The House of the Rising Sun

 

Jack, Kate, Locke, and Charlie go on a trip to the spring that Jack found to fill some water bottles.  Charlie steps on a beehive and all four of them end up running away after they all get a few stings.  Jack and Kate run into the caves and finds two very old decomposed bodies.  One is male and the other if a female.  Inside a pocket of one of the bodies Jack finds two rocks.  One is a black rock and the other is a white rock.  Locke calls the bodies the island's Adam and Eve.  Later while cleaning some of the wreckage away from the caves Locke tells Charlie he knows who he is.  He recognizes Charlie as a member of Drive Shaft.  Charlie is happy someone recognized him.

 

Back on the beach Jin out of blue attacks Michael for an unknown reason and drags him into the ocean where Jin tries to drown Michael.  Sawyer and Sayid separate the two and Jin is handcuffed to the axle of the landing gear that is part of the plane wreckage.  Michael tells everyone he doesn't know why Jin attacked him.  He says he thinks it's because where Michael comes from people like Jin don't like people with Michael's skin color.  Later after Walt questions Michael he admits to his son that wasn't really true.  Jack informs the rest of the survivors that it is a good idea that they all move to the caves for safety.  Some of the survivors argue that some should stay on the beach in order to keep the signal fire burning and to watch for planes and ships.

 

    

Unlike the title would suggests, this episodes flashback focuses on Jin and not Sun, although she features prominently in the flashbacks as well.  We see that before their marriage Jin was very different towards Sun.  Jin is a loving and caring man who is trying to earn enough money so the two of them can get married.  Jin asks Sun's father for her hand in marriage.  He gives Jin permission to marry his daughter and he also gives Jin a job working for him.  This doesn't prove to be the blessing Jin and Sun thought it would be.  Eventually Jin and Sun move in together into a rather nice place showing that Jin must be making some good money working for his future father in law.  This does come at a price though as Jin becomes a harder and colder man.

 

    Jin, Sun, and Hurley are among the survivors who decide to move to the caves with Jack.  Kate surprises Jack when she tells him she is staying at the beach.  Also staying is Sawyer, Michael, Sayid, Claire, Shannon, and Boone.  At the cave Locke tells Charlie he knows about his drug addiction.  Charlie gives Locke the stash of drugs he has.  Locke goes off on a ramble about the island giving something to Charlie that he really wants but he has to give something up first.  I dunno, then he tells Charlie to look up.  Locke has Charlie believing the island made a trade: the drugs for his guitar which is hanging in some vines above the cave opening.

 

 We see Jin come home, in his flashback, covered in blood.  He goes straight into the bathroom with Sun following close behind.  She is worried but Jin tells Sun the blood isn't his.  Sun doesn't like the man Jin has become and she makes plans to leave him at the airport in Australia.  Ultimately she cannot go through with it though and turns her back on the car that is there waiting to help her make her getaway.  As they check in at the airport Jin gives her a flower just like the flower he had given her when they first started dating years ago. 

 

 

Back on the island we see Michael have an awkward run-in with Sun.  Michael is shocked to learn that Sun can speak English.  She also tells Michael that Jin doesn't know she can.  Sun tells Michael Jin attacked him because he is wearing Sun's father's watch.  Michael says it means nothing to him that he found it in the wreckage.  Michael goes back to the beach with axe in hand and gives Jin the watch back.  Then he uses the axe to chop through the chain on the handcuffs freeing Jin.               

White Rabbit

White Rabbit's flashbacks once again focuses on Jack.  This time taking his back to his early childhood as well as the last few days before the crash.  We see a young Jack being held at bay by some school bullies while one of them attacks his friend.  He goes home and faces his father who we now know from the flashback that the person Jack is seeing on the island is his father.  Jack's father, Christian, tells his son that he doesn't have what it takes to make the tough decisions.  Decisions like his father has to make.  Christian is the head of surgery in a hospital.  Later, Jack now older, is ordered by his mother to go look for his father who has disappeared.  

