Halloween (Book Review)

Halloween, Edited by Paula Guran (Prime Books, 2011)

This new anthology is stocked strictly with reprints, but offers some lesser-known modern masterpieces (e.g., Charlee Jacobs's "The Sticks," Gary McMahon's "Pumpkin Night") alongside the familiar classics (such as Thomas Ligotti's "Conversations in a Dead Language," William F. Nolan's "The Halloween Man," and Al Sarrantonio's "Hornets").  When making her selections, editor Paula Guran ranges across historical eras and presents tales that work in a variety of modes, from the humorous (Esther M. Friesner's "Auntie Elspeth's Halloween story") and the harrowing (Joe R. Lansdale's
"On a Dark October") to the sentimental (Charles de Lint's "The Universal Soldier") and the eerie (Steve Rasnic Tem's "Tricks & Treats: One Night on Halloween Street").

Guran herself contributes a fine introductory essay tracing the origins and cultural history of Halloween.  Her editorial expertise also manifests in the (context-sketching, stage-setting) headnotes she provides for the individual pieces.  (It must be pointed out, though, that Halloween suffers from some atrocious copy editing.  The book is rife with errors--typos, superfluous and omitted words--that prove terribly distracting and ultimately disappointing in a tome aspiring to be a holiday treasury.)

Admittedly, some of the selections in the anthology fall flat.  The poems by Lovecraft and Poe seem tangential to the book's theme, included here mostly for the writer's name value.  But Halloween also has the distinction of being the first volume to include both Ray Bradbury's "The October Game" and F. Paul Wilson's "The November Game."  Wilson's immediate sequel to the legendary Bradbury tale is a loving homage that simultaneously takes the storyline in a startling new direction (as the incarcerated child-killer Mich finds some gruesome additions to his prison meals).  Anyone who has ever reveled in "The October Game" will not want to miss this utterly frightful follow-up.

Halloween is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of overall quality, but contains more than enough treats to keep readers sated all month long.  There are several delectable tales that I deliberately have not cited in this review (because what would Halloween be without some surprises?).  But just so you have an idea of what you will be sifting through, here's a listing of the anthology's contents:

INTRODUCTION, Paula Guran
CONVERSATIONS IN A DEAD LANGUAGE, Thomas Ligotti
MONSTERS, Stewart O'Nan
THE HALLOWEEN MAN, William F. Nolan
THE YOUNG TAMLANE, Sir Walter Scott
PORK PIE HAT, Peter Straub
THREE DOORS, Norman Partridge
AUNTIE ELSPETH'S HALLOWEEN STORY, Esther M. Friesner
STRUWWELPETER, Glen Hirshberg
HALLOWEEN IN A SUBURB, H.P. Lovecraft
ON THE REEF, Caitlin R. Kiernan
THE STICKS, Charlee Jacob
RIDING BITCH, K.W. Jeter
MEMORIES OF EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS, Nancy Kilpatrick
HALLOWEEN STREET, Steve Rasnic Tem
TRICKS & TREATS: ONE NIGHT ON HALLOWEEN STREET, Steve Rasnic Tem
MEMORIES, Peter Crowther
ULALUME: A BALLAD, Edgar Allan Poe
MASK GAME, John Shirley
BY THE BOOK, Nancy Holder
HORNETS, Al Sarrantonio
PRANKS, Nina Kiriki Hoffman
PUMPKIN NIGHT, Gary McMahon
THE UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, Charles de Lint
NIGHT OUT, Tina Rath
ONE THIN DIME, Stewart Moore
MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE, E. Nesbitt
THE GREAT PUMPKIN ARRIVES AT LAST, Sarah Langan
SUGAR SKULLS, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
ON A DARK OCTOBER, Joe R. Lansdale
THE VOW ON HALLOWEEN, Lyllian Huntley Harris
THE OCTOBER GAME, Ray Bradbury
THE NOVEMBER GAME, F. Paul Wilson
TESSELLATIONS, Gary Braunbeck

Fantastic Casting: The "Something Wicked" Remake

It's been nearly thirty years now since the release of the film version of Something Wicked This Way Comes, so perhaps the time has come for a remake.  If the novel were to be lensed again, which of today's actors would be best suited to fill the main roles?  I'll leave aside the characters of Will and Jim (who would likely be portrayed by a pair of as-yet-unknown child actors), but here are my choices for the rest of the cast...

Charles Halloway: Jason Robards has magnificent presence and did a fine job in the original; my only quibble might be that the actor was actually too old-looking to portray Will's fiftysomething father.  My choice for the new Charles would be Liam Neeson (who has acquitted himself well in prior paternal roles, such as in Love, Actually).  Alternatively: David Straithairn.

Tom Fury: In my mind, there's no actor better suited to embody Bradbury's lightning-rod salesman than Harry Dean Stanton (he even looks like Royal Dano from the original!).

Mr. Cooger: Ray Winstone no doubt has the brawn to play this menacing figure, the brute half of the Cooger & Dark tandem.  His face also possesses the expressiveness needed for the scenes following Cooger's wizening by the carousel.

Mr. Dark:  It would be hard to argue against Christian Bale in this plum role, but I'm going to think a bit outside the box here.  George Clooney has the charm, swarthiness, and commanding voice to make for a brilliant Mr. Dark.

