THIS IS HALLOWEEN 2021

Happy Halloween, my spooktacular friends! By now, you know my Halloween traditions include updating my Halloween playlist of movies and TV shows every year.

Part I: Discoveries

The most important discovery I have made this year is the Curious George Halloween TV special called Curious George: A Halloween Boofest (2013). I have been watching the ingenious Curious George TV show and movies this year and this special is one of my favorite George things, Halloween or not. It truly captures the good-natured, spooky and wholesome fun of this time of year and you get to find joy with George as he helps solve the mystery of No Noggin the Scarecrow. It will be on my list from this year forward.

I also finally read Shakespeare's Hamlet this year, so I have been watching the film adaptations. I didn't mean for it to be Halloween festive, but with the darkness and the ghosts involved, it definitely has been perfect for spooky season. I started with the Hamlet (1948) starring and directed by Laurence Olivier. If you're looking for Shakespeare, then you have to start with Olivier. He is the control case for sure. I really enjoyed seeing his version on film.

I also watched another Olivier movie earlier in the month: Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). This movie reminds me a lot of studying it in film school, but it's so fun and atmospheric for this time of year. I also think it's Olivier at his best looking, which never hurts!

I am always interested in discovering classic monster movies that I have yet to add to my "watched" list. I have been wanting to see Horror or Dracula (1958) for a long time so that I could finally witness Christopher Lee playing his iconic Dracula role. I had a hard time getting my hands on a copy that I could rent, but this year, it was finally on TV. I recorded it and finally got to see the first time Dracula was given a seductive twist and elongated fangs. I can't believe how influential this movie was on Dracula lore. Another fun surprise was that a young Michael Gough was in it, who I have never seen in any other role except in the 80s and 90s Batman films as Alfred. Those movies are a big part of my childhood, so it was a delight to see him in his prime.

I also wanted to add some more monster movies to the list and had heard about Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). I think I saw some clips of this duo in school, but I believe this is my first time seeing a film of theirs. I was delighted with all the characters that came together for some zany fun and enjoyed the way they used fun animations alongside the live action. My favorite parts were that they got Bela Legosi and Lon Chaney Jr. there back for their respective roles as Dracula and the Wolf Man.

I happened to see a poster for Margaret O'Brien in The Canterville Ghost (1944) and instantly wanted to watch it. I believe it was a recommendation on Amazon when I'd rented something and the cute poster caught my eye. I haven't read the original Oscar Wilde story that it was based on, but it must be somewhat loosely based on that since this version had major WWII influences on its story. Margaret, as always, was full of personality. So fun to see her interact with all the soldiers who treated her like the lady of the house.

Part II: The TV Classics

As I've been working on digital illustrations and commissions this year, I put on The Addams Family TV show and always enjoy watching that. I also watched some of the Curious George episodes that were fall themed, which were a great way to be festive. Of course, I watched my favorite Monkees episodes, but only the two Halloween ones from the first season.

Part III: The Movies

I found both Addams Family movies on Freeform during the month and even though I have both on DVD, I liked watching them on TV. Tonight, I'll be watching The Little Vampire, as always.

I saw an Instagram post a couple days ago by Jonathan Lipnicki, who starred in The Little Vampire back in 2000, saying it had been 21 years since filming the movie. He shared some memories of being on the set in the caption and I was delighted to have some more information on this movie that has been such a part of my life. I shared the post to my story, along with a sticker that said "emotional" (which is true!), and Jonathan was ind enough to share it to his story. It really made my childhood feel complete.

Below is my complete list for this year! Enjoy your Halloween!

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Halloween 2021 Playlist

TV Shows

Pushing Daisies

- S1 E5, "Girth"

The Monkees

S1 E2, "Monkee See, Monkee Die"

S1 E18, “I Was a Teenage Monster”

S2 E18, “The Monstrous Monkee Mash”

+ bonus: S2 E11, "A Coffin Too Frequent"

The Addams Family

- S1 E7 "Halloween with the Addams Family"

The Munsters

- S1 E1, "Munster Masquerade"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

- S2, E6 "Halloween"

+ all of season 2 if you can handle it

Stranger Things

- S2 E1, "Chapter 1: MADMAX"

- S2 E2, "Chapter 2: Trick or Treat, Freak"

iCarly

- S1 E7, "iScream on Halloween"

- S3 E8, "iBelieve in Bigfoot"

- S6 E4, "iHalfoween"

Spongebob Squarepants

- S1 E13a, "Scaredy Pants"

