pumpktoberfest #12 - legendary horr-raw.

pumpktoberfest #12 - legendary horr-raw.
film: the blair witch project
beer: elysian night owl pumpkin ale



after college, even though i'd never been camping, i wrote an unrealized masterpiece screenplay about a group of friends on a weekend camping trip. the title--"into the woods." i had dreams of making the film while on an actual camping trip with the cast & crew. we'd spend a few weekends in the woods, bond & make a film all guerilla style. a year later, i read about a film called the blair witch project. from what i gathered, it was a film made up of found footage by three filmmakers who went into the woods of maryland to film a documentary about a local legend--the blair witch. they never returned. i was intrigued, so i went to the film's website (a great early example of online film marketing) & read up on the backstory behind the film & legend. from what i could tell, shit was real.

with all the website folklore i'd absorbed floating around in my head, i caught the film at a packed kendall sq cinema on the second night it was out. when i left the theatre, i was in complete shock, walking the streets of cambridge like a zombie, feeling like i'd just seen three people's final days but saying to myself, "that wasn't real...right?" even though it wasn't, i immediately put my plans for "into the woods" on hold. i'm very susceptible to believable ghost stories. i had a high school friend who told me that on multiple occasions he'd seen his grandfather wandering the halls of his house in the suit he was buried in. now every time i think of that guy, that's the first thing that comes to mind & i still get the occasional chills from it.

as for blair witch, i went back & watched it today & while i now know that it's not real, watching those people lose their minds in the woods still made me extremely uneasy. the film does a great job of creating a believable reality. a sequel about three boston filmmakers investigating the maryland disappearances came out the following year. i never saw it, but as legend has it, it sucked. now, ten years after the original release, they're working on a new one. since folks will already know that it's not real, i don't see how a new one can be as effective as the original, but i wish them luck...milk that cow.

every pumpktoberfest season, a frightening creature from the underworld roams the streets of seattle's capitol hill looking for prey. as legend has it, back in 2003, a group of five university students were out one evening, walking down pike & celebrating pumpktoberfest when from out of the night sky an enormous bird, the elysian night owl, swooped down, mauling four of them before letting out a deafening hoot & flying off, leaving the fifth to tell the tale. since then, he's returned every year to feast on the blood of the hip capitol hill citizens. in an attempt to appease the satanic strigiform, seattle's elysian brewery developed their seasonal elysian night owl pumpkin ale.

according to the label, each barrel of it is brewed with seven pounds of pumpkin & pumpkin seeds. i'm not sure how big the barrel is, but it sounds like a lot of pumpkin regardless. it's definitely present in the flavor & color. in addition, it's conditioned with a ton of spices (nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger & allspice). they really dominate the flavor, with the cinnamon standing out the most. it was almost too much, but there was just enough pumpkin flavor to balance out the spices. i'd heard a lot of raves about the beer beforehand, so i was sort of expecting something amazing, but to be honest, while i thought it was well done...it wasn't anything legendary.

pumpktoberfest #11 - you little punk!

pumpktoberfest #11 - you little punk!
film: child's play
beer: dogfish head punkin ale



over the years, i've dated a number of girls who were seriously creeped out by dolls & more specifically, dolls with lifelike characteristics. i never saw what the big deal was. it's not as if those lifelike dolls were going to one day come to life & murder us in our sleep like something out of child's play, the 1988 horror film about a killer "good guy" doll. the film came out at a time when cabbage patch, teddy ruxpin & my buddy dolls were all the rage. i was fourteen when it came out, so for me, it's always been more hilarious than scary, but it still has a handful of moments that make you jump.

the film opens with a cop chasing a crook into a toy store. after the cop shoots the crook a couple times in the chase & the crook realizes he's going to die, he does some voodoo shit on a good guy doll, transferring his soul into it. days later, he winds up as some little kid's birthday present, a good guy doll named chucky. the good guy dolls, based on a fictional tv show, are supposed to be loveable companions for little boys, with catch phrases like "hi, i'm chucky. wanna play?" & "i'm your friend to the end. hidey ho. ha ha ha." since this one's possessed by a criminal, he adds phrases like "you stupid bitch! you filthy slut! i'll teach you to fuck with me!" to the mix & kills people with his good guy hammer.

throughout the film, we get lots of doll on human violence as chucky learns that if he doesn't transfer his soul into the little kid's body, he's going to become the doll. they made four more child's play movies, including the hilariously awesome bride of chucky & seed of chucky, featuring jennifer tilly as the voice of chucky's bride. in an attempt to reboot the franchise, there's a remake of the original scheduled to come out next year. whenever it comes out, i'm totally there on opening weekend.

