Since everyone got so pissed off this summer about the Ghostbusters remake, and even more pissed off about the new song by Fall Out Boy ft. Missy Elliot (definitely not featured on the Shindig), I thought we’d take a look at another Ghostbusters Theme reiteration that surely pissed off purists in its day.
I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, but when it comes to Monster Raps, no movie’s got that shit on lock like Ghostbusters 2.
A prime example of this is Run D.M.C.’sGhostbusters, which (as sacrilegious as it may sound) I actually enjoy a little more than Ray Parker Jr.’s seminal theme.
Don’t get me wrong, Ray’s original Title Track is an unrivaled classic, both for Halloween playlists and just generally speaking. It also serves as the basis for Reverend Run and Co.’s sonic sequel. This jam however is way less played-out, awesomely 8o’s in its own distinct way and just plain old fashioned ridiculous in the best way possible.
Sampled up with tons of clips of the boys bustin’ and schillin’.
It may not be Harry Manfredini’s classic arrangement, but his Theme From Friday The 13th Part 3, as performed by Hot Ice is as bad news as any horror theme you can throw at me.
Spooky, synthy and down right Halloweeny, it’s one of my favorite horror themes ever. Even those partiers unfamiliar with its origins won’t question this instrumental inclusion on your Halloween playlist, so perfectly suited is it.
With it’s creepy theremin-like lead and that thumping bass-line, Hot Ice delivered the goods with a theme befitting Jason’s true debut.
In contrast to the previous entries, we finally start to see the killer in full stalk mode, as the producers set the table for how future installments will play. Mystery and surprise are bypassed, and tertiary characters are added merely as colorful cannon fodder.
More importantly though, Jason himself takes center stage and acquires the trademark mask with which he will forever be associated. Also, he develops this awkward and lumbering stature here, which combine to present one of my favorite versions of the character. I love this Jason. After this, he becomes a bit more consciously menacing and deliberate in his movements.
Originally presented in 3D, its a little gimmicky and the effect doesn’t really enhance the kills it seeks to enliven. Overall, they’re a hit and miss affair, but there are some solid and memorable ones along the way.
Jason’s first hockey mask adorned kill is a great example of a miss, though.
Being initially mistaken for Shelley would have been a good excuse for him to get up close and deliver a kill worthy of his new appearance.
Instead, keeping the audience at a distance and exploiting the 3D gimmick, he fires a harpoon from across the dock, and it feels a little lazy. At least he looks like a badass tossin’ the gun down.
Ultimately though, his final battle with Chris is great and features some of the series’ most iconic images.
Not the least of all is this, one of the few moments in all of Part 3 where the 3D is exploited to wonderful effect. This is arguably the most iconic image of Mr Voorhees, and it’s truly one of my favorites.
Then, if that wasn’t enough, you get this requisite Friday Dream Stinger, which for my money, is one of the scariest moments in the entire franchise.
You combine all of that with this perfectly suited theme from Hot Ice, and you’ve got a Friday for the ages.
The last time I checked this was a fucking shindig.
But what is a shindig, exactly?
Well, Merriam-Webster defines shindig as follows:
ˈSHinˌdiɡ/ noun informal
a social gathering with dancing
a usually large or lavish party
Google definitions had this to add:
a large, lively party, especially one celebrating something.
Now, if you listen to any of the turkeys over at Urban Dictionary, they’d all have you believe a shindig is a small affair, consisting of anywhere from 5 to 20 people. One bozo even suggests it can contain no more than 12!
That’s why Webster’s is Webster’s and these idiot kids are logged into Urban Dictionary from their mom’s laptop.
No one better try curtailing our shindig, particularly not because some dildo in the cafeteria uses it improperly. No, we’re going definitive with our socially lavish and lively gathering that’s celebrating something.
And around here, that something is Halloween, which encompasses jack-o-Lanterns, trick or tricking and and all sorts of spooky shit of a generalized nature. That definitely includes Monsters.
From Hanna-Barbera’s 1965 record of the same name, Monster Shindig looks to muscle in on Boris Pickett’s racket by throwing their characters Super-Snooper and Blabber Mouse into the mix, stumbling upon just this type of haunted jamboree.
The cat and mouse team doesn’t show up in the song however, leaving this bizarro tune free to roam around the streets on Halloween night.
So, let’s have a party…big big big and kick-off the second half of our playlist right, with another kind of shindig, performed here by Danny Hutton, who some of you may know as one third of Three Dog Night.
Elvira’s albums are chock full of the Vinyl Vixen bullshitting between songs and giving everybody audio hard-ons.
For many years I have used this spoken word outro from Vinyl Macabre as a way to split the playlist in two.
As of last count The Shindig clocked in at 240 tracks, making This Is Halloween the last track on “side one.”
Should the playlist grow in length (as it always seems to) I’ve decided to let this bumper be its own track so it can float to wherever that halfway point should fall in the future.
So we’re officially halfway through the playlist, gang!
