it palatable to our impressionable little minds? Thanks to Stingy Jack, October evenings are dotted with the warm glow of orange monster-faces.
To all these heroes, and too many others to name, a token of appreciation must be gifted.
But there is another who deserves even more praise. This man has been dead for nearly seven hundred years, but without his poetry we’d be devoid of one of the most fundamental premises of our modern Hallow’s Eve festivities. In truth, had this dude failed to bang out his seminal work, we could very well be bereft of some of the world’s finest horror movies, metal songs, Hot Topic shirts, and ill-conceived biker tattoos.
The fact of the matter is that Dante Alighieri’s Inferno defined Hell with an attention to detail that had never before been conceived.
OCTOBERFEAST – The Wicked Witch!
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
There exist villains so ingrained in the rotwood known as the collective conscious that they’ll always have an open invitation to the OCTOBERFEAST. The tales of these harbingers of doom and gloom are passed from each generation to the next, racking up decades’ worth of childhood pee-pee stains and midlife heart attacks. These malefactors are the perennial horrors that are relied upon to keep every new human-litter honest-via-horror.
While there’re plenty of vitamin-enriched villains to choose from, there’s no denyin’ the power of the Wicked Witch of the West.
OCTOBERFEAST – Donnie Darko
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
At the turn of the century, those of us fortunate enough to have survived the apocalypse found ourselves in the unenviable position of having to reconstruct society. The first post-apocalyptic years were full of tumult, with chaos seeping into every aspect of daily living. With few raw materials at our disposal, we frantically grabbed what we could and began assembling entertainment-jalopies. Sometimes, the pieces came together to create something beautiful.
So far-reaching was this poltergeist of piebald reassembly that not even the oxidized gates and sheep’s blood fountains of the OCTOBERFEAST could effectively ward it off. No, even the hallowed season of candied fright and salubrious Satanism fell victim to this malignant spirit. The surrealism of living after the End of the World, the yearning for yesteryear’s comforts, and the attempt to continue humanity’s narrative traditions writhed about in a baby-oiled orgy lasting throughout the tenth month of the year.
Perhaps the most infamous pregnancy attributable to this orgiastic blending is Donnie Darko. Read the rest of this entry »
OCTOBERFEAST – Freddy Krueger
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
Today’s OCTOBERFEAST guest is a man whose reputation precedes him, creatively murdering people for the past twenty-seven years. When this dude targets you, he infiltrates your dream, exploits your fears, and then commits horrendous acts of barbarism. Also, he wears a sweet Christmas sweater and is responsible for some of the horror genre’s most hilarious one-liners of all-time.
The homicidal dream-slasher in question is, of course, the one and only Freddy Krueger.
As a villain five times in the 1980s, twice in the 1990s, and twice in the post-millennium, many consider Krueger to be an exemplar for slasher-flick murderers who has stood the test of time. After all, what’s more horrifying than the notion that our dreams – the venues we use to play out hopes and dreams and unspoken fantasies – can become the grounds of our gruesome demises?
Krueger’s deeds speak for themselves. So hit the jump and check out some of the handiwork of Elm Street’s most malignant spirit.
OCTOBERFEAST – Gremlins 2
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
It was during the 1984 OCTOBERFEAST that an elderly Chinese bro stumbled into the fairgrounds and changed the celebration forever. Inside the basket this Chinese sage carried with him was a creature called a Mogwai, which was bequeathed unto the OCTOBERFEAST itself. All that the man requested was that three simple rules be followed:
– Never expose it to bright light.
– Never get it wet.
– Never feed it after midnight.
Of course, the revelers were too hammered to understand the dude’s thick Sino-accent, and so the poor Mogwai ended up succumbing to light, water, and midnight snacks. Gremlins ran amok, and much fun was had!
It seemed as though it’d be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and we were confident that we’d never have to worry about Gremlin-invasions again.
Boy, were we wrong.
In1990, the OCTOBERFEAST was once again overrun by Gremlins! Only this time, the creatures were of an entirely new batch, capable of far more charming parodies and subtler urban-warfare tactics. This event, hilarious and terrifying as it was, is now referred to as Gremlins 2 by the history books.
OCTOBERFEAST – Danzig
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
The malignant hordes have festered upon the campgrounds, sprawling about in a triumphant display of terror. They take killer rips from gasoline tanks teeming with Mountain Dew. They burning effigies of the Kardashians. They feast upon orange-frosted cupcakes and handfuls of roasted pumpkin seeds.
There is no doubt that the OCTOBERFEAST merrymakers are having the times of their lives.
However, total immersion in the immoral leaves the partygoers defenseless! At this point, virtually every one of `em is pumpkin-drunk and fear-fatigued. What should happen if some Donnie Decency stormed the gates, pamphlets about hygiene and righteousness in hand? Well, we could very well see the dark disciples converted, repurposed for existences without surfeits of sugar and regular poltergeist-attacks.
The horror!
Fortunately, there are those who keep careful watch over the OCTOBERFEAST – after all, the success of any evil entity is contingent upon the strength of its sentries. Voldemort has the Death Eaters. Darth Vader has the Stormtroopers.
Not to be outdone, OCTOBERFEAST has its own last line of defense: Etrigan’s Guild. For the safety of the celebration, the identities of this cacodemonic collective’s members are shrouded, revealed only to the perpetrating do-gooders. But in the spirit of Satan’s Snacktime, tonight the captain of the guild is stepping forward, making his presence known to any considering infiltration.
The Captain of Etrigan’s Guild: Glenn Danzig
OCTOBERFEAST – Killer Klowns from Outer Space
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
Ahoy! If you’re reading this, it means that you’ve managed to survive the first half of the OCTOBERFEAST! Congratulations! You are now amongst the ranks of the frightfully faithful, the few capable of gorging on sugary-shock and plastic-paranormal. At this point, most’ve bowed out, deciding that they cannot continue to worship the manifestations of humanity’s darkened heart without causing irrevocable damage to their consciences.
Your reward for not running off into the dim horizon – some chuckles.
See, a major misconception about OCTOBERFEAST is that levity is wholly absent. This, of course, is simply false. Sure, the festival is dedicated to slayings, acts of havoc, and undead armies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t cackle at a few gutbusters! Hell, today’s featured guests are guaranteed to tickle the `ole funny-bone!
`Cause the only folks funnier than clowns are Killer Klowns from Outer Space!
OCTOBERFEAST – Se7en
[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]
As OCTOBERFEAST rages on and on and on, it’s easy to get lost. We’re in the midst of a flurry of decadence, bodies and morals gyrating to the ever-quickening pulse of dark-hearted celebration. This is the opportunity that must be taken, the chance to dive headfirst into all the temptations we must normally avoid. After all, if we allow our sins to take over our lives, a maniac-genius might just come by and kill us.
Thus is the premise of Se7en.
