Halloween 2010 at The Sleaze

Well, with Halloween nearly upon us - and the BBC showing several films with 'Halloween' in the title this weekend to ram the point home - I'm happy to say that The Sleaze has completed its cycle of loosely horror-themed stories for October. Haunted House of Horticulture, a story with a title inspired by a late night TV encounter with the dreadful old Tigon movie Haunted House of Horror, and content inspired by my niece's conviction that my mother's house is haunted, despite only being built in 1967 - on the site of an old market garden - was posted on the site the other day. Sadly, so far it hasn't performed anywhere nearly as well as it's two immediate predecessors: That Old Black Magic and Hell's Kitchen. I must admit, that the popularity of the latter story took me by surprise - I had no idea that 'Hell's kitchen' and 'Heston Blumenthal' were such popular search terms. In addition to these new stories, an old seasonal favourite of mine - Hijab Halloween - appears to have resurrected itself, with a surge in traffic to the story over the past few days.

Getting back to Halloween itself, as I previously mentioned, the BBC is seizing the opportunity to stick a load of Halloween movies over the weekend. Unfortunately they're the really shit later ones - they showed the only good ones (and Halloween II) last year. Still. not to worry, I've got my own collection of horror DVDs I bought in Poundland a few weeks ago. I remember that a few years ago Poundland incredibly put out a load of 1970s and 1980s Italian shockers on DVD for Halloween, (including, I'm told, Lost Cannibal World, which I'm sure was once banned in the UK, sadly I was unable to obtain a copy from my branch), this year they've given us an eclectic collection of, mainly public domain, B-movies from the 1940s and 1950s. They include such treasures as The Killer Shrews, (but not, sadly, it's original co-feature, The Giant Gila Monster), and The Brain That Wouldn't Die. I also managed to obtain a copy of Bloodsuckers, the heavily cut down US release version of the demented Incense for the Damned, (although I'm assured that the notorious orgy sequence is included as an extra), from the same source. Anyway, I'll be sitting down to watch a few of these this weekend. So, happy Halloween to you all, and don't come knocking on my bloody door trick or treating - I've got the chainsaw ready for you bastards!