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2005-10-30 posted by vic We hit the century mark Today is the 100th update of The Victory Cabal! To recognize this, The Cabal presents its All Halloween edition. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love all the horror movies, from the early Universal days, to the Hammer films, to Carpenter's Halloween. I love the parties and constumes. I love the traditions. I love the horror old time radio shows. I love the books. Of all the holidays, Halloween is clearly the best - with Thanksgiving as a distant second, and that only because of the food. Books You'll notice I've updated the book on the left. Every October, I pull out one of the horror classics and re-read it. This year, I'm reading The Phantom of the Opera. Previous year's books have included Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, and the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant. I recommend them all. War of the Worlds On the night of October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air presented what might be the most famous radio or TV broadcast ever: their adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. A lot of stories and myths have grown up around this broadcast, which makes it difficult to understand just how much panic it caused that night. There is no doubt, however, that the show had a tremendous impact on the psyche of the nation. I listen to The War of the Worlds every Halloween night, as tradition. You can learn more about this broadcast from the Wikipedia, and can download a copy for yourself in .ra or .mp3 from HERE (scroll down about 1/4 of the way, epsiodes of the Mercury Theatre are sorted by date. You might have better luck if you DL the file rather than stream). Video Here's some Halloween fun, courtesy of Salon.com's Audiofile. From the WTF file, here's a video that they describe as "the all-star indie-fest 'Do They Know It's Halloween?'" Next, why not watch Michael Jackson's "Thriller?" This clip is apparently filmed in really-dark-o-vision, but turn up your monitor brightness a tad and it should be ok. I must say that this video does hold up really well, even though the only scary part is Jackson pretending he likes adult women. Finally, go way back with Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me." Theremin Appropriate Halloween movies include not just horror, but science fiction as well. A couple of my favorites for this season are The Thing From Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Not only are these great movies, but they have great soundtracks as well. Fans of 1950s science fiction movies like these can recognize the sound of the Theremin anywhere. But have you ever seen a Theremin bra? Well, now you have. Pumpkin Finally, what could be more Halloween than carving pumpkins? Here are a few images of previous years' efforts: black cat crosses your path ghosts rise from the grave the wolf howls aliens attack