31-in-31: Happy Halloween and Goodbye October

It’s Halloween, and the 31 in 31 is officially in the books. The final count stands at thirty-two.

This was probably one of our busiest Octobers in memory. Between concerts, road trips, and everything in between, I’m glad we managed to keep the wheels on the bus. We got a little cheesy with the rules along the way, but a few cartoon nights never hurt anybody.

Breaking tradition

Halloween III: Season of the Witch got its annual viewing, and yes, the laminated PSA still stands.

The first two Halloween movies, though, sat this year out. It is what it is. We broke tradition, and I’m sure I’ll catch them solo at some point during the year.

Shift at Midnight

A couple of nights ago, I traded movies for a co-op session of Shift at Midnight with LunarSketch. It’s a co-op horror game from solo developer Bun Muen where you work the night shift at a ’90s gas station, and some of your customers are only pretending to be human. Your job is to question them, check their paperwork, and catch the doppelgangers before they come back for you.

I worked the register and handled most of the gibbing, while John ran stock and pumped gas. We did quite well on the sleuthing and deduction, with only one doppelganger slipping past us all night. Honestly, the game was shockingly easy, and it only had two to four really significant jump scares.

The annual Halloween party

This year’s run also overlapped with our annual Halloween party, and it was a good one.

Helen and I tend to do couples costumes, and this year we took a simple approach with Marvel. I went as Star-Lord, who Helen has compared me to for my love of music and my swashbuckling attitude. He’s also canonically a Missouri boy, hailing from St. Charles in the MCU. Helen went as Doctor Strange, one of her favorites from the comic world, who reminds her of her father.

The rest of the crew brought their A-game, too. LunarSketch showed up as Pac-Man again, in a goofy inflatable costume that takes up a ton of space. SuperHobbit and his wife Grace came as shrimp fried rice. And our friends Chuck and Julie, the hosts of Missouri Game Con, went as Dumb and Dumber, specifically the tuxedo scene. Not everyone dressed up, but it was a fun blend of our lifelong school friends and newer friends we’ve made through the video game convention circuit. Somehow, everyone meshes pretty well.

The food was a group effort. One of our friends brought his family’s staple Watergate salad, I made massive trays of pulled chicken and pork, and Grace brought her challah bread, which she’s been honing for years. It was delicious. I used to mix up cocktails for these, like an adult Ecto Cooler, but that one has since been retired.

For background fodder, we put on the original 1982 The Slumber Party Massacre, specifically the version hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on The Last Drive-In. It wasn’t a sit-down watch, just the right kind of slasher to have playing while the house filled up.

We wrapped up the night with Rock Band. My school friends and I go way back with that game. As millennials, it was right in our wheelhouse growing up, and I’ve since built a custom edition of Rock Band 3 with nearly 800 songs across a wide variety of genres.

Fun fact: two of this year’s attendees, Connor and Bryan, were part of the quartet that once completed Rock Band 2’s Endless Setlist with me. We powered through it in one night, wrapping up around 4 a.m. in a friend’s basement, with our drum kit literally held together by duct tape.

This year was a bit tamer. Everyone headed home well before 4 a.m., and the drums survived intact.

After the party

Once the house emptied out, we slunk back into the comfort of cartoons. Jimmy Neutron’s “Nightmare in Retroville” and The Fairly OddParents’ “Scary Godparents” were the perfect late-night wind-down. After dozing off before I could get to Jimmy Neutron a few weeks ago, I finally got my fix.

A Bruce Campbell finale

We closed out the month with a Bruce Campbell triple feature.

First up was Evil Dead II, my favorite of the trilogy. It has the whimsical comedy of Army of Darkness without losing the original cabin-in-the-woods story. Army of Darkness is very detached from that.

Next was My Name Is Bruce, where Bruce plays a spoof version of himself. It was pretty funny. The plot and some of its themes have aged a bit rough, but it’s still worth the watch. It’s shallow, but entertaining, especially if you like Bruce Campbell.

And finally, on Halloween night, we headed to the Alamo Drafthouse for Ernie & Emma, Bruce’s newest film, with a live Q&A with the man himself before the movie. This time he’s behind the camera, too. It’s the first film he’s directed since My Name Is Bruce.

Bruce is just a wonderful person, and I have nothing but respect for his love of filmmaking. He’s articulate and detailed when he talks about the craft, but also incredibly funny and candid about it. Honestly, I would have loved to see him on a full speaking tour.

The film itself was beautiful. It’s not horror in any sense, but a somber story about growing through grief. Not the usual way to close out a horror month, but a good one.

Thirty-two in the books

It was a solid year. We bent the rules a little, skipped a tradition, and squeezed movies in around one of the busiest stretches we’ve had. But we made it, with one to spare.

🎃 Happy Halloween. 🎃