Ahhh yes, it is time to begin pumpkin shopping and costume preparations. I thought I would share with you some Halloween highlights.





Nothing says Halloween quite like candy. From the David Sedaris story about eating chocolate until he was sick to the famous razor in the apple story debunked by Barry Glassner to that person in my office who already bought three bags of candy for trick or treat and then ate them all over a two day period, candy is one of the big features of this season.


But I'll be honest I wasn't even thinking about Halloween when I stopped in at Dylan's Candy Bar on Wednesday. Bakerina was having a bad day, and I thought to cheer her up I would stop and pick up a few vintage candy bars (Big Hunk, Look, and the Idaho Spud just to name a few). But when I walked in, I was overwhelmed. Not only does Peeps make Halloween Ghosties and Black Cat Peeps, but they also make chocolate filled pumpkin Peeps! Then there are the gummi brains and bats (an addition to the gummi snakes, killer sharks, and worms which are available all year long).


And then I saw it.


Fear Factor, yes the show Fear Factor, has spawned its own candy line. You can now have candy crunchy frog legs, cow heart or pig snout lollipops, or you can go hog whild and buy the gross out platter which comes with candy fish eyes, coagulated blood balls, and lots and lots of gummy worms. (What really grossed me out was the idea of gummy candy with bacon, cheddar cheese, or pepperini.) Trolli, which manufactures gummi tacos and burgers, didn't let the opportunity pass to make gummy eyes, fangs, and skeletons and package them all together in a "horror bag."

Well I couldn't pass all of this up especially with the New York City Horror Festival coming up on October 19th through the 23rd. I mean I have to have appropriate munchies for when I am watching the premier of Tobe Hooper's Mortuary or seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show with audience response for the first time in twelve years! Five days of horror movies! If ever there was an event to inspire bunnikins to height of happiness, this would be it! One of my friends warned me about my attendance. "Listen Bunni," he said to me, "these events are usually filled with film geeks and horror movie dorks. They...uh...well they don't see too much hooterliciousness, if you follow me."


All this and easy slave pickins!


Not only am I of the mind that geeks and dorks make the best boyfriends, but the two anime cons I went to in 2001 certainly prepared me for the type of adoration I inspire at such events. I shall be the CorpseBride of the Horror Film Fest. Not to mention, that film geeks and horror movie dorks are not the most violent guys in the world. If anyone has to worry about safety issues, it's them.


While I'm there I am looking forward to the premier of Mainstream, a short film. The review I happened across claims the film is "a disturbing allegory on the regular working stiff who doesn’t think too much about his or her own existence." Which makes me think this film is a kind of like David Cronenberg talked to be for a while about what I encounter at my job and then made a short film about it.


In non-horrorfest film news, Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit is opening today, and I shall hopefully be seeing it this weekend as soon as I find a theater round these parts showing it. I mean if I didn't have so much respect for the film I would totally steal its tag line "Something wicked this way hops."



My favorite horror film from last year Saw will finally spawn a sequel Saw II (it has already gotten in trouble for its original ad campaign which had to be pulled because it was "too graphic.") Although writer actor Leigh Whannel, who worked on the original screenplay, helped co-write the script to the sequel, James "18 Days" Wan did not have any part of this film, which makes me sad and not just because he gives the best director commentary I've ever heard. Although not quite a horror film, Boondock Saints will also be releasing sequel. There isn't much information about the status of the film, but the two lovelies who starred in the first will return. MMmmmmmm hot Irish on Irish vigilante action. Gotta like it.


In other news, David Fincher (Se7en and Fight Club) is currently working on Zodiac based on the Zodiac killer; It stars a whole bunch of famous people including Chloe Sevigny, Ione Skye, Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal Robert Downey Jr (who is suddenly getting work again), and my personal fave Gary Oldman (nice to see him getting work outside of a fiften second cameo in a Harry Potter film).


Last night I finally caught a glimpse of the new Nightstalker series. The ever lucious Stuart Townsend (perhaps you may remember him as Lestat in the ill-fated Queen of the Damned also was Dorian Gray in the League of Extraordinary Men) plays Kolchak who in this remake of a series is a kind of fusion between the Fugitive and Fox Mulder. The original Kolchak was played by an actor who looked like, well, a leather pancake and wore a funny hat while investigating the wierdness afoot in Chicago. The new Kolchak is not only hot, fairly well dressed, and brooding, but is driven to investigate the wierdness after his wife dies in a strange incident. Although Kolchak claims she was murdered by an "I don't know what, but it wasn't human" beastie, most believe that he was responsible for her murder and his insane quest to clear his name is just part of the general insanity that led him to do crazy things like you know kill his wife. Unfortunately, there isn't enough evidence to convict him and so he is allowed to run around and investigate as he pleases. His distrustful partner, Perri, has the Scully role-the skeptic who is consistently shown up as being mistaker in her reasonable and scientifically provable beliefs. Last night's episode featuring a Manson like killer whose blindness allows him to develop his mental powers bears a ressemblance to the Pusher character from the X-files. It's not yet as good as the X-files, but well it's worth a drool over Stuart.