SOUNDTRACK: TRENT REZNOR & ATTICUS ROSS-“John Carpenter’s Halloween” (2017).
A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not. So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long. The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like. So I picked 11 of them to post about.
I didn’t actually know this version of the Halloween theme song and I was pretty excited to be super creeped out.
It turns out that this version is decidedly less creepy than the original. But then again, nothing can outdo the starkness of that original piano score.
This version takes a while to get going (about 45 seconds of buildup) before a little keyboard riff that sounds a lot like the “spooky” riff in The Brady Bunch in Hawaii episode pops up. Then some original piano comes in along with building synths and what sounds like distorted voices growling in the background. This lasts until almost 2 minutes. And I have to say it’s creepier than the actual familiar melody.
When the plinking piano comes in, it’s a little muted and the synth chords are louder. As the song progresses you can hear–whispered voices (?), distorted rumblings (?) a choir from hell (?). It’s that background soundscape that is seriously creepy.
Around five minutes, the music drops out and there’s just echoing, clacking sounds and possibly breathing. Yeah, that’s nicely spooky.
Then the main melody returns. It builds and turns into a rock song–with a drumbeat and everything. But it being a song is a lot less creepy than the original solo piano playing in the middle of a an abandoned asylum.
Don’t get me wrong, this has some serious creep appeal, but the original wins hands down.
[READ: October 24, 2019] “The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats”
Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.
This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween. It is lovingly described thusly:
Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.
There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.
Even Patton Oswalt agrees that many people might not finish (or even start) this story. I had the misfortune of reading it during breakfast.
James Tiptree Jr. was the pseudonym for Alice Bradley Sheldon (her real name was not revealed until 1977! (she died in 1987).
As I was reading it, I had no idea this story was so old. It seemed like a current take on animal rights and animal welfare. Although I did think the conditions in the lab were worse than I believe they actually are now (but what do I know?) (more…)
I Just Read About That... 