If that sounds daunting and just makes you feel tired then go shit in a hat, bub. All you have to do is wait and listen. I’m doing all the heavy lifting over here, so if anyone should fell tired, it’s me. And I do, as I’ve fallen asleep during a total of 10 movies this October. My horror stats for this month are at an all time low.
If you’ve been following The Shindig for any reasonable amount of time then you may have noticed I hardly ever mention A Nightmare Before Christmas. In fact, aside from that post-Halloween gif I reblogged last year, I’ve never mentioned it before. There’s a couple of good reason for this.
One of them is that there is certainly no shortage of love shown to Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s 1993 stop motion classic around the web, especially within the Halloween circles this blog runs. I’ll wager you could recreate the film pretty handedly from just the gifs on Tumblr alone. Everyone knows it, everyone loves it. No sense in beating a dead horse, the way I see it.
More directly though, it has never been a movie I typically associate with Halloween. Sure, Jack The Pumpkin King, Halloweentown and all of that, but for me the film has always been a decidedly Christmas affair. Fuck, the word Christmas appears in its title. That’s an automatic disqualification from any Halloween movie list as far as The Shindig is concerned.
However, as everyone is well aware, the first 10 minutes or so before Jack happens into Christmastown are about as Halloweeny as as it gets, aided in no small part by this fantastic song from Halloween Hero and Shindig All-Star Danny Elfman.
It’s one of the most Halloweeny songs ever committed to film or record period and any Halloween playlist would be remiss not to include it. And whenever that claim comes down the pipe, The Shindig abides.
That’s it. That’s pretty much all there is to say.
I’m gonna say more, naturally, but I thought it was worth noting that that’s all anyone really needs to say.
“Thriller. That’s what’s next.”
“Oh, ok. Sure. Of course it is.”
If anyone at your party has a reaction any less than the one I’ve described above, they don’t deserve to be celebrating Halloween. Take their mask, steal their candy and egg them back to the Stone Age.
The last time I checked (which was yesterday) Thriller was still the biggest selling album of all time. What? That’s crazy. It’s 33 years old, how is that still true? It’s cause it’s Thriller, that’s why.
For no mere mortal can resist…and so on and so forth. Probably some horrible music industry warlock bullshit, you ask me. Stick that into your Google and search it.
But I digress.
Thriller’s reach far extends that of the horror genre, Halloween or this playlist. It literally extends to just about anyone who ever lived on this planet during the last 33 years and has functioning ear drums. That’s how huge it is. It’s the biggest thing on this playlist. It’s the biggest referential track ever recorded. How? How was such a niche song this fucking huge?
Well, I’d say it’s more the album than the song itself. Both Billie Jean and Beat It trump it in the singles department, no question. Thriller itself never hit number 1, staying in the Billboard 100 for 14 weeks but topping out at number 4.
You could make an argument for Ghostbusters being a bigger hit, as it was legitimately a number 1 record. But I’d say that’s about it. Nothing else comes close. Though as much as I love Ray Parker Jr.’s Title Track (definitely the biggest Title Track ever recorded) it’s not quite Thriller. Though both were contemporaries that changed the way music was conceived, created and sold, Thriller still has a little something extra. That extra is no doubt Michael Jackson. Though that’s to say nothing of the video, revolutionizing the young media form and setting a standard I still think has yet to be matched.
From Rick Baker’s werewolf transformation to his zombies, to the choreography, to the eerie quality with which John Landis imbues the whole proceedings. It’s unmatched and a Horror fan’s dream video.
And it scared the living shit out of me as a kid. Having greater access to the Thriller video than most horror movies, it absolutely haunted me. The werewolf transformation was an initial jolt. Then Michael suddenly becoming a zombie just fucked me up. What!? He was just singing to her, now he’s a zombie?
Though even more terrifying was that once the music stopped, the horror movie started. The girl taking refuge in the abandoned house and Michael and his zombie horde busting through every inch of it to get at her. He was just Michael Jackson! They were friends! Now he’s trying to kill her! That level of broken trust rocked my young mind.
Ah, but it was all a dream! There’s Michael. “What’s the problem?” He asks. A sigh of relief washes over me. It’s all ok.
But then, the absolute kick in the nuts. Finally, once I feel at ease again, there he is, turning around and looking dead at me with those fucking werewolf eyes. Holy shit….it’s not ok. Freeze frame. And a child’s nightmares were born. It still sends a little shiver up my spine every time I see it, all these years later.
The 3D Viewmaster I had as a kid didn’t help either. Remember Viewmasters? They looked like this:You held it up to the light and clicked through a wheel of stereoscopic photos.
We had a giant, Talking Viewmaster that looked like this: It was cool pretty cool. The wheels were larger, scan-tron like cards and had audio accompaniment. For this Talking Viewmaster, we had this:
A few Christmas’ back, my mother had pulled the old boy out for my nephews to play with. I hadn’t seen it in years. I immediately recalled my youthful terror and scrounged for the Thriller cartridge. I needed to see it; the image that haunted me all my life.