- S1 E11b, "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost"

- S2 E24b, "Imitation Krabs"

- S2 E34b, "Frankendoodle"

TV Movies

- Curious George: A Halloween Boofest (2013)

- Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. (2018)

- Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. 2 (2020)

- Descendants (2015)

- Descendants 2 (2017)

- Descendants 3 (2019)

Classic Movies

- Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

- Psycho (1960)

Movies

- The Addams Family (1991)

- Addams Family Values (1993)

- Fright Night (1985)

- The Lost Boys (1987)

- What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

- Twilight (2008)

- Phantom of the Opera (2004)

- Edward Scissorhands (1990)

- Sleepy Hollow (1999)

- Warm Bodies (2013)

- E.T. (1982)

- The Little Vampire (2000)

+ bonus: The Little Vampire (2017)

THIS IS HALLOWEEN 2020

It’s that special spooky time of year again, guys and ghouls! One thing that hasn’t changed this year is that I’m still updating my Halloween playlist, as is my yearly tradition. I’ve had a lot more time to spend on discovering new spooky favorites this year.

Have we been watching any of the same things this spooky season? I divided my playlist into categories, and you’ll find the complete list of all my fall favorites at the end of the page.

Part I: Rediscoveries

The most important rediscovery of the year is actually not a rediscovery for me at all. I’ve been a big Twilight advocate for most of my life (and, believe me, in film school, there weren’t many), but what makes the Twilight movies fall in the “rediscovery” category this year is that I’ve never once considered them to be Halloween movies. Sure, there’s vampires, which you’d think would automatically put it in the spooky season category, but I’ve always thought that if we were going to insist on pairing it with a holiday, then, if anything, it would be a Valentine’s Day.

At least, that’s what I thought until this year. The newest Twilight novel came out in August, the much-anticipated Midnight Sun, and spurred a whole new phase of Twilight-mania in our house. I reread all the books, which I have fond memories of carting around to my middle school and high school classes, and rewatched all the movies over the summer. Sometimes, you revisit an old series and find you don’t have much in common anymore. But with Twilight? Yeah, that was not the case.

So, being the Twilight fan that I am, I decided that I would count it as a Halloween movie. After all, the entire first movie is a spooky blue tone. That’s dreary enough to be counted for spooky season for me. And the rest of the movies? Well, they have vampires and werewolves, don’t they? That’s good enough for me.

There’s also two other major film classics I realized I haven’t included on my playlist yet.

First, there’s Psycho (1960). It’s my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie and this year, I was working on a painting of the famous Psycho house when I realized it had been overlooked on my playlist. Time to fix that!

And, second, I always think of Frank Capra movies near Christmas time when it’s time to enjoy It’s A Wonderful Life, but did you know that Capra also has a wonderful Halloween movie, too? I always enjoy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) this time of year. Not only is it set on Halloween, but it’s chock full of graveyards, monsters, serial killings, and insanity. And yet… t it’s also a hilarious, heart-warming adventure.

There are also two more “recent” movies that I wanted to add. And by “recent”, I’m talking about the last twenty years.

Of the two, oldest goes first. It only now occurred to me that one of my favorite movie musicals could be a Halloween movie: The Phantom of the Opera (2004). The Universal horror classic of the same name, made in 1925, regularly gets listed among great Halloween monster movies, but the 2004 musical film? Not so much. But why shouldn’t it be? It’s got all the great qualities to make it a Halloween movie: ghosts, murder, haunted opera houses. You know, that sort of thing. And plus, who can resist a rock opera score like that? That’s the kind of haunting I like best on Halloween.

And second, I recently rewatched Warm Bodies (2013). It was on my mind since the world has seemed more and more like a zombie wasteland recently, so I grabbed the DVD to watch this zombie romance for the first time in several years. I know this movie was released around Valentine’s Day in 2013 because I remember thinking it was an interesting twist on the two genres that usually come out in February: teen romances and horror bloodbaths. The makers of Warm Bodies put both of those together. It was only going to watch half of it, but I found it so engrossing – and the soundtrack so perfect – that I had to watch it all at once. I love it.

Part II: Discoveries

I have a whole slew of spooky new discoveries this year. Here’s a quick overview of all the newbies I’ll be talking about:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) (the movie)

Descendants

Fright Night

Tower of Terror

Vampirina

Disney’s Z.O.M.B.I.E.S.

