a bit of musicality, please!

and now, dear friends, i'm going to help you soundtrack your halloween party. our first forey into the music area is nox aracana.

nox arcana is a group i discovered when looking at nightwisht cds on amazon. they were under the "other customers bought" this selection. i was fortunate to find 2 cds: carnival of lost souls and darklore manor, of which we will discuss today.

both have very few words and are very haunting. they both make great soundtracks for any party.

carnival of lost souls has a carnival and midway aire to it. my faves are "calliope" and "madame endora." the voice in the latter is just plain spooky! as for darklore manor, it's the track "nursery rhyme" that will have you tingling. a little girl's voice saying a prayer in an off manner is wonderful, in a macabre sort of way of course!

i would highly recommend both cds and anything nox arcana for your collection.

oh, and if anyone wants to get me a halloween gift, get me blackthorn asylum. i really want that one!

skeleton key

this will be, for the moment, my last post related to scary movies. i've got a few good things playing in future.

so, let's go!

skeleton key stars kate hudson(daughter of goldie hawn and showing some of her mothers younger looks), gena rowlands, and john hurt. it was released in 2005.

i love this story! somehow the mix of voodoo, louisiana, swamps, and a moving back story work wonders. plus, there's that pescky mystery and twist at the end that's just great!

first off, i'm a louisiana girl born and bred. i just live in texas cause it's close! second, this story holds many things that really do keep you on the edge of your seat. i'm a lover of backstories and this one didn't disappoint.

i can't go too much into the backstory, that's really a must see. but, i'll give a little bit of the plot. it starts off with kate hudson living in new orleans working as a nurse at a nursing home. she quits after the death of a patient and finds employment at the home of gena rowlands and john hurt, a long married couple. john hurt's character has suffered a stroke and gena can't help too much. they live in a great house on the edge of water. kate hudson gets a skeleton key and goes hunting around in the house and, well, i'm leaving the rest for you, gentle reader, to find out!

have fun and happy hunting!

a few hauntings, pt. 3

house on haunted hill, 1999, remake of the 1959 movie(which was crap by the way; don't watch this. seriously. just don't. if you want vincent price, watch the thriller video).



i love the back story for this movie. but, then again, i love insane asylums. and this one has a mother of a back story. the patients went crazy. ice pick labotomies. creepy treatments.



and an even creepier picture that connects all but two people to the former staff.



this is a great scare and loads of fun.



the story is really quite simple, a rich, bored woman wants her birthday at haunted hill, the former insane asylum. her husband's computer, possessed, changes the list to children of the former staff and then, tortures them at the party. on the dvd, watch the special features with the real estate agent. it's fun and you'll have to make sure you recognize him from earlier in the movie.

a few hauntings, pt. 2

the haunting. based on the book by shirley jackson; released in 1999. it starts liam neeson, owen wilson, catherine zeta-jones, and lili taylor.



definately scarier than the book. the hidden rooms. the creepy mansion. the special effects. the creepy maid and crazy groundskeeper. the whole movie is just great and the location helped a lot. especially the creepy picture at the top of the stairs (shudders). i won't tell too much; but would recommend for a light and breezy scare.

a few hauntings, pt. 1

1999 was the year of the hauntings. house on haunted hill and the haunting(based on shirley jackson's haunting of hill house and renamed for the pictures because of the aforementioned movie).



today, we'll start off with the haunting of hill house.



i asked about it for the shining and i'll ask again, why was this book so scary? seriously, what did i miss? she just runs her car into a tree. there's nothing really scary about that.



the movie was WAY better. guess i'll have to review that next!

Ghost Ship

since it's the ever so wonderful bewitching season, i thought it would be good to do some spooky reviews. my first is a fave movie, ghost ship.

released in 2002, it stars juliana margolies and gabriel byrne. there's also some post-xena, pre- star trek karl urban too.

the story centers around a salvage crew back from the sea. they're approached by the mysterious ferryman about something in international waters which is basically, finders keepers. the group decides to go, of course, and find this mysterious ship.

her name is the antonia graza and she's been missing since 1962.

of course, many scary things happen. but, for me, the big clincher is the "death scene." in this scene, they tell you how everybody died. it's great. it's morbid. it's got a great soundtrack! seriously, "my little box" just adds wonders to this scene.

i'd highly recommend this movie for a little bit of a scare. for me, it's not too scary. more morbid than anything. especially when the dead lounge singer changes from tantalizing to her been dead for forty years look. creepy. but just wait to see how she died!

of course, there is the double meaning of the name ferryman. he really is a ferryman, i.e.- a man who ferries things or, in this case, people.

look for him and what looks like a dead crew(they're not, but isn't that just great?) at the end of the movie.

cussing about the library

first off, don't cuss when you're in the library. there are children around.

second, don't cuss in ear shot of a staff member. we'll ask you to leave.

third, just don't cuss. 'kay?

fourth, if you have to talk like that, leave it outside, in your car.

fifth, didn't someone teach you how to use your words? you could have said something else and still shown your aggrivation. plus, you could have asked in a nicer manner, couldn't you?

i had a really annoying patron who couldn't help but cuss her way through the adult fiction section about how screwed up the library and the computerized card catalog was. okay, lady, just deal. we have to deal with your crap all day on a much grander scale. i tried helping her; i did. but, alas, she kept dropping f words hither and yon. i finally said, as she was leaving, "if you're going to talk like that, please don't do it here."

another patron, sitting at a table behind us and overheard everything and more(i left to go find the search elsewhere), thanked me for saying something later.

now that is a nice patron. i just hope the other one doesn't come back anytime soon.