Sure as shit it was there. And sure as shit, it still gave me the creeps. Holding it up to the light, I perched my phone as close to the eyepiece as possible. I needed to capture this.
Holy shit.
As an adult, It’s obvious to me that Ola Ray and Michael are clearly having fun and chuckling to themselves while taking these photos. Fright is at a minimum, but damn it if that wasn’t the scariest shit I ever saw when I was 7. I had to flick passed. Nope. Couldn’t handle it. Still trips me out. But anyway, back to the actual song. Of course you have Vincent Price, adding his singular voice and an air of authentic late-night 50’s horror double-feature flair to the entire affair. That mixed with the lyrical references and allusions all wrapped up it a supremely dance-able 80’s rhythm that no mere mortal can resist.
Each one of these facets gives Thriller its collective undefinable quality. And it’s a quality that all understand, as everyone at your party is about to dance. Seriously. I don’t care who they are or what they’re doing; drunk, high, tired, newly arrived, mid-conversation, about to leave, taking a piss – don’t matter. Just watch your guests, this song comes on and people flip the fuck out. It might take a second for everyone to register what’s happening, but once it does, that’s the ballgame, jack. Maybe it’s all that warlocking.
Leaving this one off your Halloween playlist is absolutely unconscionable. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that If you asked 10 random people on the street for just 1 song they associate with Halloween, I guarantee every one of them will name Thriller.
The Time Warpby Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell and Charles Gray
You all know the moves, most assuredly, because you all know the song and the musical it originates from, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, all too well.
It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right. Pretty simple shit honestly, but here’s a diagram anyway. Act like you know. Halloween is inexplicably associated with Rocky Horror. I may never understand exactly why, within the larger culture, these 2 things are so entwined but VH1’s Halloween showings of it in my youth have forever bonded them together in my own consciousness. Perhaps that’s the case for a lot of people.
According to the production however, the laboratory sequence and Rocky’s creation were filmed on the 30th of October in 1974. So there’s that and that’s pretty Halloweenish, not that Rocky Horror really needed any justification.
The most well known, oft played and Shindigable track is the bizarre inter-dimensional dance craze that was all the rage on Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania.
Is it about sex? Probably, everything else in Rocky Horror appears to be. Or perhaps it’s more literal, as they use a time warp to transport themselves back to Transexual. Maybe it’s both.
I’ve heard it interpreted that Riff Raff’s initial verse is about feeling horny and then orgasming. Magenta’s solo describes the viewing of pornography or perhaps a more direct for of voyeurism, while Colombia’s solo is a depiction of a rape scenario. Dunno if I cotton to all of that exactly (particularly since Colombia doesn’t seem to mind all that much) but it’s as solid a read of the songs intentions as anyone could ask for. And of course, there’s all that pelvic thrusting.
Whatever the hell the Translyvanian’s are on about, it’s certainly getting them riled up and causing them to dance like buffoons all over the place, just as you should be doing at your Halloween party right…about…now.
The Monster Mashby Bobby “Boris” Pickett and The Crypt Kickers
Around Halloween, dozens of internet outlets will cough up a dozen or so songs they think you ought to play at your Halloween party. The more enterprising sort might even toss you a couple you didn’t think of or haven’t heard before. The too-cool-for-ghoul-school nitwits’ll even attempt to buck convention with some underground hits which barely qualify and have little to no business playing at your party.
Invariably though, most Halloween playlist fakers tell ya the one thing you should never even consider playing at your party is The Monster Mash; so horrifically lame, so dreadfully passé.
I read one list that even had the audacity to claim it didn’t conjure up any feelings of fright. Are you serious? It’s a novelty song…about a bunch of monsters…having a party. Of course it doesn’t conjure up any feelings of fright you fuckin’ nimrod, it’s a joke.
They also went on to suggest I play Disturbiaby Rhianna.
They shouldn’t be allowed to make Halloween party playlists and they certainly shouldn’t come up on the first page of a Google search.
Moreover, they included The Freaks Come Out At Night by Whodini. Who-fuckin-Dini! They have a song called The Haunted House of Rock, which is played at a Halloween Dance in a movie titled Trick Or Treat. F minus to your bullshit suggestions.
These people are idiots. Don’t listen to them.
Is The Monster Mash played out? Of course it is. It’s 50 fucking years old and the only time anyone ever plays it is at Halloween.
Can you’re Oct. 31st spare 3 and half measly minutes for The Monster Mash? Yes it can and you should take off your fucking mask in reverence for the Halloween National Anthem. The fucking heathens…..skip The Monster Mash….skip your passing interest in a holiday that didn’t need your bogus suggestions. Can’t even find The Shindig in a Google search on the matter and I get these bozos telling me to pass on The Monster Mash.
Ok, if you’re offering up 10 suggestions, I can seeing glazing over it in lieu of a few songs that people are less familiar with. Should have made it 13 songs and showed a little class. Even still, what’s 13 songs? You throwing a party for an hour?
