{"id":76890,"date":"2021-10-19T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/staff-picks-halloween-favorites\/"},"modified":"2021-10-19T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T06:30:00","slug":"staff-picks-halloween-favorites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/staff-picks-halloween-favorites\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Halloween favorites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

Just in time for Halloween, the long-dormant feature Staff Picks is back from the grave.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

This is a round-up of the Juneau Empire and Capital City Weekly staff’s favorite scary, or at least spooky-adjacent, media.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Books\/ Short stories<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Ben Hohenstatt, editor: “Mulberry Boys” by Margo Lanagan. <\/strong>This is one of the most disturbing and memorable short stories I have ever read, and like the videotape from “The Ring,” I feel compelled to inflict it on others. It’s a first-person tale by the wonderful Margo Lanagan about a young man working with a wealthy acquaintance to track down and secure an escaped member of the young man’s village. The dark allegory for colonialism and exploitative economies features some of the grimmest magical realism I can recall encountering. To say more would give away the queasy and unexpected places this story goes. It is available as part of “The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Four,” which can be checked out as an ebook from Juneau Public Libraries. It’s also available to read online at lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/mulberry-boys\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Michael S. Lockett, reporter: “Johannes Cabal the Necromancer,” series:<\/strong> Starting fast out of the gate with a considerably more sarcastic retelling of the classic Bradbury tale “Something Wicked this Way Comes” where the purveyor of the haunted carnival is both unwilling and deeply annoyed to be harvesting souls with a menagerie of the terrible, the series stretches to several books and short stories, touching on subjects such as Lovecraftian horror, the Victorian monstrosities of vague Eastern Europe and man, which is most terrible of all. Jonathan Howard writes with a desert-dry wit, a handy use of footnotes, and a sense of black humor most delightful, introducing characters both well-written and memorable over the five-book series before concluding the series with panache. Howard would go on to write “Carter and Lovecraft,” another memorable horror-adjacent series.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Dana Zigmund, reporter: “ghostgirl” by Tonya Hurley.<\/strong> If you consider your high school years a horror show, you’ll love this book. It’s a young adult novel about a high school girl who’s quest for popularity lives on after her sudden and untimely death choking on a gummy bear. It makes a great book club read — it’s quick, clever and entertaining. If you host the discussion, nix the gummy bears from the menu.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Movies<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Ben Hohenstatt, editor: “Raw.”<\/strong> This 2016 French-language film about the strange new appetites spurred on by a young woman’s time at university is overdue for a Hollywood remake. It’s a coming of age story combined with cannibalistic brutality and features one of my favorite final scenes in any movie. Like a hefty slab of meat, you’ll be digesting it for a while.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"This<\/a>

This still from the movie “Raw” shows Rabah Naït Oufella, Garance Marillier and Ella Rumpf. In this scene, the movie’s protagonist Justine is forced to eat meat for the first time. (Courtesy Photo \/ Focus World)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

Michael S. Lockett, reporter: “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.”<\/strong> This Farsi (Iranian) language film premiered in 2014, an Iranian-vampire-western in a genre of precisely one. Shot in black and white, it balances a rising background tension as the decision made between heartbeats come home to roost and the naivete of one of the leading characters is sandblasted away. It’s tense, artful, and spooky by moments- a satisfying execution on the vampire myth.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Peter Segall, reporter: “The Shining.” <\/strong>It’s cliche for a Halloween recommendation but Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is an absolute classic. I don’t usually go in for horror, but I love this movie. I know it’s not exactly faithful to the book (never read it) and Stephen King isn’t a fan, but I don’t care. Classic.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

It’s the scene in the bathroom with the former caretaker, Dilbert Grady, played by Philip Stone, that does it for me. “I corrected<\/em> them.” One of my favorite movie scenes of all time.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Dana Zigmund, reporter: “Hocus Pocus” or “Halloweentown.”<\/strong> Both are easy to watch with kids and entertaining enough to keep parents from going crazy. For something more interesting, “Twilight Zone: The Movie” is fun without being too scary. Anything from the “Ghost Busters” franchise will make you laugh and feel festive.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t