Michael Myers

TRACK #314:

Michael Myers by The Meteors

Given their catalog, it’s actually shameful that it’s taken 10 years to finally get The Meteors on The Shindig.

These guys have been dishing out Horror and Sci-Fi tinged Psychobilly since…well…the beginning, as many credit them for being the very first Psychobilly band.

Whether or not they’re the one true originators of the genre, they are no doubt pioneers that shaped it’s sound and themes, that much is for sure.

I’ve had a couple Meteors’ tunes in the bullpen for a while now, but for some reason they’ve just never made the cut, and that’s the shameful part. They should have been given higher priority.

Well tonight they are, because they have just the song to prime us all for Michael’s big return tomorrow.

Yes, apparently it seems the Thorn Constellation is in alignment…again…and Michael Myers is back. To what? Face off against Laurie Strode. Again? To die maybe? Again? Finally maybe? Doubtful. When are we gonna be done torturing this poor dude, and ourselves to whatever I’ll-advised, money-hungry whim new producers have?

It doesn’t matter if you effectively incinerate him in a giant explosion, cause you can just give Loomis a little scar and have Michael wear some bandages. Let’s go!

Hell, it doesn’t matter if you cut off his head, cause you can always pull a Cincinnati Switch with some other poor bastard’s head in a Michael Myers mask. And off we go.

It doesn’t even matter if Paul Rudd mercilessly bludgeons him to an unrecognizable pile, cause you can always retcon your sequels to completely ignore that little detail, or any detail you’d like for that matter.

It’s the character that we can’t seem to kill, or perhaps more appropriately, audiences’ desire to make it worth the producer’s while to cook up some new fresh bullshit for poor Michael to sleepwalk through.

Now, say what you want about The Curse of Michael Myers (and people do…myself included) cause Lord knows the last thing…and I mean the absolute last thing…I want here is an explanation for this Michael Myers business. Michael greatest assets was always his mystery.

But hey, if you’re bent on giving people an explanation for this shit, because you’re 6 movies deep now and what the actual fuck is going on with this guy we’ve beaten, bucked and blown apart, then you can do worst than a weird cult of star-fearing Druids using Michael as a vessel for sacrifice.

So, let’s let The Meteors welcome Michael back…for the 11th time now I think, with their 1984 jam, Michael Myers.

God, I do hope that evil at least embarks on an incredible long hiatus tonight.

Halloween, The Night HE Came Home

TRACK #260:

Halloween, The Night HE Came Home by Fondlecorpse

The Great Coron-Out of 2020 put a lot of different shit on hold. Traveling, going to school, supporting local businesses, licking the palms of total strangers, weddings, feeling healthy, casually coughing in public, playing professional sports, trusting your fellow man, trusting authority, making movies, going to see movies, hell, just fucking hanging out with friends, all put on ice until further notice.

Unsurprisingly then, this heighten cautious state also put the brakes on independent bands that were trying to shoot music videos.

So this past summer, when faced with just such a dilemma, the latex mask guru’s at Nightmare Force and the Dutch Death Dealers Fondlecorpse approached Halloween Shindig in hopes of producing a quarantine team-up to battle back the blockade.

The result was the video below; a visual barrage of over 40 years worth of Satanic Panic set to the soothing sounds of shredding and screaming: The Nightmare Force.

But that’s not the only thing Fondlecorpse has to say on the matter of melting faces.

Not by a long shot. Ya see, Fondlecorpse has been peeling off VHS Metal for almost 20 years now. And with albums like Creaturegore and Set the Drill to Kill, I wish I’d known about them sooner, because these guys could have been Shindiggin’ for years already.

And with songs like Krite Attack!, Choppingmall and Terrorvision, we wouldn’t have had to stretch even one inch to make room for them on the roster. Hell, they’ve got All-Star status just waiting for them in the rafters.

But strictly referential tracks won’t be necessary to include Rotterdam’s finest. Not in the slightest. At least not for their rookie at-bat, anyway. And that’s because Fondlecorpse took the main artery straight to the heart of this thing here with their 2007 full length release, Blood and Popcorn.

Featured on that album is, you guessed it, a straight up Halloween song. A Halloween song about Halloween ‘78, no less. And damn it if that’s not a sure-fire way to get webbed up in this Samhain soirée.

