Halloween Season is Almost Upon us.

Halloween has been my favorite holiday and season for as long as I can remember. I'm sure most of you dear readers are of a similar persuasion, after all it's the time of year where our kind of movies shine. Everything ghoulish and monstrous is in the spotlight, at least for a week. When I was a kid that week seemed like an entire month but now that I'm older and working, it whips on by like a Jason Voorhees machete and is clean through the other side before I get to enjoy the kill the season.

And so it's with the spirit of Halloween looming that I'd like to spend a few minutes recounting some of my favorite traditions.

Pumpkin Carving

Warding off wayward spirits is all well and good, but what if you want to do it with some style and you're hungry? Jack 'o lanterns are a tradition which originated in the British Isles, where they carved turnips and other similar sized vegetables, in which they placed a burning ember. When these folk settled in America, they adapted this ritual to the indigenous pumpkin.

Pumpkin carving has become far more intricate over the last decade but, for my part, the act is a deeply personal one. I do a quick, rough sketch of a frightening face and then carve by hand. This produces varying levels of quality, but I think it's more the character of the pumpkin asserting itself to protect my house from the evils of the night.

And of course, there are many things to make from the sacrificial pumpkin's hallowed innards: baked pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin beer. Don't let it go to waste.

Treating the Trickers

Sure, some of them don't care, so long as they get free candy, but I enjoy adding a little something extra, of the non-razor blade variety. When I was just a child there was an old gentleman on my block who spent the year making wooden toys for all of the children; horses, cars, soldiers and the like. I'm not so handy. However I do love my horror flicks. So I project horror films into my front bay window. As you can imagine my choices are limited to older movies, so that parents don't call the cops on me for exposing little Susie to Saw.

Therein lies the fun: any trick or treated who correctly identifies the movie gets extra candy. Last year, none of them recognized Vincent Price in The House on Haunted Hill but a bunch of them got the second feature Tremors.

The Exhumed Films 24-Hour Horrorthon

Now entering it's fifth year, the Horrorthon is the ultimate showcase of classics, trailers, sequels and monsters. It's an endurance test, a tradition and an unparalleled experience all rolled into one. I don't believe that I could adequately explain what's going on in my head at 4am, having been watching films already for sixteen hours, and have something like Boarding House unspool before me. Perhaps it's something between sorrow and joy, closer to elation but mixed with confusion.

Taking place the weekend of Halloween, the Exhumed Films Horrorthon has become a must attend event for horror fans from many states, which quickly sells out months ahead of time. I snagged my tickets in July.

Starting on October 1st and running right up until the best day of the year, Halloween, The Midnight Cheese will post suggested films, videos, books, games and activities every day to help you enjoy your season.

Grabboids: The Val and Earl Show

The rain and thunder pound on outside, but inside, ah inside is a trove of alternate worlds to escape into. Row upon row of brightly colored, highly enticing 7" by 4" by 1" slivers of heaven. The banks of VHS tapes reflect the florescent light suggestively, until one catches the eye and it's completely obvious that this is tonight's entertainment.

This ritual is one I played out hundreds of times before and on this particular stormy evening in 1992, the slip cover for Tremors caught my attention first. It's homage to classic monster movies was evident just from the cover, which was almost completely taken up by a poised to strike "grabboid". It was all so very Jaws-like. I flipped it over to take in the details, which was really just part of the ritual (I'd already decided to rent it anyhow).

Kevin Bacon!? Footloose Kevin Bacon? And Fred Ward from Remo Williams? Oh this is gonna be sweet. But it was 1992, so what I likely said was "radical!" or possibly "gnarley!". But let's not sell Tremors short on the rest of its casting; its diverse collection of character actors is a integral part of what makes this flick so great. In short its characters have character. Bacon and Ward play Val and Earl, two handymen who do odd jobs for folks in this community. They decide (one day too late, as Val laments) that they've had it up to here with putting up fences, digging ditches and emptying septic tanks for chump change.

Of course, we wouldn't have much of a ride if our protagonists could simply leave the delightful town of Perfection (population: 14) unmolested. No sir. Folks start to turn up dead and soon enough the grabboids start to rear their ugly, prehistoric, multi-tongued, monstrous worm-heads. Of course, our motley band of townsfolk begins to become monster worm snacks in rapid succession including Walter Chang, played by John Carpenter mainstay Victor Wong.

However, there are two Perfection townsfolk who the grabboids are foolish to mess with: the Gummers, Burt and Heather. The Gummers relocated to this sleepy, near abandoned ex-mining town to avoid the gaze of big government. The gun nut survivalist duo are played by Michael Gross, fresh off of the Family Ties finale and Reba McEntire, who I don't even hate here (full disclosure: country music is atrocious). The gun fight scene in their bunker's basement is awesome. It's also worth noting that Gross has made a veritable career out of the Tremors films (he's in all 4) and it's tv spin off. I still contend that Burt Gummer is a cult horror figure and deserves his own action figure.

So, refocusing the scene on 11 year old me. With the glossy intoxication of the back of the Tremors VHS in full control of my frontal lobe, I march to the check out at my local Blockbuster (now on an endangered species list of some sort), pausing along the way to snag some 'everlastin gobstoppers, popcorn and a Serge soft drink, to begin a night of unapologetic delight. It's still storming like hell out side, so I make sure to hide Kevin Bacon and the gang under my jacket and hustle home in half the time. Far more "radicals!" and "gnarleys!" escaped from my parent's basement as I must have watched this cult classic half a dozen times over the following three rainy days.

These days there's so many easier ways to have movies come to you, but that's a lament for another post. Tremors is available on both Blu-ray and DVD (you guys still watch those, right?). If you're gonna pick up the Digital Video Disc version, you might as well purchase the Tremors Attack Pack, which contains the first film and all three of it's direct-to-video sequels. Grab some friends and plan a night in with this fantastically enjoyable camp classic.