Scary movies are a staple in my home - the wife loves 'em. Me? I can take them or leave them alone, mostly leave them alone. My idea of a good frightfest is All the President's Men. But here we are, staring at a huge bowl that needs to be filled with expensive fun sized candy. We're going to need to watch something after the cute little kids are tucked into bed and those older tweens - way too old for this kind of stuff - start coming around. Oh, and we're going to need some alcohol, too. For us, not the kiddies.
Wishmaster is a 1997 slasher film, the sort that crawls out from its temperature-controlled hiding place each October. Much death and cruelty is dealt out in the film's running time, and by various means - not just slashing. Robert Englund brings some slasher cred to the movie.
A djinn is released from his confines, and we all know where that sort of thing leads. Wishes will be granted. However, this evil genie has a separate agenda which does not involve serving the person who uncorked him. This genie really brings to life the warning that one should be careful about what one wishes for.
I would wish for a nice, dry, Provençal rosé to go with this movie, preferably one which has the word "genie" on its label. Here we have just what we wished for. Coup de Genie makes this pinkie from Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah grapes grown in the sunny south of France. At least when you uncork it, you know it won't uncork you.
1981's Dead and Buried deals with reanimated corpses - that's right, there is a town full of zombies. Every Halloween-y movie should have a coroner/mortician in the cast. Especially one who has interesting hobbies. If you are already a coroner or a mortician, and you want another occupation to slash onto, wouldn't it be better to have one that balances things out a bit? Coroner/barista? Mortician/landscaper? I mean, coroner/mortician just sounds a lot creepier than it needs to be. But, that's Halloween for you.
Anyhoo, these homemade zombies do a good job of passing for regular folks - dead ringers, you might say. The cute little tourist town is a dead ringer for Mendocino, by the way, which is where some scenes were filmed. That’s a cue for popping a cork if I ever heard one.
I don't know how good Zombie Zinfandel tastes, but it's ten bucks worth of fun for that one night a year when it is actually appropriate. It is claimed by Sonoma County's Chateau Diana, so they must be at least a little bit proud of it.
House of Dark Shadows appeared in 1970, towards the end of the run for the television show that was so not-scary that it had to be shown in the afternoon, right after Merv Griffin and right before the Three Stooges. I suppose there were those who considered it scary at the time - children, slow learners, people with head injuries - but those are the same groups who might have mistaken the regular daily soap operas for legitimate entertainment. I'm sure Jonathan Frid was a great guy to have a beer with, but Barnabas Collins wasn't scaring anybody. My wife and I saw House of Dark Shadows at the New Bev. She elbowed me when my snoring got too loud.
In this feature-length TV show, Barnabas wants a relationship with a mortal woman, so he tries to be cured of his vampiric tendencies. Maybe he should have sought the help of an industrious coroner/mortician with an interesting hobby. Any time one is stabbed in the back so hard that it comes out one's chest, and one turns into a bat and flies away, one would have to consider it to be a pretty good day.
For Barnabus Collins, let’s pour St. Barnabus Commandaria - a dessert wine from Cyprus. It's nice and sweet - it will pair well with the Halloween candy you'll be sneaking from your kids' trick-or-treat bags after they've gone to sleep.
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