Saw a list of 25 once. Could have just made it 31 and been a bit more festive. Still ain’t handling the job of party DJ.
That’s why Halloween Shindig exists, to rebuke these johnny-come-latelies and offer up a list of serious suggestions; to encompass all and handle the task at hand. Does anyone need a 12 hour Halloween playlist? Probably not but it’s here and growing longer each year. I hope to one day have 24 hours worth so your Halloween couldn’t possibly fit anymore music.
You only need to fill 4 hours? We’ll hook you up 3 times over again. Only want a party filled with Monster Raps? No problem. Here’s 2 hours worth.
Is Love Is A Lie very Halloweeny? Not at all but it’s in Friday 4 when Crispin Glover dances like an idiot and that’s the kinda Halloween party some people are throwing. Not your Shindig? There’s 230 other songs to pick from but it should be represented, just like The fucking Monster Mash should be represented.
To hell with your non-festive, non-referential garbage pop. Play that shit at your wedding. Tonight is Halloween and you should be playing the goddamn Monster Mash.
Since we all know and have just addressed with whom you’d contact over telephone wires should it become apparent that you in fact have harmful apparitions approaching, let’s task listeners with a similar question:
Yeah, but who do you call when you have Monsters?
That’s right. And at last we come to The Monster Squad. From the very first CD in 2002, The Monster Squad has been a permanent fixture of Halloween Shindig and remains one of my favorite selections on the playlist.
Granted, I may be a bit biased but this song is representing hard. Let’s check the stats:
Is it about a horror movie?
Check, it’s about the goddamn Monster Squad.
Ah, yes, but is it in the movie?
In it? Motherfucker, it’s the Title Track. Triple check that shit.
We talkin’ bout Monsters?
Fuck yeah we are. It’s like a goddamn monster mash up in this motherfucker. Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon. That’s the big five, son. Throw in some sexy vampire chicks, a grotesque bat transformation and a werewolf exploding out of the sky and you’ve got some real monster shit on lock. Check + to Monster Song.
What more could you ask for? Well, they even mention Halloween too. Sure, it’s to illustrate how this ain’t Halloween (or some phony deal) but we’ll just look that other way on that one. They say Halloween and damn it if that ain’t all that matters sometimes.
Now all of that sounds like a Referentially Inclusive Monster Halloween Title Track to me, gang.
And it’s a Monster Rap to boot? Holy shit, is there anything this song can’t do?
One of the most ridiculous tracks you can imagine, The Monster Squad was suspiciously recorded by some anonymous collective of Hip-Hop Demigods that chose to remain nameless. What?!
Why the hell anyone would elect to do this is so far beyond the scope of my imagination it boarders on madness. If I was responsible for this song I’d put it on every job application I ever filled out.
2 years as an Assistant Hanger Inspector for Sears and Roebuck.
4 months as a Substitute Wigsmith at The Downtown Clownery.
Oh yeah and I wrote the motherfucking Monster Squad Rap. What’s up?
From a time when everyone thought something like this was a really great idea, The Monster Squad (for anyone thinking otherwise) is a really great idea.
It’s is pretty whack? Yeah, I guess so. If you wanna be a jerk about it.
Is it poorly conceived and equally executed? Yeah, I suppose I’d have to concede that fact too, if you really want this to be a frank discussion about musical integrity.
But fuck that discussion and fuck you for wanting it pal, cause this song fucking rules. It’s a rap song about a group of kids fighting The Universal Monsters. Oh, did you not catch that? It’s a rap song about a group of kids fighting The Universal Monsters. Whomever is responsible for this song should be a cultural icon. They should have a fucking Grammy and an Academy Award.
Instead, (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing took the honor that year. All right, fair enough. Maybe that’s a better song, but it lacks the lyric:
“We don’t wanna hang with the walking dead, so we gotta kick some monster butt instead.”
What’s up now, Academy of Arts and Sciences?
Looking into this travesty further, I discovered the competition that year was actually pretty stiff. Check this shit out:
“Storybook Love” by Willy DeVille and Mark Knopfler from The Princess Bride
Damn, that’s a solid 80’s line-up right there. Maybe I spoke too soon. Still, it should have been nominated at the absolute least. Who the hell is still talking about Cry Freedom 26 years later?
No one, that’s who.
But I digress.
An interesting side note to this song: the original version I had on the 2002 CD was pulled from my old VHS copy of Monster Squad. Incidentally, this was later signed by Tom “The Gillman” Woodruff Jr. Coincidence? I like to think not.
This version of the song contained the line:
“First came Dracula, now the Wolfman too, The Mummy and the Gillman swimming in the pool.”
What? Why did that roll call just fall the fuck apart?
Hear that sample below:
I always thought this was a pretty strange and horrendous line, particularly when they could have just as simply said “and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
But I guess they couldn’t say “and the Creature from the Black Lagoon,” for the home video release. Damn copyrights.