 

On the island, Jack dives into the ocean to save someone in the water.  He finds Boone and takes him back to the beach.  Boone asks him if he save the woman Boone had went out after.  Jack sees a woman in the ocean as well.  She drowns and Jack is upset that after six days on the island together he never spoke once to the woman.  Once again he sees his father and goes into the jungle to look for him.  Jack falls and nearly tumbles down a cliff but is able to save himself at the last second by grabbing onto some vines.  While this is going on Claire has passed out in the jungle and when Charlie goes to retrieve some water for her he discovers what little water they have left is gone.  

 

 Fingers begin getting pointed as suspicion mounts as to who stole the water.  Sayid and Kate suggest it was Sawyer but it isn't him.  Meanwhile, Jin is still being a little overbearing towards Sun but he is also being very loving towards her.  While Locke is out looking for water he finds Jack hanging from the vines.  Locke pulls him to safety.  The two speak about Jack thinking he is going crazy.  Locke tells him he isn't going crazy but whatever he is chasing he needs to keep going.  He has to get his "White Rabbit" out of his system so he can be the leader the people need him to be.  Locke also mentions to Jack that the island is special and everything that happened has happened for a reason.

 

 

Christian has gone to Australia and even though Jack doesn't want to go after him, Jack's mother says it is the lease he can do for what he has done.  Uh-Oh!  Jack goes to Australia and goes to his father's hotel room.  It's empty of course except his father has left his wallet behind.  Or perhaps he never had a chance to pick it up before he was taken.  Eventually Jack discovers his father is dead and goes to identify the body.  So it's his father's ghost he is seeing on the island?  Later, Jack is at the airport and he is having issues getting his father's body onto the plane at the paperwork doesn't seem to be in order.  Jack looses his shit and yells at the woman at the desk.  We see Jin and Sun also waiting to check in behind Jack. 

 

 

On the island Jack continues to look for his father.  He finds another bunch of wreckage and in that wreckage he finds his father's coffin.  Jack opens the coffin and it is empty.  Besides the coffin though, Jack finds fresh running spring water.  The survivors back at the beach discover that Boone is the one who stole the water.  A few survivors begin pushing Boone around and just as things are about to get real ugly Jack returns.  He gives them the first speech as a leader.  It is his "Live together.  Die Alone." speech.  Honestly, it's a pretty good one.  God, you have no idea how much it pains me to compliment Jack.  Don't worry though I won't do it a lot.    
   

       
   

 

Walkabout

 

At night on the beach Vincent is barking at something he sees in the fuselage.  Jack comments that it's Sawyer who is quick to correct him with: "Right behind ya, jackass.".  Turns out it's a few wild boar.  The next day, Sayid tells Kate he wants to try to triangulate the radio signal to find out where the French woman's signal is coming from as there will be a power supply there.  During an argument with Sawyer, Hurley says they are almost out of food.  Sayid suggests they look for food in the jungle.  Sawyer mocks him over this and has a huge knife flung at him just barely missing his head.  

 

 

Locke, who threw the knife, says they can go hunt for food.  Locke shows the group his ample supply of hunting knives.  The flashbacks follow Locke who we see working in an office.  His adding machine makes the same noise as the monster we heard in the jungle during the pilot episodes.  Randy, the office supervisor, asks John about the walkabout he is planning on going on.  Randy tells John that he can't do a walkabout.  John responds with a line that we hear many times during the course of the show: "Don't tell me what I can't do.".  This of course will mostly be said by Locke but others also say it over the series.  

 

   Back on the island we watch as Michael, Kate, and John go hunting.  Michael tells Kate that Walt's mother died two weeks before the crash.  A boar charges them and injures Michael.  Kate takes Michael back to the beach camp while Locke continues with the hunt.  Charlie takes inventory of his heroin stash and manages to put it away just before Shannon approaches him.  She asks him about fishing and Charlie asks Hurley for help as he thinks catching a fish will impress Shannon.  Charlie and Hurley bond while trying to catch fish.  Elsewhere on the island Claire finds some of Sayid's belongings which includes a photograph of a woman.   