The Dust Witch: The original went glam by casting the beautiful Pam Grier, but for a more traditionally witchy figure one could not go wrong with Helena Bonham Carter.  Moreover, the actress's real-life mate, Tim Burton, would be the ideal director for the remake (after seeing his vision of Halloweentown, imagine what he would do with the carnival-plagued Green Town).


So what do you think--a proper cast for the prospective remake?  (If you can think of other actors who might make good choices for the roles, feel free to leave a Comment below.)

Wicked's Way

An aged but still engaging Ray Bradbury discusses the journey of Something Wicked This Way Comes from page to screen:

Countdown: Ray Bradbury's Top 10 Dark Carnival/October Country Stories--#9

Let's make it a double-post day...

(For the previous entry on the countdown, click here.)

#9."The Black Ferris" (collected in The Stories of Ray Bradbury)

Bradbury sets the scene and season instantly in this 1948 tale, with a short but unforgettable opening paragraph:

The carnival had come to town like an October wind, like a dark bat flying over the cold lake, bones rattling in the night, mourning, sighing, whispering up the tents in the dark rain.  It stayed on for a month by the gray restless lake of October, in the black weather and increasing storms and leaden skies.

This embryonic version of Something Wicked This Way Comes lacks the sophistication of the novel (the story reads a bit like a Hardy Boys narrative, as young Peter and Hank endeavor to foil a jewel heist by the carnival man, Mr. Cooger).  But "The Black Ferris" is wonderfully atmospheric, excelling in its depiction of the dark and desolate state of the carnival grounds ("The midway was silent, all the gray tents hissing on the wind like gigantic prehistoric wings.").  Also, a black Ferris Wheel (which can age or rejuvenate a rider, by spinning forward or backward) makes for a more sinister apparatus than a carousel (the centerpiece of the carnival in the novel).  Bradbury further accentuates the creepiness of the short story by having the Ferris manned by a blind hunchback in a black booth.  And the final line of the story (a shocking ending for any reader unfamiliar with Something Wicked) has all the macabre magnificence of the concluding image of an E.C. Comic.

Much like its titular thrill ride, "The Black Ferris" is a magical time machine that transports readers back to the start of Bradbury's career.  This portrait of a dark fantasist as a young man reveals a writer of fertile, and fiendish, imagination--a scribe likely to be sending many other significant dispatches from the October Country.

Book vs. Film: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Today's edition of Book vs. Film compares Ray Bradbury's 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes with the 1983 Disney film version (which Bradbury had a hand in scripting, although differences of creative vision developed between the author and director Jack Clayton).

The film version is visually splendid, a vibrant translation of Bradbury's poetic descriptions.  Autumn colors suffuse panoramic shots, and the leaf-blanketed lane that runs in front of the protagonists' houses creates a distinct sense of season.  The Disney touch is evident in the rendition of Green Town, the quintessential small, mid-American community.  Idyllic to say the least, with its neatly landscaped town square and quaint shops lining the streets.

Perhaps due to budget limitations, though, some of the more striking aspects of Bradbury's novel are not included in the film.  For instance, the Dust Witch doesn't travel via black hot-air balloon but rather in the form of an ethereal, pea-green smog (an effect more hokey than horrifying).  One of the most thrilling scenes from the novel (Will's bow-and-arrow defense of his home as the Dust Witch hovers overhead and attempts to mark the roof with slimy sign) is thus nowhere to be found.  But the harrowing scene movie-goers are presented instead almost makes up for this omission: the tarantula infestation of the bedroom makes Arachnophobia seem as innocuous as Charlotte's Web by comparison.

The scenes that do closely parallel the novel are well-executed, such as the extended sequence in the library in which Mr. Dark (finely portrayed by a then-little-known Jonathan Pryce) faces off with Charles Halloway (Jason Robards, in another inspired bit of casting) and tracks down Will and Jim in the stacks.  Pryce's Mr. Dark makes for a chilling villain--never more evident than when he terrorizes Will's father while tearing pages out of a library book--but my biggest issue with the filmic figure is that there's little sense given that he is The Illustrated Man (whereas Bradbury's novel makes much ado about the carnival owner's tattoos).

When it comes to the climactic vanquishing of the antagonists, the movie's approach is more spectacular yet ultimately less satisfying than the novel's.  The lightning-rod salesman Tom Fury's rushing impalement of the Dust Witch cannot match the scene in the book where Charles Halloway outwits Mr. Dark (by inscribing a smile onto a rifle bullet) and shoots down the Dust Witch in front of a crowd of onlookers.  Similarly, the scene in which Mr. Dark is fatally aged by the whirl of the haywire carousel (a ride taken by his business partner, Mr. Cooger, in the novel) is stunning to behold but less clever than Dark's manner of defeat in Bradbury's book.

For me, the film falls shortest in its characterization of Will and Jim.  The young actors chosen to play the boys give lackluster performances; Will comes across as prissy, and Jim's impishness is de-emphasized.  More importantly, the novel's coming-of age theme ("And that was the October week when they grew up over-night, and were never so young anymore," Bradbury establishes at the close of the Prologue) is under-developed in the film, virtually reduced to the framing device of an adult Will narrating in voiceover.

The movie is undoubtedly entertaining, but fails to equal the novel for depth of characterization and breadth of theme.  That's why, using the 10-point-divvy system (imagine 10 gold coins distributed on the opposing arms of a scale), I rank the two versions as follows:

                                   Movie: 3
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Book: 7