so far, i've loved every single dogfish head beer that i've tried. the delaware brewery puts out a vast line of uniquely crafted beers, beers made with saffron or green raisins, ones made in barrels built out of palo santo wood, brews with rich, often complex flavors. their dogfish head punkin ale, brewed exclusively for the pumpktoberfest season, made its debut fifteen years ago at delaware's punkin chunkin, an annual delaware event (now in its 24th year) where people use machines to see who can chuck pumpkins the farthest. at the time, dogfish head wasn't even a brewery yet.

it's a brownish/orange beer brewed with "pumpkin meat," brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon & nutmeg and like the rest of their beers, it has a nice flavor to it. i'm pretty sure that the main thing i'm tasting is pumpkin, but it's blended in well enough with the spices that it's hard to tell. regardless, it's tasty & not too bitter & one of the better pumpkin beers i've tried this pumpktoberfest season. since i love dogfish head as much as i do, i might be a bit biased, but after suffering through my last pumpkin beer, the dogfish version is like drinking sweet nectar from the teat of a goddess.

pumpktoberfest #10 - and we all shine on.

pumpktoberfest #10 - and we all shine on.
film: the shining
beer: jack's pumpkin spice ale



man, jack nicholson used to be such a friggin awesome actor. easy rider? loved it. five easy pieces? outstanding. one flew over the cuckoos nest? batman? the shining? all brilliant performances. with nicholson, the last film of his that i can stand him in is a few good men. everything after that can suck it. i don't care if he won an oscar for as good as it gets or was uproariously funny in anger management. he's been a caricature of himself for some time now, giving us more of a "jack crazy" shtick than actual acting. i find it kind of sad, really. he used to be so good back when he didn't feel the need to tear down the curtains to make a scene work.

the shining, released in 1980, is our second steven king film this pumpktoberfest season & arguably the best film out of all that have come from king's books. it's a good story, but it helped that the film was directed by stanley kubrick, who for the most part rules & that jack nicholson didn't suck yet. in the film, he plays jack torrance, a writer & the husband of a family acting as caretakers at a hotel for the winter. we learn that their son has something called "the shining" that lets him see into the future & past & because of it, he sees a bunch of murdered people at the hotel. eventually, jack goes crazy because they're holed up in the hotel & he tries to murder his family. it's got creepy kids, an elevator with a bunch of blood in it & lots of "jack crazy," but in a good way...a classic horror film.

have you ever thought about what it might be like to have somebody take a leak right into your mouth? i hadn't either, but then i tried jack's pumpkin spice ale, put out by michelob & i got a pretty good idea what the experience would be like. this stuff is just absolutely awful. as a pumpkin beer, i just...i mean did they even try to make it taste like pumpkin? there are definitely spices in the beer, but they're very weak. as it is, michelob is an awful beer. it's just plain terrible. they could've put a TON of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger & clove in & tried to mask the pure evilness that is tasting a michelob, but they didn't.

i guess i can't fault michelob for trying to come out with different beers, but i'm baffled as to how they could have thought that somebody would drink their pumpkin beer & go "wow. this tastes really good." it's just unfathomable. since they realized that people sometimes like it when their beer tastes good, michelob now brews almost twenty different kinds of beers, including a seasonal series (which the pumpkin atrocity is part of), a marzen & a dunkel weisse. i've tried their shock top wheat beer & that at least tasted like a wheat beer, so i guess there's a chance that one of their other beers is worthy of drinking, but after trying the pumpkin spice ale, i'm not holding my breath until i find it.

pumpktoberfest #9 - ghost in the machine.

pumpktoberfest #9 - ghost in the machine.
film: poltergeist
beer: smuttynose pumpkin ale



growing up, my parents wouldn't let me see films with anything higher than a PG rating, meaning that i missed out on a lot of cool films. at the same time, until 1984, there was no PG-13 rating, so there were a number of PG films put out that probably should have been rated R. one such film was steven spielberg's poltergeist, which was originally rated R, but was then re-rated to PG even though it's clearly way too scary for a PG rating. um, a swimming pool full of skeletons is PG? a boy-eating killer tree is PG? as it was, i only got to see the broadcast television version & at 9-10 years old, even that version gave me the willies. i sort of still believe in ghosts, but at the time, i REALLY believed in ghosts. casper, one-eyed willie, jesus, all of em.

