Cobweb, Universal Monsters, and a Giveaway!

Every Day is Halloween #82: The Official Newsletter of Lisa Morton

Nov 01, 2023

Well, that was tiring.

I mean, my October always is, but somehow - between my normal aging, getting whacked by my Covid booster, too many deadlines, and the increasing popularity of Halloween - the month never gets easier for me. As always, I did dozens of appearances and presentations and podcasts and interviews, plus I taught a three-session course on the history of Halloween for Atlas Obscura.

The good news is that it all went very well. I met some lovely new friends via all the podcasting, got caught up with some old ones, and Atlas Obscura and I are now talking about doing more courses. Plus, The Art of the Zombie Movie is selling well and has also gotten some nice press, with more to come.

I hope your Halloween was fantastic, and here’s to a serene Dia de los Muertos filled with cherished memories.

Lisa

NEW STUFF I LIKE

There’s one reason I really wanted to see this movie, and it’s not because the movie takes place on Halloween, or Lizzy Caplan (although those are both fine reasons!); the reason isn’t mentioned on the poster. It’s Samuel Bodin, who makes his feature film debut with Cobweb.

So who is Samuel Bodin? He’s the creator of Marianne, the French Netflix series which I think is my favorite televised horror ever (yes, I said it - EVER). If you haven’t seen Marianne, stop everything and head over to Netflix NOW (and please watch it subtitled, not dubbed, because the actors are brilliant).

How does Cobweb stack up? Well, Bodin didn’t write it, but it reflects some of the same thematic stuff going on in Marianne: mistrust of parents, a rundown family home, a concerned but wary female friend, the creative individual as outsider, an unseen something. It also puts Bodin’s genius visual sense front and center: nobody can shoot a gloomy room like this guy.

Overall, the movie is very good indeed, if not at the level of Marianne. Lizzy Caplan is, as always, superb as an unstable young mother; the rest of the cast is also solid. I wish the story had made more use of Halloween (the insertion of the holiday almost feels arbitrary), but that field of rotting pumpkins beside the decaying house is an undeniably memorable image.

If you’ve seen Marianne, I think you’ll especially enjoy Cobweb. If you haven’t - watch that first, then come back and we’ll talk.

THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT

Universal monsters are my comfort food.

As a kid growing up - back in those halcyon days when we had like six channels on the television - the Univeral horror classics aired frequently, and I watched them every time. I was a monster-lovin’ kid who read monster magazines, made monster models, and dreamed up my own monster adventures.

When Universal syndicated their horror movies to television in 1957, it led to an explosion in monster retailing, including Halloween costumes.

What I cannot explain is why the Universal monsters seem to be huge again in 2023. They took up a whole lot of floor space in the Spirit Halloween stores, much to my (pleased) surprise. I can only assume that Universal must have made some great licensing deal to Spirit.

Whatever…I love it!

STRANGE DOINGS

While I was going over notes for my Atlas Obscura course (yes, I used my own previous research as research!), I had that occasional sensation I get where something starts pinging at the back of my brain, nudging me with something I can’t immediately pin down. Usually that means something is wrong, but in this case I knew it meant I was missing a connection.

Here’s what set off the pinging: Samhain, that Irish Celtic celebration that paved the way to Halloween, was their New Years celebration. It was probably held exactly between the fall solstice and the winter equinox, which would actually put it on November 7th, not November 1st. So why, I started to wonder, would the Catholic Church have attempted to co-opt Samhain by moving their celebration of the saints to November 1st (which happened in the mid-8th-century)? Were the Celts wrong in figuring out that midpoint?

It took a few days before that ping turned into a BOOM, and it hit me: the connection I’d been trying to make was between the likely original date of Samhain and the change from the old Julian to Gregorian calendar. That change was made official in 1582 (although many countries were slow to adopt it), and resulted in dates shifting by 11 days.

In the mid-8th-century, November 7th would probably have been November 1. So in other words, it wasn’t the Celts who were wrong - it was the Catholics!

Halloween academics love to debate stuff like why November 1st was chosen for All Saints’ Day - one theory is that it was the end of harvest and so the Church was able to feed all the pilgrims who would come to Rome - but I think that factoring in that calendar change is one more argument in favor of November 1 being chosen to co-opt Samhain.

EDITED TO ADD: After I wrote the above, my pal Maria Alexander linked to an article that had already laid this all out! At least I was right in my calculations.

