A Week to Remember: Scary Movies for Halloween
Keith Chaffee, Librarian, Collection Development,
It's Halloween and what better time for a marathon of horror movies?
Horror movies are as old as cinema, and our streaming video services cover almost a century of horror, from silents The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922), to The Transfiguration, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
The appeal of horror is international, and you'll find films from Singapore (The Maid), Italy (Black Sabbath), and Iran (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night).
If you're in the mood for zombies this Halloween, you might enjoy Day of the Dead or Kung Fu Zombie. There are haunted houses to be found in House on Haunted Hill and Lavender, vampires in Ganja and Hess and I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, and ghosts in The Ghost and Apartment 1303.
Do you prefer your horror with a touch of comedy? Perhaps the original (non-musical) version of The Little Shop of Horrors will be to your liking, or the drag-queen zombies of Remington and the Curse of the Zombadings.
And if you're looking for a really long marathon, you'll need plenty of popcorn as you settle in for more than 300 episodes of the 60s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.
Also This Week
The radio program Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast Orson Welles' adaptation of H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds, which became famous for allegedly causing mass panic among viewers who thought that Martians really were invading. Historians now think that the panic was exaggerated by newspapers, in large part because they hoped for tighter regulation of their new challenger, radio. A. Brad Schwartz looks at the "panic" and its causes in Broadcast Hysteria (e-book, e-audio, print). The Los Angeles Theatre Works 1994 re-creation of Welles' broadcast, with a cast largely made up of Star Trek actors is available in e-audio.
Laura Albert was born. Albert is the author of books published under the name JT LeRoy. The books were originally presented as semi-autobiographical works about LeRoy, an HIV-positive young man writing about his youth of poverty, addiction, and sexual abuse. As LeRoy's career took off, Albert's sister-in-law began to make public appearances as LeRoy. The hoax was finally uncovered in 2005. The documentary The Cult of JT LeRoy explores the literary and ethical issues raised by Albert's creation of LeRoy.
Colin Kaepernick was born. Kaepernick is a quarterback who played for the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 to 2016. During the 2016 season, he began sitting, and eventually kneeling, during the playing of the national anthem as a form of protest against institutionalized racism in the United States. Kaepernick became a free agent at the end of the 2016 season, and was not signed by any team to play in the current NFL season. Sports and politics have often been intertwined; Dave Zirin explores that history in A People's History of Sports in the United States (e-book, print).
November 1 is World Vegan Day, and November 3 is National Sandwich Day. Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes offer you the chance to celebrate both at once with Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day, available as an e-book.
e-Media,
A Week To Remember,
Fall Traditions,