Loomis, Laurie, Smith’s Grove, Jack-O-Lanterns, and Trick-Or-Treating are all boxes getting ticked off here. Hell, even Samhain, the lord of the dead, gets a shout out from Sly, if you can actually make out what the fuck he’s saying anyway. I mean, this is Death Metal after all.

You can find more songs, CD’s, and merch at the Fondlecorpse Bandcamp, or you can follow them where ever you get shit beamed directly into your corneas: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

This quarantine saw Halloween Shindig joining forces with Fondlecorpse. Now, Halloween draws the circle closed, as Fondlecorpse joins the hallowed ranks of Halloween Shindig.

Welcome aboard fellas. Your brothers in Halloween Heavy Metal welcome you.

Oct. 31st: Halloween II (1981)

Outside of the hugely underrated and insanely Halloweeny Season of the Witch, Halloween II is really the only other Halloween installment I can recommend in good conscience. Plus, it’s the sequel, so we gotta give props this season.

I don’t love Halloween II and I rather blame its existence on why the franchise wasn’t able to continue and expand the way John Carpenter intended. If Halloween III was Halloween II instead, we could have possibly had a different Halloween-themed story with every outing for who knows how many years.

Had they simply ended Michael’s tale with part 1, it would have been more haunting, more powerful and had prepped fans straight away that this was not going to be “Michael’s Series.” Who was that masked man murdering teens on Halloween? I dunno, guess he’s just wandering around now. Moving on with some other tales.

As it stands, Halloween II continued “the night he came home” and forever sealed the fate of this franchise as “The Michael Myers Story,” with each new installment removing more of what made Michael great in the first damn place…ambiguity.

It’s also the film that introduced the whole extended Myers family angle to the story, an aspect in which I couldn’t be less interested. I like the fact the Laurie and her friends were chosen by almost complete chance and that their murders are the random outbursts of some mysterious, masked maniac.

All that being said, Halloween II is still Michael’s best sequel. It still features the original mask (a huge plus when considering the awful, awful resculpts), maintains the general feel of the original and literally picks up right where the first one left off, thus taking place on the same night. You could have ended Michaels story here successfully, no doubt, but fans just wanted more and they were eventually given just that.

It’s pretty Halloweeny and the hospital setting is an interesting location and leads to some unnerving sequences and kills. It also gives an expanded glimpse into Haddonfield as it reels from the previous film’s mayhem. Everyone in town is starting to hear about the horrible things that have happened just a block or two over. It’s neat to see the night just continue.

Poor Ben Tramer gets straight plowed by a police cruiser and goes out in a blaze of Halloween glory, though. Poor Michael gets both of his eyes shot out, which somehow never really seems to pose him too much difficultly on any of his further adventures. And poor Laurie has to find out she’s that guy’s fucking sister. Samhain bummers all around.

This year was a celebration not just of other Halloween themed movies, but also of the Halloween Sequel. While Halloween II may be cheating just slightly, is a mere shadow of its forebear’s glory, and sets this entire franchise on many of the awful roads it continued down, it’s still the greatest Halloween Sequel there is.

Double it up with the original for one extended “night he came home” this year.

I give 2 bloody eyes and a burning Ben Tramer up!

Designation: Treat!

Happy Halloween, weeners. Thanks for joining us through Return of the 31 Days of Halloween Horror 2: Revenge of the Halloween Sequels: Trick or Treat?

Oct. 31st: Halloween (1978)

Though over listed and a decidedly cliched choice, for the purpose of this list, of course John Carpenter’s classic has to take the pole position.

Though I give much love and respect to it’s Yuletide predecessor and inspiration Black Christmas, I still feel Halloween does it better. It is hands down my favorite slasher film and one of my favorite horror films period.

Effectively and methodically paced, Michael’s rookie outing is awash in strange glows and Halloween energy. And the music, not simply the theme (which is great) but all the incidental scoring throughout is eerie and seminal horror business.

The Shape had many sequels and imitators, but nothing holds a jack-o-lantern’s candle to this true American original. And it’s all on Halloween.

Many years have I watched this film on Halloween night and it’s never been a bad decision. Simply watching this film any night is never a bad decision, but from a young age, into my teenage and adult years, Halloween still makes Halloween feel like Halloween.

So, Happy Halloween tumblr.