Ghoul school
Our Halloween weekend celebration primer,
Christmas, shristmas. Halloween is the most wonderful time of the year, and also the busiest: stocking up on bulk mini-candies, scraping the remaining strands of pumpkin guts from the kitchen floor, making a costume that’s both visually stunning and warm enough to wear outside all night in the late fall. It adds up.
To simplify one area of the holiday — your social calendar — these Toronto events are full-size chocolate bars in a sea of Halloween Kisses, no matter your tolerance for the creepy or occult. Retro movie screenings ’Tis the season to revisit the ol’ faithful thrillers, slashers and monster movies you know and love from years past.
This year, head to the Rainbow Cinema Market Square on Friday to see George Romero’s seminal1968 zombie film Night of the Living Dead, or Saturday to see William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (both screenings at 11:15 p.m.).
The world’s most famous slasher flick, John Carpenter’s Halloween, is playing on Friday (10:45 p.m.) at TIFF Bell Lightbox, which plays the British gothic anthology Dead of Night on Saturday (8:30 p.m.).
The Carlton Midnight Society is doing a Dracula double-bill at the Carlton Cinema on Saturday: F.W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu (7 p.m.), followed by Alan Gibson’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula (9 p.m.), the last movie starring the late Christopher Lee as Dracula.
The Royal Cinema is also offering up a meaty selection of classics, such as Brian de Palma’s Carrie on Wednesday (9:15 p.m.) and the cult favourite Halloween III: The Season of the Witch on Saturday (7 p.m.). Hang in the hood For Toronto’s freaky families, several neighbourhoods are holding Halloween/fall celebrations on Saturday. The Beach is hosting Halloween on Queen, complete with a DJ, costume contests and pumpkin carving. Regent Park’s October Fun Fest will take over Big Park (Sackville and Dundas St. E.). And the Junction’s annual Pumpkinfest is happening at the Junction Train Platform, followed, of course, by the Pumpkinwalk — a final promenade for the neighbourhood jack-o’-lanterns on Sunday. A bit farther east, on Sunday at dusk, is the famed, candlelit Pumpkin Parade at Sorauren Park. And include every member of the family at Liberty Village’s Spooktacular Dog Walk on Friday night — four-legged costumes encouraged. Take a dark stroll Bored of the same old ghost walks? On Friday night, the High Park Nature Centre is leading an after-hours hike through the park where, instead of spooky stories about apparitions, you’ll learn about the indisputably real worlds of bats, spiders and other nighttime creepy crawlies. But if you’re still into ghost walks, there are plenty of those, too — try the Haunted Walk of Toronto. Sharpen your sweet teeth Chocolate is pretty much a given when it comes to Halloween, but if you’re a real chocoholic, indulge in a Halloween/Day of the Dead tasting tour from ChocoSol Traders. Go behind the scenes of their own chocolate-making facility, and explore chocolate’s connections in Ontario and in Mexico and get a mixture of traditions from North America and south of the border. This tour takes place at various times on Saturday afternoon. Attend the costume parties of the ages Church St. is legendary on Halloween night — be sure to take a stroll into the Village after the sun goes down, and bring a camera. But for the most legendary costumes, don’t miss the annual bash thrown by the Canadian horror magazine Rue Morgue, called “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” happening at the Opera House on Friday. The18th edition is likely to pull out all the stops again, with DJs, live acts and a costume contest with a $1,000 prize, which never disappoints. If you’d rather stay in . . . Cold or rainy weather, unruly crowds, a comfy couch with Netflix at the ready — there are plenty of reasons to tuck in instead of venturing outside on Halloween night. Luckily, this holiday arrives complete with an extensive movie list like none other. Here are a few suggestions to find the slasher gold, not the slasher schlock.
The Classicist: Go way back in film history to, arguably, the very first horror movie, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by German filmmaker Robert Wiene, about a man and a murderous sleepwalker under his control. The 1920 silent film is still remarkable today for its expressionist film style, which was highly influential in the recent horror fan favourite, The Babadook. (Seen it? Try Nosferatu or The Hands of Orlac.)
Retro-Lover: Halloween may be cliché, A Nightmare on Elm Street may be overdone, but there is still much to relish in horror from the 1980s. The first recommendation, if you love some good, cheesy killer movies, is Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 Sleepaway Camp. It’s a completely bizarre take on the camp-horror subgenre — “camp” in both senses of the word — about a shy girl named Angela trying to fit in at a new summer camp, alongside her cousin Ricky. It’s so off-the-wall, it apparently partly inspired the comedy Wet Hot American Summer. But seriously, serious- ly, no spoilers for this one. (Seen it? Try Lamberto Bava’s Demonsor both of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2.)
Family-Friendly: It’s a tricky job, trying to instill a love of horror in children at an early age without scarring them forever. Kenny Ortega’s 1993 witch-capade Hocus Pocus is likely to do the trick, starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters, three witches seeking eternal youth from the souls of children. There are even rumours of a sequel — apparently all three sisters are on board — so watch the original now and join other fans in their petition to Disney. (Seen it? Try Ernest Scared Stupid or Watcher in the Woods.)
Funny Bones: Some of the best modern horror movies were made to laugh at themselves; somehow, screaming and laughing go very well together. Case in point: Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods. This 2013 fan favourite takes the trope of the group of beautiful teenagers spending the weekend in a secluded cabin and flips it around hilariously. Co-written by Goddard and Joss Whedon, it’s as much a witty and comic comment on the genre in general as it is a ghostly (or murderous, or supernatural, or monster) thriller. (Seen it? Try What We Do in the Shadows or, of course, Shaun of the Dead.)
Brutally Buzzworthy: A few recent releases have turned into major critical darlings, the biggest being It Follows by David Robert Mitchell, released this year. It Follows follows Jay (Maika Monroe), a teen in a captivatingly dreary Detroit who receives a curse from her boyfriend — and a shape-shifting evil presence begins slowly, ceaselessly walking toward her. Beyond its divisive portrayal of female sexuality (and the fact that Jay literally needs a man to pass on the curse to save her), it’s indisputably one of the creepiest and most original concepts in modern horror. (Seen it? Try The Babadook or Unfriended.)