I found out about this film after watching The Curse of Bridge Hollow for Halloween. That should be obvious though really. Why else would I have chosen to watch a Marlon Wayans film instead of animation directed by Henry Selick. After all, he’s responsible for two of my favourite animated films. What a legend.
I’m not a horror movie fan. They just aren’t my thing. For one thing, I hate jump scares. I’m so easily spooked. So, when it comes to Halloween movies, I tend to gravitate towards kid’s movies. They’re more my speed and tend to be quicker. I’m still not at the top of my film-watching game, so have no attention span. Thankfully, Netflix always has something stupid that fits the bill.
The weather is getting colder and the nights are getting darker. That means it’s the perfect season for reading thrillers and spooky stories. When I was younger, I was a scared little thing. I freaked out over anything scary. My sisters still make fun of me for it to this day. Although, I maintain that the creepy eyes in The NeverEnding Story are terrifying. I remember we had a cassette tape with ghost stories on them. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t a huge fan. Not that it traumatised me too much. The only thing I remember about it is something about a pig man and I only remember that because there was awful squealing on the tape. But I digress. I’ve definitely got better with scary stuff as I’ve got older. Ghost stories aren’t my top genre but I’ll give them a go.
In an attempt to get into more of a Halloween mood, I decided to listen to some of Agatha Christie’s spookier stories last week. I was still doing a pretty boring task at work, so I needed something to lift my spirits. Nothing makes me feel better than a classic Christie audiobook. Seriously, I think even my least favourite Christie novels still bring me immense joy. She’s such a fantastic writer and has played with the supernatural in quite a few of her works. So, why not take advantage of the spooky season and indulge in a few?
I’ll be honest, I’m not really in the mood to be writing this review. I had a third Covid jab yesterday and am feeling pretty tired and rotten at this moment in time. So, finding out that I not only had to watch a film but also write about it for today’s post was pretty devastating. I’d already been planning to be tucked up early with a mug of tea and a book. To make things as easy as possible, I found the first vaguely Halloween related film that I could find with a running time of under 2 hours. Of course my best bet was picking an animation. This is a film that I had never seen before but one that my friend is always telling me to watch. She has kids though, which often means she has different opinions about what makes an animation good. But, at this point, I’ll take what recommendations I can.
I have to admit to something, I never got round to watching Uncut Gems. Phew, that’s a weight off my chest. At the time that it was really doing the rounds, I was desperately trying to watch all of the Oscar nominated films and, unfortunately, it was totally ignored by the Academy. I always intended to catch up but it never happened. Not because I didn’t think it would be good but because it just seemed so heavy. I mean this year is heavy enough. The reason I bring it up is because Uncut Gems could very well be the reason that Hubie Halloween exists. Before awards season kicked off, Sandler made a vow that he would make the worst film possible if he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar. 10 months on and another Netflix original hits us. So, was it really going to be the worst of his vast and often uninspiring career? There was only one way to find out.
In my review of Hallowe’en Party, I suggested that people first went into the book expecting it to be a spooky and supernatural read. There are a couple of weird moments but it’s not exactly a going to cater for your Halloween mood. So, some bright spark of a publisher decided to create this collection. It brings together her previous published stories into one scary anthology. The draw being that one of the stories was unpublished but only in America. Just imagine you can see my eyes rolling as I type that. As I’m going through an Agatha Christie moment, I decided to go through this collection. I’ve never been a huge fan of her short stories but I was ready to be converted.
I’ve decided that I’m on a bit of a mission to read as many Agatha Christie books in the next months as possible. My virtual book club chose And Then There Were None as its October picky. I’ll be honest, I didn’t pick it but mainly because it’s one of my favourite books. Certainly one of my favourite Christies. I’ll reread it but I know that I’ll leave it to the last minute. Although, that does give me time to cram in as many of her cosy crime novels as possible. This is my second after last week’s Evil Under The Sun. We’re not even halfway through yet and I’ve got a week off coming up. Hopefully, I’ll get a few more in before Halloween. Oh, speaking of Halloween…
As much as I enjoyed rereading My Sister the Serial Killer last week for book club, it does mean that I’m now a book behind for reviews. I didn’t want to post a second review of the book because my feelings haven’t changed much since my first read. I could have tried hard to finish my current read in time but, I’ll be honest, I spent much of the weekend playing Animal Crossing and was too busy collecting wood and catching bugs to be reading. So, it left me without a topic for today’s bookish. As it’s October, the scariest month of the year, I thought it would be fitting to discuss some of my top scary books. Disclaimer going in, I’m not much into the horror genre, so this is probably going to end up being massively underwhelming. I thought about including some examples of traditional gothic fiction but decided against it. Partly because I’ve already covered it. Also because they might not seem as spooky to modern readers.
What’s this? Am I abusing my new Friday Favourites system to shamelessly plug my Instagram account? Yes, it might seem like that. Because it’s what’s happening. However, I was really happy with my Halloween themed photos. Last year I had a lot of fun with my Halloween photos and this year I wanted to carry on the tradition. And this year I discovered the joy of spray blood. It was a bloody revelation. So, I got a bit carried away but I like the results. And you know the Instagram algorithm. Nobody saw them. I’m probably a bit biased because I know what these looked like before. All of the blood was sprayed onto separate pieces of paper and then I had to edit the paper out. It was fiddly and time-consuming but I think the results are quite effective.
Yipee ki-yay, motherbooker 