Halloween Favorites
Halloween has always been my all time favorite time of year… Or I guess I should say Pre-Halloween… the lead up is always better than the actual day, am I right?
It’s obviously when fall hits - the best season of all - the air getting crisp, the pumpkin seeds... the pumpkin seeds.
It’s when you are over the heat, and you’re ready for the cozy. You long for the hot toddies, and the stack of wool sweaters, the smell of people making their first fires of the season if you’re unable to make your own.
When I lived in Park Slope it was even greater than I could have imagined - the streets full of kids wearing their costumes way too early, most likely a compromise worked out with their mom or dad to avoid a tantrum. And the night of, we would just sit on our stoop and give out candy to all the amazing people in our neighborhood.
It’s a night when I met most of my neighbors in my buildings - a couple we never spoke to, who seemed quiet and not interested in any fun, came out as the most convincing Mary Poppins and the chimney sweeper. A young father in his 50s, was amazingly dressed as teen wolf, rushing off on his bike to a big party they were having for the kids in his son’s class at Two Boots.
I guess that’s what I love most about the holiday, it shows peoples sense of humor, not really caring so much about appearance - well at least my friends don’t seem to! - and just being into tradition, being silly, and celebrating for the sake of it.
Below is a link to my go-to Halloween Mix I made last year, that is still the best out there in my opinion :)
MY GO-TO HALLOWEEN MOVIES
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man
Hocus Pocus
Beetle Juice
Psycho
The Birds
Rear Window
Vertigo
Dial M for Murder
Strangers on A Train
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Some more rare movies worth watching …
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Made in the 1920s this silent film is amazing - the way they made the sets, and how they told the story of a crazy doctor who claims his somnambulist, Cesare, who has been asleep for 20 years or so, can tell the future. With a combo of murder, hypnosis, and deceit this german movie is one of the first movies ever to be as spooky as it is!
Arsenic & Old Lace This is one of my all time favorites - Cary Grant is married to his love on Halloween and when he returns home he finds a dead body in a window seat of his aunts home - he goes on to discover that his family is a bit… whacky to say the least.
Rope I would love to see this in its original format, as a play, but it is pretty disturbing and a very crazy idea for the time it came out. I won’t ruin it but you should see it!
As someone who loves and has thrown some pretty amazing halloween parties in her time - I live to own a big house one day and throw a yearly halloween party for friends and neighbors. I'll use my halloween movie montage of horror from the 20s, 30s, 50s, 70s and 80s to project on the walls, my cascade of bats trailing down the hallways, enveloped in cobwebs, and some pretty cool table scape ideas I've used in the past.
Below is my mini guide of making a cool table scape - dead hands in punch and all!
FROZEN HANDS FOR THE PUNCH BOWL (CLICK ON IMAGE TO enlarge)
TABLE-SCAPE OF SPOOK (CLICK ON IMAGE TO enlarge)