All things considered, that’s not a bad save. Syllabically sound, it even sort of rhymes, at least no more or less than the original false rhyme. But damn is it silly. Who the fuck is the Gillman? Why are they calling The Creature from the Black Lagoon “The Gillman?” And why is he in the pool? Did I miss a scene where he climbs out of a pool? Why did he just say that?
Upon upgrading the tune for better quality many years later when The Monster Squad finally saw a DVD release, I noticed the line was suddenly changed to “and the Creature From The Black Lagoon” and I thought “Shit, that must have been the original lyric. How about that.” Now, I just feel sort of nostalgic for the old, butchered scab.
But I’ve spoken too verbosely about all of this as is, so let’s just make with the goods, huh?
One of my favorite songs on the playlist from one of my favorite movies of all time. Here it is….The Monster Squad.
Is there a more well known or loved Title Track than Ray Parker Jr.’sGhostbusters? Probably not. Which explains why you’re guaranteed to hear it multiple times around Halloween and The Shindig is obviously no exception.
A certified hit, Ghostbusters spent 3 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts in August of 1984 and it’s no wonder. This catchy number is spooky, danceable and unrelentingly 80’s.
And the video, one of the first cross-media promotional blitzes of its kind, is something to behold. With Ray creeping it up in a weird, minimalistic, neon house, The Ghostbusters themselves dancing down Broadway with him and a collection of the most bizarre cameos ever assembled, it’s pure Reagen-Era cheese.
Seriously, what the fuck is Peter Falk doing in the Ghostbusters video? Chevy Chase, John Candy, Al Franken, hell even Danny Devito all make some sort of sense. But then up pops Columbo and what the fuck? Yeah, it’s pretty 80’s.
The song itself wasn’t something Ray Parker’s people were at all interested in having Ray sing. Keep in mind, the movie wasn’t even released yet, much less a success.
“So wait, you want our smooth, panty droppin’ Ray Parker Jr. to sing about fuckin’ ghosts for,…what’s this fuckin’ thing called again? ‘Ghostbusters?’ Yeah, that ain’t happening, pal. You can take a hike with that business.”
It’s an understandable reaction. But Ivan Reitman managed to convinced old Ray it’d be a hit and damn it if the guy wasn’t right on the money. The popularity of the movie and this song are completely unmatched.
Now, indelibly woven into the fabric of American pop culture, I’m not sure anyone can ever utter a phrase even close to “who you gonna call?” without some dickhead shouting “Ghostbusters!”
Yeah, that same phrase everyone probably thought sounded pretty stupid before the film blew up like 2 tons of marshmallow all over 1984.
But when something’s this big, people start to pay attention. Maybe a little too closely.
First and foremost you have Huey Lewis suing Ray Parker because he reckoned Ghostbusters sounded a bit too much like I Want a New Drug for his liking. A settlement was reached that Ray still isn’t at liberty discuss on record.
Then you have The Screen Actors Guild getting all bent outta shape due to these cameos and the non-unionized status of the fledgling music video industry.
There’s also a copyright issue regarding the video which has kept it off every subsequent home release of the film, nearly causing the video to be lost forever. Chalk another one up in the win column of the Internet for that.
And still further, there’s even more nonsense over the title with subsequent animated versions of The Ghosbusters, but we’ll delve into that one a little further down the playlist.
For now, let us and your guests revel in what is perhaps the most popular and crowd pleasing song The Shindig has to offer.
Referential hits, spooky themes and inclusive Rock ‘N Roll are all well and good, but nothing really captures the spirit of The Shindig quite like a straight up Halloween jam.
And psychobilly spooksters Nekromantix (a name which itself is referential) have just the jam the mad doctor ordered.
Trick Or Treat is the kind of no frills Halloween gem that’s just kinda toss onto an innocuous album because well, that’s just how they roll. “Halloween? Sure, we gotta Halloween song. Here ya go.”
Full of nostalgia and rubber remembrances for the Halloweens of our youth, this tune is essentially all about the costumes; picking out the right one and having a great time doing it, all in the spirit of trick or treating.
And just like any good Halloweeners, they’ll even catalog passed costumes and the myriad of ideas they have for upcoming costumes as well.
So come on Weeners, whadda you gonna be this year?
Shindig All-Stars Blitzkid are back and whaddya know, they’re singing about an 80’s horror movie.
This time Hellraiser is their pleasure (sir) and we’ve spiced it up with a hefty dose of Pinhead’s verbose bullshit to really make it feel at home.
So come on, solve the easiest puzzle box/portal to ungodly horrors that ever existed.
Seriously, they couldn’t have made that fucker a little trickier to crack? Nothing that contains that much crazy shit should be that easy to just accidentally open by rubbing your thumb across. Jeez guys.
So what do hot rods, racing, surfing and zombies all have in common?
Beats the hell outta me but they all come together in one helluva hammer droppin’, high-rev haulin’, outta sight asphalt eater from Ohio creepsters and Shindig All-Stars The Cramps.
