Welcome to the Video Store Podcast.
Let’s kick off the Spooky Season!
It’s been a little quiet around the Video Store lately. The lights have been off, the OPEN sign has been dark, and the new releases haven’t moved in about a month.
But the lights are back on, the popcorn machine is running, and the Video Store is officially back in business. And you picked a good time to stop in.
Halloween is getting close, so we’re digging through the horror section for four movies that feel right at home in October. We’ve got a demon in the woods, werewolves stalking the countryside, ghosts invading the suburbs, and vampires hanging out on the boardwalk.
Basically, an average night here at the Video Store.
Pumpkinhead (1988)
If there was ever a movie made for the horror shelf in October, it’s Pumpkinhead. Lance Henriksen stars as a grieving father who turns to an old witch for revenge and summons the demon Pumpkinhead. Naturally, there’s a catch. There is always a catch when the creepy old witch in the swamp helps you summon a demon. Dark woods, an isolated cabin, a graveyard, a demonic ritual and Stan Winston’s fantastic creature effects give the movie the feel of an old campfire story. Somewhere out in those woods is something you really don’t want to meet.
The Howling (1981)
From demons, we move to werewolves. Joe Dante’s The Howling follows television reporter Karen White, played by Dee Wallace, to a secluded retreat called the Colony, where she discovers the residents aren’t exactly there for rest and relaxation. Rob Bottin’s practical transformation effects remain spectacularly gross, and the cabins, campfires, dark woods and things moving between the trees make this a perfect late-night October movie.
Poltergeist (1982)
What’s safer than your own home? Poltergeist showed us we were wrong. Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams play parents whose ordinary suburban home becomes considerably less ordinary after their daughter Carol Anne begins communicating with something through the television. Poltergeist takes familiar things and makes them terrifying. Trees attack, toys move, closets swallow children, and television static becomes something you definitely don’t want to see at two in the morning. For a generation raised with TVs in practically every room, that last one hit especially hard.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Let’s close with one of the best vampire movies ever made, period. The Lost Boys takes vampire mythology and runs it straight into the 1980s. These vampires have mullets, wear leather jackets and ride motorcycles. Joel Schumacher turns Santa Carla into a permanent nighttime carnival of neon lights, music, fog, caves and cemeteries, while Kiefer Sutherland’s David makes being undead look dangerously appealing. It doesn’t take place on Halloween, but few movies feel more at home in October.
Grab the holy water, find some garlic, and sharpen your stakes.
The Video Store Is Open Again!
From the dark woods of Pumpkinhead to the werewolf-infested countryside of The Howling, from the haunted suburbs of Poltergeist to the vampires prowling the Santa Carla boardwalk in The Lost Boys, these are four very different kinds of monsters.
And four good reasons to leave the lights on.
That’s one of the things I love about Halloween movies. They don’t necessarily have to take place on Halloween. Sometimes it’s enough that they capture the feeling. The darkness comes a little earlier. Leaves blow across the sidewalk. There’s a bowl of candy on the counter and a cheap plastic skeleton hanging somewhere nearby.
Thanks for coming back to the Video Store.
Watch out for monsters.
And remember...
Be kind. Rewind.
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