BEHIND THE SCREAMS

The History of Halloween: teaching a 3-session course for Atlas Obscura

Okay, confession time: I’ve never thought of myself as a teacher. I’ve led a few workshops, nothing ever longer than two hours, so the idea of overseeing a three-session course for a top-level outfit like Atlas Obscura was a little daunting.

First, a little history: Atlas Obscura approached me with this idea several months ago. I was already a fan of Atlas Obscura from some of their local outings I’ve participated in, so I was thrilled when they contacted me, but also a little anxious: could I do this?

My contact at Atlas Obscura, Zak, was wonderfully helpful. He set me up with three of their existing courses, which I watched and digested. I of course already knew the subject well, and had illustrations I could share. Yes, I could do this.

Zak and I talked about how to break up the three lessons, I filled out Atlas Obscura’s paperwork, and I started working on my lessons, frequently referring back to my own books (hey, my memory is good but doesn’t retain EVERY fact!). I wanted my course information to be both entertaining and informative, so I tried to avoid a dull recitation of facts, sprinkling in a few jokes and personal asides. I broke up the lecture stuff with slide shows. And I read each lesson over to make sure I got the timing right - the lessons needed to come in at just slightly under an hour, to leave time for questions.

Lastly, I created some fun hand-outs because Atlas Obscura uses Zoom as the actual teaching platform but also maintains a Google classroom for each course and I wanted to put something fun in the latter. Plus, I wanted to make sure that all course participants would leave with material they could take with them.

In the end, it was both stressful - extra work during what’s already my busiest month of the year - and gratifying, when participants told me how much they enjoyed the lessons and how much they learned.

Atlas Obscura was happy, too, because they want to talk about me teaching more courses now. I’ll be conferring with Zak later this week to brainstorm. When we’ve got new courses in place, you’ll be the first to know!

THE WRITE STUFF

Like everyone else, writers sometimes need to just take time off to recharge. I think of it as an input/output cycle: sometimes you need new input to revitalize your output.

A working, professional writer knows how to do this while continually putting out new work. Sometimes, though, even the busiest writer can get overwhelmed and in serious need of a break. There’s nothing wrong with not meeting some daily word count, especially if you’re recharging your creative batteries.

This is actually kind of my plan for November. My last six months have been a whirlwind of writing projects and deadlines, but as I write this there’s only one left and I’ll knock that out shortly. After that, I plan on doing a deep dive into books I’ve wanted to read all year. I want to focus on novels, to see if I can generate any mental energy on writing my own novel.

How do you recharge YOUR batteries?

NEWS & WORKS IN PROGRESS

I won’t fill up this space with every interview, podcast, or appearance I did in October (heck, I don’t even remember all of them), but here’s one I’m especially happy with (in part because I’m a big fan of NPR): Throughline piece on Halloween’s growing popularity.

And here’s a little video with me in a great CBS story on a father and son team who decorate their house in Queens.

Here’s a post I did for this year’s Halloween Haunts at the HWA’s site: “On Being a Halloween Expert.”

Here’s a nice video discussion for the Fabric of Folklore podcast:

My article on “The Great Spiritualist Mediums” appeared in the British magazine Watkins’ Mind, Body, Spirit.

The audiobook of Dark Screams 4, which includes my story “The New War,” is currently on sale for just over five bucks!

Placerita, the novella I co-wrote with John Palisano and that was scheduled for a December release by Cemetery Dance, has been pushed back to February 2024.

What I’m working on now: A story for Eric J. Guignard’s Scaring and Daring anthology, and then…we’ll see!

UPCOMING APPEARANCES

November 20 - I’ll be recording the podcast Chinwag with Paul Giamatti and Stephen Asma
December 2 - I’ll be reading one of my Spine Tingler short stories for Joseph Freeman’s “Winter Tales” reading series.
May 30-June 2, 2024 - I’ll be at StokerCon 2024 in San Diego

WHERE YOU CAN BUY MY BOOKS

GIVEAWAY

Okay, so I’d really hoped to have a copy of The Art of the Zombie Movie to give away this month, but wouldn’t ya know - there’ve been an endless series of mix-ups with my author copies and I don’t have them yet. Let’s hope they’re here in time for next month!

In the meantime, let’s keep the spooky vibes going with a hardcover of Haunted Tales! Enter by leaving a comment (click the button below) and good luck! Sorry - this contest is only open to residents of the U.S.

Every Day is Halloween