The Lamb Lies Down On Halloween

It's Halloween, which isn't as fun sounding as it used to be, and if it is, it doesn't ever turn out actually being as much fun as you think you thought it sounded, but I digress.
1. Marylin Manson - This is Halloween (mp3)
2. Ted Leo & Rx - I'm A Ghost (mp3)
3. Hot Blood - Soul Dracula (mp3)
4. RJD2 - The Horror (mp3)
5. Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast (mp3)
6. The Return of Count Yorga (mp3)
7. Fiona Apple - Sally's Song (mp3)
8. October Country - My Girlfriend is a Witch (mp3)
9. Metric - Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT Remix) (mp3)

ALSO: Sufjan tells us about scary movies.

The Horror In All Of Us
A few of my favorite horror(ible) films.

by SUFJAN STEVENS

I grew up on horror films. I saw The Exorcist when I was five. A year later, Disney’s The Black Hole struck me as light fare, even though my older brother left the theater crying. My father once brought home a VHS rental of Day of the Dead and we watched it twice, eating take-out Chinese. A few weeks later it was Ridley Scott’s Alien, then Dead Calm, then The Shining. It didn’t phase me one bit. I never had nightmares.

In my imaginary television show, Vincent Price was the host, David Cronenburg was the director, and Freddy Kreuger played the lead. I’ve watched so much gore that modern horror films look farcical. I’m no longer a fan of the teenage slasher. It’s not scary anymore. It’s just messy and tedious. More recently, I’ve begun to uncover elements of horror in everyday life. The cockroach nesting under the sink. The metronome click of the radiator in the corner. The old woman in her chair on the street next door, who is always asking for change. In the same way, some horror films aren’t horror films at all. But they evoke a particular kind of consternation that settles under your skin like the flu. You can feel the palpitations of your heart in your ears. Here is a list of a few my favorites:

1. Night of the Living Dead—This is an obvious choice. Bad acting, cheap make-up, and clumsy camera work actually contribute to the overall panic affect. It’s so unscripted it begins to feel real. The still frame sequence at the end, when they burn all the bodies (with its genocidal overtones)—that still makes me sick to my stomach.

2. Decasia—This is a film that compiles all kinds of old film footage worn away by the elements, creating a ghastly composition of images that slowly break apart. The visual distortions create a burning, melting sensation, evoking the sense that all of life, and art, and culture, and society, the origins of language, everything—you, me--will eventually be cremated in the fires of time, whatever that means. Michael Gordon’s soundtrack is equally scary—a growling, swirling dirge, the sound of a great orchestra forced to play with bad intonation for 40 minutes straight. It’s a great horror film for a blind date!

3. An Inconvenient Truth—I couldn’t sleep for days. Melting ice caps, receding glaciers, New York City submerged in water, Al Gore and his gruesome pie charts. He’s like Darth Vader armed with a Power Point presentation. Yikes.

4. Eraserhead—It’s an art film, horror film, student film, philosophy film, whatever you call it. I like to think of it as the only horror film that doubles as a form of birth control.

5. Hell House—a clear, concise, empathetic documentation of an evangelical church’s tireless undertaking in constructing a theatrical Haunted House—in which different rooms act as stage sets where church members play out life or death scenarios meant to scare unsuspecting viewers into repentance. It’s not exactly a horror film, of course. But it’s horrifying in that other kind of way, in which ordinary people begin to behave in extraordinary ways so that all logic is turned on its head and you begin to worry that we are very near the end of civilization.

6. Glen or Glenda?—If you thought Plan 9 was bad, this one is the grand prixe of b-rate movie making. What’s more horrifying than alien invasion? Coming home from the beauty salon and finding your husband in drag. To be fair, Ed Wood looks good in angora. Who doesn’t? What’s really horrifying (in that sad, scary kind of way) is Bela Lugosi’s rambling, medicated monologue about the meaningless trajectory of life. “Pull the string!” He chants to the camera, like a mad puppeteer! And what about that free jazz number with the devil dancing around on the couch? What does that have to do with cross-dressing? Or puppets? Who cares! Oscars all around!