Perhaps their most gracious addition to horror-rockdom, The Surfin’ Dead is prominently featured in Dan O’Bannon’s awesome 80’s zombie send-up The Return of The Living Dead.
While no slouch in the soundtrack department, I have to admit this is easily my favorite track off the album, no question. But I love me some Cramps so maybe I’m just a tad bit biased. Or maybe it’s just a great song.
Either way, it belongs on a Halloween playlist. Even a short one.
And just for good measure, Lux tosses in 2 shout outs to Cleveland’s pride and Cramps hoedad, Ghoulardi.
Cause your A-bone’s busted and you’re through the door, so do the dead
What better way to celebrate Halloween than with a song called Halloween by a band called Halloween? Sounds like a triple threat to me.
But who the hell is Halloween? It’s a great question, one I found myself asking just a few weeks ago.
Known to the Motor City as Detroit’s Heavy Metal Horror Show, Halloween didn’t find a whole lot of notoriety outside of their niche in early 80’s metal. Hampered by line-up changes, delayed album releases and shelved efforts, Halloween just never seemed to gain any traction.
However, they’ve had numerous reunions over the years, re-releases and they even still play Halloween shows to this day. Hell, you could probably go see them right now in Detroit. They played last year, and I think they’re doing it again this year as well.
All I know is that we just found these guys and overnight they became Shindig All-Stars. How a band called Halloween somehow slipped through the cracks we may never know, but like all hidden Halloween gems, these treats don’t escape our tricking grasp for long. And with songs like Halloween Night, Trick Or Treat and Tales From The Crypt you can be sure you haven’t heard the last of Halloween.
So, let’s welcome the boys of Detroit’s Heavy Metal Horror Show into the fold with a ceremonious Hallo’s Eve initiation, aided in part by that creepy old druid lady from Halloween 6, and Tommy Doyle of course, overacted to perfection by a very young Paul Rudd.
Halloween, take your rightful place amongst your brethren, with all the other hallowed horrors of our Halloween halls.
And with that…on Halloween, here’s Halloween performing…Halloween.
There are few Halloween movies I love as much as Night of Demons. It satisfies all the criteria for a Halloween horror hit. If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing it, click here for some reasons why it should be playing right now on your television set. Or better yet, just click this to watch the fucker immediately on whatever screen you happen to be reading this. To hell with the rest of my post. You’ll hear the song right off the bat and see the real animations where these GIFSs originated.
Seriously. I won’t be hurt. You’ll be watching Night Of The Demons and my goal will have been actualized instantaneously.
Still here? Alright, fair enough. Maybe you’ve already seen it. Or maybe you’ll just wait. Or maybe you don’t care at all about watching Night Of The Demons. If so, you’re probably not reading this either, so who cares about you? Why am I continuing to address you? Back to people who care!
One of the things I love most about Night the Demons is this great theme from director Kevin Tenney’s brother Dennis and the awesome opening credit sequence which it accompanies.
What better way to kick off a Halloween gore fest than with some seasonal synth and some simple, spooky animations? A solitary glowing Jack-O-Lantern and some scarier synth? Yeah, maybe you’re right. But there ain’t no gore in Carpenter’s original, so my statement still stands.
So, if you’ve already had your fill of Michael Myers, pull up a chair and spend All Hallo’s with Angela, Stoogie, Sal, Suzanne and the rest of the demons gang. You may not live to regret it.
What can be said of this classic and perfectly executed Title Track?
If you’ve ever seen Killer Klowns From Outer Spacethen you know first hand how nicely this clown-car 80’s tune from The Dickies bookends this awesome creature feature of camp from monster mavens The Chiodo Brothers.
Cheesy, gory, funny and at times even downright creepy (using a dead sheriff as a ventriloquist’s dummy or the sight of a Klown summoning a small girl from a burger joint come to mind) Killer Klowns was a movie I couldn’t get enough of in my youth. It frightened me, amazed me, made me laugh and held my full, undivided attention every time HBO decided to play it.
The Klowns are a marvel of animatronic suit work, the story is bonkers, and the music has got the tone to match. No Halloween playlist should be lacking Killer Klowns from Outer Space by The Dickies.
Good evening, horror fans. Did you know that all Title Tracks were not created equal?
The J. Geils Band did.
Let’s face it, while all Title Tracks are great, some (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Don’t Go Into The Woods…Alone) are less awesome than others (The Devil’s Men,Leatherface.)
Hell, there’s even a hierarchy of applicability. The Maniac Cop Rap is less a Title Track than say Scream and Scream Again. Shocker is a truer Title Track than a by-liner like Dream Warriors. And then some Title Tracks simply define the category. Fright Night is just that type of Title Track.
A popular band of the time, almost inexplicably tapped by the producers to cut a song so unlike the rest of their catalog you wonder just how the hell it even works. But work it does. Fuck, it works a 70 hour week…taxed…with no overtime.
It works on Labor Day.
Or more appropriately, and perhaps more criminally,…
It works on Halloween.