 

 

In the jungle Locke continues with the hunt and comes face to face ... or whatever with the monster.  If you look closely you can just make out the dark image of what we would eventually come to know as the smoke monster.  Claire attempts to gather information on the dead passengers what are still in the fuselage.  She would like to have a memorial service for them and asks Jack for help.  He tells her that that isn't his thing.  Even Sawyer seems a bit sympathetic to her cause as he gives her some of the passengers personal belongings that he has found.  Further down the beach Jack talks to Rose the woman he was sitting next to on the plane.  He tells her about being a doctor and she tells him about her husband.  He tells her about the memorial service they will be having for the dead which will include her husband.  Rose tells him that her husband isn't dead.  

  

Jack sees a man standing under a tree as Kate returns from the hunt and tells Jack that the monster attacked Locke and is "gone".  Jack chases the figure he saw into the jungle and nearly runs into Locke who is coming out of the jungle with a dead boar.  Later that night Claire conducts the memorial service as they burn the bodies of the dead.  Jack, true to his word, does not attend the memorial.  Michael asks Locke about the monster but Locke tells Michael that he didn't see it.  Back in Australia John is told he cannot go on the walkabout due to his "condition".  

 

 In what is the shows first big plot twist as well as being the first point that people site as being the moment they were hooked on the show is when Locke's "condition" is revealed.  As the camera pans back and we see Locke in the guides office for the walkabout we discover he is in a wheelchair.  Locke has been paralyzed for four years yet here on the island he can walk.  Here he is whole again.  At the memorial Locke smiles at the wheelchair knowing he won't be needing it anymore.  Walkabout is still considered today to be one of the best episodes of the entire series and I don't disagree with that notion.    

         

Tabula Rasa

The group that went out to try and send a message with the radio agree not to tell the rest of the survivors about the distress signal that has been repeating for sixteen years.  Sayid has a good quote about hope.  Sawyer calls Sayid "Ahab" and for the first time he calls Kate "Freckles".  Meanwhile Jack is trying to give medical attention to the US Marshall he shows Kate's mug shots to Jack.  Hurley sees them too.  Later, Jack searches the fuselage for any medication that would be useful.  While there he finds Sawyer doing the same thing.  Sawyer tells Jack he's still trying to remain civilized while Sawyer is "in the wild".  Elsewhere on the island Sun finds Jin's suitcase and he tells her she is filthy and should go wash up.  He also tells her he loves her so I guess he gets half a point?

 

The first true flashback episode of LOST is dedicated to Kate. Flashbacks for Tabula Rasa, which translates to "clean slate" meaning everyone gets to start their life over after the crash, gives us a glimpse of how and why Kate was on the plane in handcuffs.  Kate wakes up in a barn in Australia and the farmer, Ray Mullin, decides to hire her on and tells her she can stay for as long as she wants.  Not long after Kate (who is going by the name Annie) attempts to leave the farm and the farmer tells her he will give her a ride to the train station.  Kate is surprised to discover that Ray has turned her in.  He tells her the only reason he did it was for the reward money as he needs it to save his farm.  Kate watches as the familiar US Marshall, Ed Mars, pulls up alongside of them.

 

Back on the island, Kate approaches Mars, who wakes up and quickly tries to attack Kate.  Jack tells Kate that Mars is going to die in a few days if they can't get his infection under control.  Jack says his death will be excruciating Kate asks Jack if he is going to put Mars out of his misery.  Jack tells her that he has seen her mug shot.  Elsewhere on the island, Walt tells Michael that Locke experienced a miracle on the island. Michael yells at Walt about finding Vincent who is missing again.  He tells his son he will go look for the dog as soon as it stops raining.  The heavy rain stops almost immediately after Michael says this.  Michael makes good on his word and goes into the jungle to look for Vincent.  He gets chased by a boar.  Afterwards, Michael has an awkward few moments with Sun after he finds her washing herself in the jungle.    

 

    As time passes Mars continues to get worse and begins to loudly moan and scream in pain.  Some of the survivors are disturbed by this and want Mars to be mercifully put down.  Jack asks Mars what Kate did and he tells Jack he wants to talk to her alone.  Mars tells Jack that he knows that Kate got to him meaning Jack is sympathetic to Kate's situation.In an attempt to escape, Kate purposefully crashes the farmers truck.  The truck rolls down a hill with Kate and Mullins still in it.  After the truck catches on fire Kate drags Mullins to safety costing her a chance to get away.  Mars places her under arrest.  Back on the island Sawyer tries to kill Mars with a bullet to the chest.  Sawyer doesn't handle the mercy killing very well as the shot doesn't kill Mars.  This leaves Jack with the responsibility of finally giving the US Marshall a merciful death.  

