CURSE IN THE TREES.

The Halloween season arrives at different times and in different types of ways for everyone. For me personally, it used to be as soon as I started spotting candy on shelves, big box stores putting out their gigantic displays and of course the opening of Spirit Halloween.

As I get older and crustier, that stuff doesn’t draw my attention like it used to. Maybe it’s just the burnout factor from these places putting out Halloween junk when the air is still hot and the trees are green. It could also be just an over abundance and a little oversaturation. Something about it rubs me the wrong way, like Halloween is getting too commercial or something. However…to each their own! I’m the last Uncle to spoil anyone’s good time. At the end of the day at least people are celebrating — which is all all that truly matters. Keep the spirit alive in your neighborhood and rock until you drop on Halloween night.

For the TNUC Lair, going forward I want Halloween to be as DIY as possible. It feels more wholesome, authentic and reaffirming to build a lumpy scarecrow out of your dad’s old pajamas or fill those giant pumpkin trash bags with leaves. Maybe put together a homemade, haphazard cemetery in the front yard. Even if it’s crudely done, all the better!

I’m lucky enough to live somewhere that leaves on trees change color and the chilly air rears its head just as Fall unmasks. The weather and climate has become such an energy source for setting the table to the season of Autumn. I don’t know what I’d do without it!

Speaking of table setters and trees, it’s the perfect time for a musical offering to celebrate the best time of year which is just about to rear it’s head. The opening scene during Dario Argento’s 1985 movie, Phenomena (US title: Creepers) has always gone under my skin with the eerie music and close-up shots of trees shaking in the cold wind.

Bill Wyman, yes that Bill Wyman, bassist from The Rolling Stones, somehow got pulled into this zany Italian horror flick. This moody track has just the right amount of creepy-crawliness to give off feelings of being isolated in the mountains or deep in the forest. It’s beautiful but unsettling. That perfect marriage of dark and light. A proper slow lurk into the season.

Argento really pulled out all the stops when it came to music in Phenomena. The plot of the film itself might be wonky and not the most memorable but that’s all part of the experience when watching Argento movies. It’s certainly made up for by having Donald Pleasance, Jennifer Connolly, a few hundred bugs, one chimpanzee and a soundtrack that features everyone from Iron Maiden to Goblin to the bassist from The Stones.