And thank God for that, cause your Halloween playlist needs it. You’re Halloween needs in. Hell, your life needs It. Listen to it now, and then go watch Fright Night. I just did. It was a great decision.
From that 80’s realm of self-aware horror (somewhere between The Monster Squad and The Lost Boys) where characters versed in fictionalized horror find themselves face to face with that horror in the real world, Fright Night follows horror nerd Charlie Brewster as he attempts to prove his new next door neighbor is actually a terrifying creature of the night.
You got Chris (Prince Humperdink) Sarandon creepin’ up the joint as 80’s vampire benchmark Jerry Dandrige, Steven Geoffreys being his typical spazzy self as (you’re so cool) Brewster’s pal Evil, and Roddy McDowell just knocking it outta the park as the Cushing-modeled celluloid vampire hunter/ TV horror host, Peter Vincent.
Add to that a fantastic script which balances tone so effortlessly, plus some truly memorable visuals from The Entertainment Effects Group. Fresh off their stint on Ghostbusters, these guys provide another barrage of makeup and creature FX wizardry, not the least of which is one hell of a harrowing reverse werewolf transformation.
It all adds up to a genuine high point in 80’s horror that no fan should miss. A loving nod to the horror of yesteryear and that old Hammer feeling right in the midst of the 80’s slasher onslaught. Whats more? It resonated, made a shit ton of money and has endured immensely to this very day.
And the kicker? This awesome Title Track. So perfectly 80’s, so perfectly referential and so perfectly fitting. You can not fuck with this song.
Vampire Hookers; honestly I could have used a little more nudity.
Nathan “Unpainted” Arizona and I guy I thought was Michael Rooker for the about the first 20 minutes play a pair of bumbling greenhorn sailors on shore leave in the Philippines. At the local cemetery, they run afoul the pimp-hatted head vampire John Carradine and his titular hoes. Late 70’s porn music and goofball shenanigans ensue.
They’re trying, I’ll give ’em that.
It’s filled to the brim with silly slapstick and toilet humor that’ll probably set both of your eyes on a pivot, but it’s rarely boring, and at 78 minutes it feels pretty brisk and good natured.
Poor John Carradine though stumbles around waiting for a check, spouting Shakespeare and poetry, which could either be interesting or irritating depending on your temperament.
There’s also a fat Filipino familiar who farts a lot for comedic effect. Whether you laugh at his flatulence will also depend on your temperament.
Seen also is a ladyboy pissing at a urinal, which apparently doesn’t tip off old Nathan Arizona, who proceeds to engage in a sexual transaction. Later Michael Rooker yells “Oh God! Balls!” which is always funny to hear someone shout after grabbing a lady’s crotch.
A few silly fistfights later and where onto the cemetery and our plot.
Though severely deficient in the generalized sleaziness and nudity you’d expect for a film called Vampire Hookers, you’re eventually treated to a 7 minute slow-mo vampire 4-way between Michael Rooker and the 3 sex-starved immortals. Thankfully, John Carradine bows out of that one, but the fat familiar watches and farts a bit. Probably jerks off too, couldn’t really tell and thank god for cinematic ambiguity. It’s pretty awesome though, complete with its numerous and repetitious cutaways to the lascivious murals painted around the room of beasts and Devils fornicating. Who’s turn is it?
And that’s not even the best part of the movie.
That would be our next Shindigger at #105, the Title Track Vampire Hookers, played to rousing appreciation during the picture credits at the end of the films. I love picture credits! And Title Tracks! And hookers! What an ending. If only we knew who the hell was performing this tune.
It’s a Shindig first; an Unknown Artist! I searched endlessly to no avail, as I could not track down the culprits. If anyone happens to know who performed this tune, we’ll gladly update the entry.
“Blood is not all they suck,” informs our unnamed composer. The Skinemax orgy sequence tells a different tale, I’m afraid. However, I think it’s safe to assume some sucking has taken place regardless, one way or the other.
While never terribly funny, it is somewhat fun, particularly in a group setting and there’s plenty of worse ways to spend 78 minutes. Plus, those will typically end up sucking an extra 20 minutes from your life and still not have the goddamn common decency to give you the reach around of an awesome Title Track.
So, as far as The Shindig is concerned, Vampire Hookers, you’re all right. As Lord Summerilse might say “you will sit with the Saints, among the elect,” here in our Title Track-heavy center block.
He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)by Alice Cooper
In 1984, Paramount Pictutres made way too much money on Friday The 13th Part 4: The Final Chapterto let that truly be Jason’s final chapter. So they set upon quickly churning out a part 5. Only Jason was dead now,…for good,…right?
What’s a greedy production company to do?
So in 1985, Paramount quickly proceed to fuck right up. They essentially took the exact same model, delivered a by the numbers Friday installment, with Jason in a hockey mask and called it A New Beginning. Only they pulled the old Kansas City Shuffle. It wasn’t actually Jason. Fans were pissed.