 

Locke whittles a whistle he uses to call for Vincent who runs out of the jungle.  Locke tells Michael he found Vincent and tied the dog to a tree so Michael can take the dog to Walt.  Kate tells Jack she wants to tell him what she did to get arrested.  He tells her he doesn't want to know and gives her the "tabula rasa" reasoning.  Oddly enough it was philosopher John Locke who created the idea of the "clean slate" philosophy.  Music plays an important role in LOST and as this episode ends we hear Wash Away by Joe Purdy.  The song plays as we see a montage of the LOSTies all spending quality time together.  Almost a zen moment.  Michael brings Vincent to Walt as Locke looks on a with a menacing and ominous look on his face.        

         
     

The Pilot Parts 1 & 2

 

See that eyeball up there?  That belongs to one Jack Shephard.  A survivor of flight 815 that crashed on an island somewhere in the Pacific shortly after takeoff from Sydney, Australia.  Get used to seeing closeups of eyes in this show.  They do that a lot.  Especially considering this show was on the alphabet network and not the eyeball one.  Looks like CBS missed the boat on that one.  But oh well, let's not leave Jack lying there, we need to talk about him and all the other survivors.  For the most part, I'm going to go by what I see in each episode not what I know now.  Sure there will be times where I will drop a little spoiler for later episodes but it won't be real spoiler-y.  So Jack Shephard wakes up in the jungle and makes his way to a beach where he finds the wreckage of the Oceanic flight that he was on.   

 

 

Jack is force!  He is all over the place helping people, saving people, giving directions to everyone on how to help each other.  Jack is all gas and no breaks.  He never panics, he never questions anything.  A neurosurgeon, Jack goes into hero mode almost instantly.  Something many of the other survivors desperately need.  Who else do we meet?  Well, there's Boone Carlyle an idiot, and his sister Shannon, a total bitch.  As Jack takes a break from his heroic ways he takes a moment away from the crash site to check on his own injuries.  He has a wound on his left side that is bleeding and needs some attention.  Unfortunately he can't do much for it since he can't really reach it.  Lucky for him a rather attractive woman approaches him.  Her name is Kate.  Jack talks Kate into stitching up his wounds.  The writers did a decent job of covering up Matthew Fox's Party of Five tattoo.  Jack tells Kate he allows panic to seep into his consciousness for just five seconds and then keep going.  OK, seems legit, I'll go with it.

 

   We also meet Charlie, Sayid, Hurley, Claire (who is pregnant), Michael and his son Walt.  LOST is told in two different timelines in that we see what happens after the crash but we also see parts of each survivor's life before the crash in flashbacks.  Some flashbacks go back years while others are more recent.  In the first set of flashbacks we see the survivors on the plane before it crashed.  Jack is sitting next to a woman named Rose.  She tells Jack her husband is in the bathroom.  We see Charlie rush past Jack on his way to the bathroom as well.  Back on the island we see Kate take some boots from a dead guy while another survivor gives her an orange-y smile.  We would later go on to find out his name is John Locke.  The first night after the crash we hear something big making a loud noise.  Something big enough to make large trees shake and bend.  It also shows up the next day.  There's also a yellow Labrador retriever named Vincent running around with the survivors who turns out to be Walt's dog.    

  

 

Jack, Kate, and Charlie go on a search for the cockpit in order to find a transceiver which is just a fancy name for a walky-talky.  Charlie brags about being in a rock band named Drive Shaft.  The trio is able to find the cockpit and the pilot (Greg Grunberg who would go on to play a bigger part in the show Heroes) is still alive.  He tells them that the plane turned around six hours into the flight due to radio failure.  This resulted in them being a thousand miles off course so any rescue team is looking in the wrong direction.  The pilot is then snatched from the plane by whatever is in the jungle.  There is blood everywhere.  Kate takes off running and hides in a bunch of trees.  While there she uses Jack's five second rule.  They eventually find the pilot high up in a tree now dead.