With DisneyPlus rolling out earlier this year, it was my first Halloween with the streaming service. Recently, I’ve been interested in how musicals are written for younger audiences, which is how I discovered Disney Channel’s original movies, Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. (2018) and Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. 2 (2020). I immediately fell in love with the production design. The costumes and makeup are basically flawless. How do you make a zombie stylish and fun? Check out these movies. They also made me want to dye my hair green (don’t worry, I wouldn’t, but it’s a fun thought). And on top of the production design, there’s all those fun songs and High School Musical vibes. And there’s monsters. It’s like these were made for me. I love the first movie most, but I won’t deny that the second movie has a lot of songs and elements I love, too.

Once I’d watched Z.O.M.B.I.E.S., I was curious about how Disney Channel had gotten to that level of TV musical accomplishment while I was looking the other way. It felt like there was a big gap between my knowledge of the meager beginnings of High School Musical in 2006 and what I’d just seen in Z.O.M.B.I.E.S.

To fill in the gap, I checked out Disney Channel’s other popular TV musical franchise that came between them: Descendants. There’s three of these movies: Descendants (2015), Descendants 2 (2017) and Descendants 3 (2019), and I found them interesting in the same way I enjoyed watching Disney reinvent itself in Once Upon a Time. Plus, for any Disney fan, they’re fun to analyze for all those secret insider Easter eggs, like all the references to the Disney classics we know so well. I think these movies are growing on me, and are also designed beautifully. The hair and costumes are incredible.

Since I’m also interested in TV animation, that lead me to the Disney Junior animated series Vampirina, which reminds me of my favorite Halloween movie, The Little Vampire. I was interested in Brown Bag Films, the company who works on the Vampirina series, so DisneyPlus has given me access to check out the concept and movement animators at Brown Bag are using. I wish I’d had a show like Vampirina when I was little because I still relate to that morbid-but-benign lifestyle quite a bit.

Disney has been a big part of this Halloween. I also watched the 1997 Tower of Terror, a movie which seemed essential since I adore that ride at Disney World. Strangely, it wasn’t on DisneyPlus yet, so I rented the DVD from Netflix. It was an enjoyable showcase for my favorite ride.

As you all know, I love the first three seasons of the Buffy TV show and almost all of the spin-off series Angel, so I added the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie to my Netflix DVD queue a few years ago. No one – and I mean no one – I know, whether Buffy fan or not, has really enjoyed this movie, but it is sort of like a rite of passage if you like the TV show. I gave it a chance - after all, I’m sometimes pleasantly surprised by a movie everyone else is calling bad – but, unfortunately, after watching this one, I have to agree: not a fan of this one. It’s amazing how much better the TV series is right from the start. After watching this, I felt like my brain had melted.

Someone this year mentioned that The Lost Boys (1987), which I love to watch this time of year, was always being compared to Fright Night (1985). I finally rented it, despite it’s scary poster, and found that most of it was absolutely hilarious. I was especially fond of Evil Ed as played by Stephen Geoffreys, whose manic energy reminds me of Mickey Rooney. I also loved the story of a boy who needs his favorite hero from TV to help kill a vampire who lives next door. I loved this one so much that I ordered the DVD just to have for when I want to rewatch it every year.

Part III: The TV Classics

Since I was participating in Inktober on Instagram this year (@ellerylesueur), I would work on my illustrations with the classic The Addams Family episodes playing in the background. It regularly makes me laugh and I love the chance to revisit it whenever I can.

My other TV classics remain part of my playlist, including the four episodes of The Monkees that could be considered spooky-themed. I also love to vouch for the Halloween episode of Pushing Daisies, which is delightfully morbid and sweet to rewatch every year.

I still think that Teen Nick has some of the most fun Halloween content from more recent TV. The Halloween episodes of Spongebob have truly become classics in our house.

Part IV: The Movies

This year was so full of new discoveries that it was hard to make time for my usual movies, though I managed to get in quite a few. The Addams Family movies have been on Freeform constantly. I did get a chance to laugh my way through What We Do In the Shadows earlier this month and that movie always flies by. I revisisted The Lost Boys while I was working on an Inktober illustration of the head vampire, David, as played by Kiefer Sutherland, and I just love that movie’s style and comedy. Of course, like always, you can find me watching The Little Vampire on Halloween night, just like I do every year. It really makes it feel like Halloween.

So how are you spending your Halloween this year? Not only does it fall on a Saturday night, but it’s also a full moon. I hope it’s full of spooktacular fun. Let me know if you’re watching any of the same things as me this Halloween!