the film centers on the freelings, a family whose little girl carol anne starts talking to ghosts through the tv. she was only a few years younger than me, so when i first saw it, i was all "maybe i shouldn't sit so close to the TV when i'm watching cartoons." long story short--the ghosts are trapped between dimensions & think carol anne can help them get out but there's a beast who's using carol anne to distract the ghosts & keep them there. eventually she gets sucked into the other dimension & they have to call in a freaky spiritual medium lady to get her back. after a bunch of crazy ghost shit happens & they bring her back, the beast makes a last ditch attempt to kick ass, but totally gets ghosted. why'd all this happen? get this shit. they built the house on an ancient indian burial ground. i can see bulldozing wetlands for more condos, but you have to draw the line somewhere. whooping cranes can fly someplace else. dead people can't. if i was those ghosts, i would've sucked that lil girl into the tv too.

i don't mean to sound bitter, but the freelings sort of had it coming to them. oh! speaking of bitter, i had a smuttynose pumpkin ale tonight. smuttynose brews out of portsmouth, NH & since i'm from NH, i've tried most of their beers. overall, they put out solid beers, but with the exception of their spring hanami ale, none of them really stick out as memorable in my mind. this one's one of their seasonal beers & according to their website, it's their "homage to the craft and heritage of america’s brewers" because colonial folks apparently used to put squash & whatnot in their beers. we new englanders love paying homage to colonial folks.

like the rest of their beers, the pumpkin ale doesn't really knock my specially-crocheted pumpktoberfest socks off. it has an orange color to it, so you'd think there's some pumpkin in there, but i can't taste any at all. it's apparently made with pumpkin puree & spices, but to be honest, i can't taste the spices either. i only notice them in the smell. i guess that means that as a pumpkin beer, it's a FAIL. as an IPA though, it's a well-done beer. too bad i'm not really a fan of bitter ass IPAs. sorry smuttynose, but your pumpkin ale sort of gave me heartburn. is that any way to treat a fellow new hampshirite? i think not. thanks for the beer, but that's totally not pumpktoberfestian of you, yo.

pumpktoberfest #8 - coming home to roost.

pumpktoberfest #8 - coming home to roost.
film: the birds
beer: blue moon harvest moon ale



when animals attack! killer animals have played a major role in the history of the horror film, from cujo & jaws to the mosquito & the piranha. king kong was the original. if you believe that giant lizards are an animal species, godzilla is technically one. have you heard about the birds? oh. i thought everyone had heard. it's a hitchcock film & it totally has killer animals. in it, a san fran socialite (tippi hedren) runs into a man at a bird shop & even though she's never met him before, she decides to drive all the way up the coast to a small town (bodega bay) so she can play a prank on him by bringing him two lovebirds. because she does this, the local birds start tweaking (tweetking?) out & attacking the residents of the town.

when you take a good look at it, the film's pretty ridiculous. whereas most hitchcock films feature characters driven to do things as a result of their dramatic circumstances, the characters in the birds (including the birds) have little to no stated motive for anything they do. this is one of the major issues critics have with the film. if you can get beyond this fact, it's a good film. i like it. my favorite scene is when tippi's at the town diner hiding out from the birds & the gathered town residents are discussing their bird problem. there's a bible-quoting drunk, an snooty-sounding ornithologist who gets cut off every time she tries to dispel bird knowledge & a frantic woman whose kids are worried that the birds will eat them. eventually, the birds attack a guy filling up his gas tank outside the diner & gasoline spills all over the place. from inside, the townsfolk watch as another guy drives up, gets out of his car & lights a cigar, causing a super-awesome explosion. it's the perfect mix of hitchcock's comments on society & hilarious bird-induced violence.

the time for seeing a harvest moon may have passed a few days back, but the time for drinking a blue moon harvest moon ale is totally right now! get to it! please note that if you are reading this in december & you're all "i really want to try that!" you're out of luck. the time is no longer now. you missed the boat. seasons change, so you'll have to settle for their full moon winter ale instead. that's how it works with blue moon. they put out a different beer for every season. there's the full moon for the winter, the rising moon in the spring, the honey moon for the summer & the harvest for autumn. that means that harvest gets to be their beer for two major holidays--thanksgiving & pumpktoberfest. lucky beer.

the harvest ale's made with a few of your standard pumpkin ale spices--allspice, nutmeg & clove. they provide most of the flavor. according to the label, there's also "vine-ripened pumpkin" in there, but i'll be damned if i noticed it. it's not crappy or anything, but the flavor's even less dramatic than that of a regular blue moon. basically, the best thing about the beer is the fact that it's a twist off. the website suggests pairing it with sweet potatoes, beef or turkey. i suggest pairing it with another pumpkin beer. it also goes well with killer birds, but that's pretty much all because of the killer birds.