 

 

Back on the plane we see Boone and Shannon are in first class as Charlie runs past them.  While in the bathroom Charlie, who is now being chased by crew members, takes heroin from his shoe and attempts to flush the toilet but before he can the plane crashes.  We then see the real reason Charlie went to the cockpit was to get his drugs back.  We meet two other crash survivors who are from Korea and do not speak English.  The husband, named Jin, seems very controlling forcing his wife to button the top button on her shirt while Michael is trying to communicate with her.  Michael is trying to find Walt who has found a set of handcuffs.  Sawyer, a somewhat racist redneck fights with Sayid who is from Iraq.  Sawyer is quick with the nicknames, insults, and likes to say "son of a bitch" a lot.  He calls Hurley "Lardo" which is the first official nickname (insult) he uses and accuses Sayid of crashing the plane.  We see a rivalry form between Jack and Sawyer early on with Sawyer calling Jack the big hero.  While speaking to Sayid, Hurley finds out Sayid fought in Desert Storm but not on the American's side.  

 

 

Sayid works on the radio they got from the cockpit and suggests they try to use in while on higher ground as the battery in the radio is low.  We see Jin offer food to Hurley before giving any to his wife.  In a sign of protest his wife whose name is Sun unbuttons the top button on her shirt again.  Kate, Sayid, Charlie, Shannon, and Boone all decide to go on a hike to see if they can get a signal with the radio.  Sawyer, after reading a letter he has watched them leave and decides to join them.  Walt sits down and tells John Locke that his mother recently passed away.  John tells him he's having a bad month.  John explains the game of backgammon but it seems like he's talking about more than just a game.  "One is light.  One is dark.".  He then asks Walt if he wants to know a secret.  For the first time since crashing, Claire feels her baby kick and shares the moment with Jin who is awkward about it in a fairly funny moment.    

 

Sawyer and his group encounter a polar bear which just happens to be on a tropical island.  Huh?  "Guess what?  I just shot a bear!".  I'll point out some good lines when I remember to and that is one of the lines that has stuck with me still to this day.  While Sawyer tells Shannon how he got the gun he calls her "Sweet Cheeks" which is the dumbest name I have ever heard and don't know how anyone could ever like being called that.  Now, where was I?  Back on the plane we see that Kate was the person in the handcuffs who was brought onto the plane by a US Marshall.  The Marshall is where the gun came from that Sawyer had and he's also the man that Jack is trying to save on the beach with shrapnel buried in his side.  Jack tries to remove it with Hurley's help; well, Hurley's there, anyway.  Not sure how much help he really was.  The radio group finally get the radio to work but cannot transmit a distress signal due to another message already broadcasting on a loop.  The message is in French that Shannon manages to roughly translate as "Please help me.  Please come get me.  I'm alone now.  Please someone come.  The others are dead.  It killed them.  It killed them all.".  Sayid estimates that if the counter counting how many times the message transmits is correct it has been transmitting for more than sixteen years.  Charlie asks what we are all asking at this point: "Guys, where are we?".         

    
  

      
       
 

Dude ...

 

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there once was a TV show named LOST.  It was about a bunch of people who survived a plane crash on a mysterious island somewhere in the Pacific.  To say I was obsessed with it would be an understatement.  At the same time a few people I knew, including my doddily doo Cerpts over at The Land of Cerpts and Honey were in the Bloggersphere.  Now I liked to read all the blogs but I couldn't comment on them (at least not anonymously anyway) without signing up for a blog myself.  So I decided to make one.  Now this was long before The Man Hole was ever a thing.  I had first heard about LOST while listening to a local Philadelphia radio show that did a LOST recap every morning after the latest episode aired.  I didn't hear them discuss the first season at all but I did hear them talking about the ending of the first season.  This was the late summer just before the second season began to air in the fall of '05.  I enjoyed the show and named my blog after the show.  The blog was called The Dharma and Greg Project .  You can check it out if you want.  I post a lot of nonsense early on in the blog and then after a while it's pretty much just LOST.  My episode recaps didn't start until the season three finale I believe it was.  Either way, the point is, I told you that so I could tell you this:  my final post concerning LOST was fifteen years ago this very day.  So guess what I'm doing?  That's right I'm doing a LOST re-watch.  Those of you who have never seen the show you might wanna give it a go.  It's on Netflix, yes the entire run of the show, but I'm not watching that I have the entire show on blue ray which contains way more material than Netflix offers but for someone new to the show it's enough.  Now for those of you who were with me in the beginning, there is no way I can do the same in depth posts like I did back then.  I just don't have the energy for it and my hands won't allow me to type all of that again.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to recap many of the episodes (especially the ones I never did in the first place) just not as painstakingly as I did back then.  Anyone that was with me for the original ride knows how much there was then.  It still exists in my minds eye and to quote someone I was never very fond of but am completely on board with, well on this one thing anyway, I agree when he said "We have to go back!".  And back I am going.  Join me, won't you, Freckles?