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Halloween 2019 Playlist

TV Shows

Pushing Daisies

- S1 E5, "Girth"

The Monkees

S1 E2, "Monkee See, Monkee Die"

S1 E18, “I Was a Teenage Monster”

S2 E18, “The Monstrous Monkee Mash”

+ bonus: S2 E11, "A Coffin Too Frequent"

The Addams Family

- S1 E7 "Halloween with the Addams Family"

The Munsters

- S1 E1, "Munster Masquerade"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

- S2, E6 "Halloween"

+ all of season 2 if you can handle it

Stranger Things

- S2 E1, "Chapter 1: MADMAX"

- S2 E2, "Chapter 2: Trick or Treat, Freak"

iCarly

- S1 E7, "iScream on Halloween"

- S3 E8, "iBelieve in Bigfoot"

- S6 E4, "iHalfoween"

Spongebob Squarepants

- S1 E13a, "Scaredy Pants"

- S1 E11b, "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost"

- S2 E24b, "Imitation Krabs"

- S2 E34b, "Frankendoodle"

TV Movies

- Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. (2018)

- Z.O.M.B.I.E.S. 2 (2020)

- Descendants (2015)

- Descendants 2 (2017)

- Descendants 3 (2019)

Classic Movies

- Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

- Psycho (1960)

Movies

- The Addams Family (1991)

- Addams Family Values (1993)

- Fright Night (1985)

- The Lost Boys (1987)

- What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

- Twilight (2008)

- Phantom of the Opera (2004)

- Edward Scissorhands (1990)

- Sleepy Hollow (1999)

- Warm Bodies (2013)

- E.T. (1982)

- The Little Vampire (2000)

+ bonus: The Little Vampire (2017)

Happy 90th Birthday, Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood was born on May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, California. Since then, he's been one of America's greatest living legends.

To celebrate 90 years of this great American actor, director, and human-being, I compiled a list of my personal top five favorite Eastwood films of all time.

Let's count down to my #1 favorite:

5) Hang 'Em High (1968)

Yeah, it's an American film trying to reap the benefits of Clint's spaghetti western fame, but it's also the first major American Western film that Clint starred in that went to a wider release. It was the first fruits of his new stardom in America. To me, it's kind of an indication of just how quickly Clint shot to fame as a movie star.

4) High Plains Drifter (1973)

This is a dark revenge drama of the western variety, but I love the implied paranormal elements. My favorite westerns always instill some kind of supernatural element to the story. For this film, I love the mystery of who the drifter is and trying to figure out his history. All of the questions make you wonder whether he's human or something else.

1) Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

This one combines all of my favorite things. It's hilarious, action-packed, and manages to be a romantic comedy all at the same time. It's Clint fresh off the success of his other famous Westerns. I have seen this one more times than I can count and it never fails to make me laugh.

3) A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

The film community has ruled that the third movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is the greatest of the famous "Dollars" trilogy. This is one of those rare trilogies where all three movies are fantastic, but for my own personal taste, the first film, A Fistful of Dollars, is my favorite. The reason it takes top spot for me actually has a lot of to with Rawhide. After you watch eight seasons of Clint in black and white, I moved on to watch A Fistful of Dollars. As the first movie where he would have starred in color, I love to think about how Americans would have been able to see him in color and would have had the chance to see a character much more ruthless than Rowdy Yates, who he'd been playing for the last six years. I take color for granted now, but it made me think what a treat it is to have color captured on film.

2) The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

I'm a girl, so naturally, I love this romance movie, which Clint both starred in and directed. It's a great change of pace in his career and appears so effortless despite it being so different. It's surprisingly tender and honest.

1) Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

This one combines all of my favorite things. It's hilarious, action-packed, and manages to be a romantic comedy all at the same time. It's Clint fresh off the success of his other famous Westerns. I have seen this one more times than I can count and it never fails to make me laugh.

+ Honorable mentions: Kelly's Heroes (1970), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)... I've got to stop there, or I won't be able to stop myself form including like 16 more!

Those are my favorite Clint movies, but my all-time favorite Clint Eastwood content is, of course, one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Rawhide. There are 8 entire seasons of Clint starring in his breakout role as the lovable idiot ramrod, Rowdy Yates. It's a lot of fun to watch Clint alongside this fantastic cast and, if you have access to Rawhide at all (likely, you'll have to buy the DVDs), then I would urge you to take advantage of that opportunity to discover a truly compelling drama.

These are my current favorites, but there are so many films which he's either starred in, directed, or both that make his career something special. It will be wonderful to see what Clint does next.

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