Halloween Treats

Happy Halloween everyone! I thought I'd share with y'all some of my favorite spooky movies and books in celebration of Halloween.

The Lair of the White Worm starring Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, and Amanda Donohoe. Based on the Bram Stoker novel. Yes, Bram Stoker wrote other horror stories other than Dracula, most of which are unknown. What can I say about this movie? You have to see it to believe it. It is probably one of the campiest horror films I have ever seen.

The Mummy by Anne Rice. The only Anne Rice book that I can tolerate. Read about Ramses and Cleopatra running around snapping necks in 19th century England. A hoot and a half.

Dracula by Bram Stoker. Ignore all the many movies based on the book (unless you watch the Frank Langella version) and read the original.

The Calling series by Caridad Pineiro: If you like your Vampires dark and brooding this is the series for you. I never thought a category romance series about Vampires could be so good. Kudos to the editors at Silhouette from taking a break on their babies, cowboys and amnesia, and publishing a sophisticated tale about modern day Vampires living in New York. So far, there are three books in the series, Temptation Calls, Darkness Calls, and Danger Calls.

Mary Janice Davidson's Undead series: The lighter side of the Vampire. Starring Elizabeth (Betsy) Taylor, the newly (and reluctant) Queen of the Undead. Gotta love a Vampire who adores shoes! And Erik her consort isn't half bad either. This series is so good, they're now publishing them in hardcover.

Gothic - A film by Ken Russell. This film is a retelling of how Mary Shelley came to write the novel Frankenstein. Mary, her new husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, Dr. John Polidori and her step-sister, Claire Clairmont are staying in a villa in Switzerland one dark and stormy night. To entertain themselves, they decide to tell ghost stories. Okay, like the Lair of the White Worm, this movie is campy in the extreme, but then it's a Ken Russell Film. Worth it just to see Julian Sands as Shelley standing out on the roof naked in the rain.

My final pick is Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood. In this movie, Vincent plays an actor who decides to kill off all the theatre critics who've given him bad reviews over the years one by one. But here's the kicker, he uses Shakespeare as his guide for their deaths. Diana Rigg plays his devoted daughter.

As you can see by my choices, I've gone for the lighter side for Halloween fare. Basically because I'm a wimp. Movies like Carrie, The Ring, The Grudge scare the absolute crap out of me. I already have to sleep with the TV set on, when I'm by myself. After watching one of those movies, I have to sleep with the light on as well. I could barely make through the Scream trilogy.

I do much better with books. Christopher Golden has a trilogy set in Sleepy Hollow, NY, that I'm dying to read (no pun intended), and I used to read John Saul all the time when I was younger, until I got too freaked out.

Even silly movies like Resident Evil (the first one) scare me to death.

What are your favorite horror movies and books?