 

  

Final Transmission

 I've had this transmission for a few days now but I held back from posting it as I'm not sure if there is any reason to continue the contact.  But for completions sake I have decided to post it after all.  Not sure where we go from here but I'm hoping to figure something out soon.  Again, thanks for reading and I appreciate your loyalty as I hope you appreciate mine.

 

Final Transmission    

Second Transmission

 

 While there has not been a transmission for over ten years, the last one was received on April 8th, 2015 at 16:23 (and forty two second to be exact), last week there was something other than the normal static for the monitors to report.  Now, less than a week later, there has been another transmission.  This one was longer and clearer but we still do not know what it infers.  A formal investigation is expected to begin soon.  Of course when we here at this monitoring station know more we will be sure to inform whoever is still vigilant.  With more fervor than I have had in these past few years, I implore you to check back soon as we hope to have even more encouraging news.  Here now is the latest activity:

 

Second Transmission   

 

 

Something Weird Is Happening

For years I have remained vigilant.  Constantly monitoring even when the most faithful have long given up.  And then, late last night or early this morning really, I received this:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qFSTBXSzpa_xwOn0L3Q-AY3mxpKIqIfC/view?usp=drive_link

 

 

Hopefully it plays when you click the link.  It's some new Blogger crap trying to get rid of audio files.  As soon as I know more, you will know more.  

 

 

2024 Countdown To Halloween Blog-A-Thon - That's A Wrap!!

 

 

Well, it seems that the old adage concerning good things coming to an end is true even for things that aren't so good.  It is time for the crypt door to close once more and all the creeps and ghouls to crawl back into their tombs.  I want to thank all the roaming spirits that came by for a visit.  Some in silence and some made their voices heard.  I thank you all for it is your energy that causes me to look forward to next year when we will rise from the grave once again.  Until we dance together again in the moonlight, I wish you all a Happy Halloween.  May your costume always look as good on you as it did in your head before you put it on and cheers to all your candy bars be full sized!  Happy Haunts!

 

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

 

I’m  not sure if Something Wicked This Way Comes is the best story about what boyhood in October is like but it feels exactly what it felt like for me when I was a boy looking forward to Halloween.  Add in a dark foreboding carnival and it’s an automatic classic.  I’m talking about the book by Ray Bradbury of course, not the film.  Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the movie before.  I mean I almost had to, but I don’t remember a thing about it.  The book was on the mandatory summer reading list back when I was in middle school.  Yes, I went to one of those middle schools that gave summer homework.  You had to read a book from a list they provided over the summer vacation.  Then you had to write a book report on it that was due on the second day of classes when school resumed in September.  I’m not sure which grade I did this for, I want to say seventh so that would have made me twelve years old.  The boys here are fourteen, so the ages are comparable.  They don’t look or act like fourteen, but we’ll just go with it. 

