10/25/2006

‘Tis the season for hauntings of all kinds- and, you have to admit- television is just brimming with ghastly ghosts (no, not the overly-made up anchor men and women)-you’ve got your “Ghost Whisperer” Jennifer Love Hewitt-and, on cable, there’s no shortage of people in search of ghosts. One cable show is made up of ‘ghost hunters’ who seem one step removed from a cable tv installer - and , my favorite, on the “travel channel” (?!) is a show where a British female host leads a team through an all-night vigil at various allegedly –haunted locations. Usually she’s accompanied by one or two “psychics”- one of whom has a wacky ‘spirit guide” named Sam who gives him info on the various ghosts around. The host and her pals invariably see and hear all sorts of paranormal activity- problem is, we, the viewers, don’t always get to share- the ghost searchers usually have the hand-held cameras trained on their own faces, with the eerie night-vision giving them weird reflective-eyed stares- while they’re shrieking “Look! I just saw a shadow move through the doorway!” Well, if we weren’t stuck on a picture of your face, maybe WE’D have seen it as well! The best part is, this fearless hostess of the show is so chicken-livered, she’s constantly bursting into tears, and shrieking that she has to get out! She can’t stand it! Okay, who in their right mind takes the job of hosting a show where you’re going to encounter ghosts- if you’re so gutless, you’re ready to run like a sissy at the slightest unexplained noise?! One of the psychics invariably will locate a ghost who is a monk- or, as he puts it, “moonk”- and, will occasionally be “possessed” by a spirit, which means he starts thrashing about, always shouting in a guttural voice, and many times, in a sing-song cadence- my gosh, he’s possessed by a rapper! Only occasionally is there some bit of “evidence’ that could be something- but, most of the strange occurrences seem manifested buy the crew’s own nervousness (almost every week, one portly assistant exclaims “Something just touched me on me head!”) Touched in the head, indeed…

You want REAL scary? Let’s go to the 1982 Joe Dante werewolf movie “the Howling”-it’s a movie that really brings the old legend of the werewolf into modern day- with a tv newswoman getting way too close to her story- a serial killer, who almost does her in. This prompts her to travel to his last known home base- which she discovers to be an somewhat uncooperative nest of werewolves! The werewolf effects by Rob Bottin are great, and there are a lot of cameos by people like Roger Corman as an inside nod to fans of the horror genre. It’s one of the best contemporary werewolf films that showed up in the ‘80s.

For real contemporary convenience, you can’t beat a “wash-and-wear’ wolf. Okay, I’ll stop now. More blog tomorrow! # # #