Roy? Who the fuck is Roy? Seriously? This dude’s name is Roy?
Here’s Roy.
Fans didn’t cotton to old Roy here.
“But why?” You may ask.
“There’s a guy in a hockey mask brutally murdering teenagers at a summer camp. Isn’t that the point? Fuck, Roy kills 18 people for Christ’s sake! Jason ain’t puttin’ up those kinda numbers yet. Who cares who’s under the mask? It’s been a different actor, sometimes in the same damn movie, since part 2. Is it that important it be Jason Voorhees?”
Apparently so.
I’d say it’s a least somewhat important, if only to keep Friday the 13th from turning into a running Scooby-Doo gag. “Why it’s old man Burns, the guy who run’s that haunted ambulance!”
Plus, we always get a peak at Jason, and it’s usually fucking horrifying. Observe…
Maybe it’s a little important. No?
So, Paramount quickly swung in on a jungle vine for some damage control. In 1986 they unleashed Jason Lives and changed the entire franchise forever.
No more is Jason a mere mortal stalking the woods of Crystal Lake. He’s now a full fledged supernatural, unstoppable zombie killing machine.
No longer is the series a straight faced stalk-n-slash either. Tinges of satire, self parody and silliness have entered the Friday landscape.
Additionally this installment, while producing a sizable body count, is suspiciously lacking in the gore department. It’s also the only entry to feature no nudity. Fo reals?
But more importantly pop icons appear.
Enter Alice Cooper and his single He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) blatantly reassuring all the Friday Freaks that yes, he’s back. Yes, the man behind the mask, Jason. Don’t worry, we even put his name first in the title to placate all the jaded fans that may not come to suckle from our money cow’s teat.
Jason goes for a full blown team-up. Music videos, multiple songs, Fangoria spreads which give us such awesome images as this.
Thankfully, Jason didn’t take too many cues from Freddy, and remained silent. I don’t know if I could have handled a wisecracking Voorhees.
Despite its lighter tone and generalized Skynet-like self-awareness, Jason Lives is still a fine entry. Jason is still menacing, and there are some good kills, however neutered they may feel. It’s certainly not the poorest entry and it has a lot of style. It may just be one of the more entertaining of The Fridays, but that’s all up for debate, as that assessment depends largely on your temperament and what kind of Friday you prefer.
It remains perhaps my favorite of the post-zombie half of the series. It’s all downhill from 6, by degrees. I gotta lotta love for 7 though, so there’s some wiggle room with that declaration.
Pulling Jason Voorhees clear into the the mid-80’s, here’s Alice Cooper’s He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask).
With perhaps the exception of Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters, no Title Track has as much standing as a legitimate hit than Dokken’sDream Warriors.
And why not? It was a great tune featured in a popular franchise hitting the height of its popularity, played by a popular band at the height of their popularity. Sounds like a formula for a hit to me.
It isn’t so overly explicit as to put-off non-Freddy fans or become regulated only to annual Halloween airplay. By that same token, it isn’t so vague as to be completely unrelated to the action onscreen. Perfect pop balance? Marketing genius? Lucky strike? Either way, whoever’s idea it was probably got a raise.
It’s also from arguably one of Freddy’s finest outting. While I’m inclined to side with original in almost every case (including the Nightmare series), many fans cite Part 3 as the best Elm Street installment, or at least their favorite. I’ll agree so far as to say this is Freddy’s best sequel, without question. I may love me some Freddy’s Revenge but I think Dream Warriorsis legitimately his best numbered go-round.
Cooler than 4, livelier than 5, more coherent than 2 and less stupid than 6, Dream Warriorshits the right wave of scary and goofy Freddy. He’s not quite the running joke he becomes from The Dream Master on. You see it brewing here, but he still has some shred of his former menacing self.
Also, with more ambitious effects, wilder sets and more imaginative dreams sequences than the previous installments, Dream Warriors is where the Freddy becomes Freddy; not just the horror icon, but the cultural icon. And Dokken has its hand in that too, no doubt.
After this, all bets are off; Late Night appearances, hit songs, window clings, his own television series, his own album – Freddymania is on.
Initially, Craven (back on board after his complete absence from the completely absentFreddy’s Revenge) intended this film to wrap up the entire saga. However, New Line made way too much bank on this outing to let Freddy rest quietly in his junkyard grave and proceeded to milk every last drop out of blood from the dream demon.
Interestingly enough, for this installment Craven also pitched the idea of Freddy coming out of the screen to torment the Elm Street actors in real life. New Line rejected that nonsense altogether. At least for another 6 years or so, until Craven got the go ahead to realize this plot in his true return to the series in the form of New Nightmare.
While it may have been interesting to see all of that played out earlier, Dream Warriors stands up just fine in its presented form.
So, come Weeners, we are bound together by our love of Halloween, Horror and Horrific Halloween Music. The Shindig is waiting for you. Listen now, cause maybe tonight you’ll be gone.
Here’s Dokken’s power ballad battle cry for the children on Elm Street.