 

 

Right away the movie does a great job of capturing what October is, especially in an area of the country (I’m in the northern part of the USA) that has similar weather to what we see depicted here.  The winds turn chilly, the leaves change color, the shadows lengthen, and thoughts turn to pumpkins, ghosts, goblins, and of course candy on Halloween night.  Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplay for the film which took a long road on the way to being made.  Believe it or not Bradbury originally wrote a screenplay all the way back in 1948.  How is that possible when the original book wasn’t published until 1962, you might ask.  Well, he had a short story titled Black Ferris which he turned into the screenplay.  When the screenplay was not picked up by any studio, he turned it into a novel that was then published.  Jack Clayton, who specialized in making movies based on books, asked Bradbury to write a screenplay to make Something Wicked into a movie.  Clayton’s body of work also includes The Great Gatsby and The Innocents.  The film was eventually picked up by Disney Studios who were then trying their hand at more mature live action films instead of the animated films they had made their reputation on. 

 

 

Production of the film suffered through many rewrites, reedits, scenes added, scenes deleted, a new beginning, a different ending, you name it, the production of this movie was hit with just about everything a film can be hit with.  Let’s talk about the stars of the film a bit.  Starring as the two boyhood friends Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are child actors Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson of which neither went on to do much else.  They both serve the film well and their performances are more than adequate although Peterson’s turn as Halloway is just a notch better for me than Carson’s Nightshade.  The boys, who were born a minute apart on Halloween, live next door to each other and are best friends.  They live in Green Town Illinois which is as close to calling it Anytown USA as you can get.  Jason Robards (Once Upon a Time in the West, All the President’s Men, and Philadelphia) is Charles Halloway, Will’s father.  Diane Ladd (Chinatown, Wild at Heart, and Christmas Vacation) is Jim’s mother Mrs. Nightshade.  Now as I already mentioned a carnival is coming to the small town.  Why the hell is a carnival coming around in late October?  That seems weird. 

 

Oh, and weird it is!  The carnival is run by a sinister man who goes by the name of Mr. Dark.  Dark is portrayed by Johnathan Pryce (Brazil, Evita, and The Pirates of the Caribbean film series) and played damn near perfectly.  As it has been more than a couple decades since I last read the novel, I will say Dark always gave me an incredible sense of impending doom which is captured here right out of the book and placed neatly on my screen.  Mr. Dark scared me then and he scares me still.  Also starring as the almost just as creepy Dust Witch is Pam Grier.  Grier of course is a favorite of mine having appeared in Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Jackie Brown.  This is her second appearance in the 2024 Countdown to Halloween as she previously was in Pet Sematary Bloodlines.  The Dust Witch is one of Mr. Dark's assistants at the carnival.  Almost immediately after the carnival comes to town and is set up overnight, they have a parade in town to mark their arrival.  Mr. Dark offers some of the troubled townspeople an answer to their prayers.  He makes an old teacher young, a former football star turned amputee is given back his arm and leg, and even Jim’s mother is tempted by the thoughts of her estranged husband coming back to her. 

 

Only these granted wishes all come with a price.  Will, Jim, and Will’s father must ignore Dark’s temptations and overcome the evil carnival from taking them for its own.  Also starring as Tom Fury, a lightening rod salesman is Royal Dano (Killer Klowns From Outer Space and Messiah of Evil) who you can count on to bring a little something special to his role every time.  Well, OK, maybe not every time as he plays his role fairly straight forward here.  Not everything is to be praised here as I have a bit of a gripe about the music.  First, the music that ends up being in the film isn’t the original score recorded for the film.  What we get is just two different pieces of music that are played throughout the film.  One of the pieces of music sounds almost exactly like the Imperial March from the Star Wars film franchise.  While I like the music, every time I hear it, I expect to see Darth Vader walk into the scene. 

 

 My only other gripe is some of the effects look rather cheap.  I know a lot of the special effects that were filmed ended up on the cutting room floor but what is left in the film nearly looks like animation overlaid on the film.  I also have to give it a little leeway in that the film is forty years old.  I also have a bone to pick with Disney studios.  When they first discussed the film with Bradbury and Clayton, they made it clear they wanted a film that was more mature, darker, and sophisticated than their usual animated cartoon films.  Then they see the dailies and tell Carson it’s too dark, they want it to be more family friendly.  Excuse me?  WTF is that?  Make up your mind.  That move cost months and thousands of dollars.  And what they ended up with Bradbury didn’t very much like calling it a “nice” film.  Other than that, I have nothing to complain about and now I want to read the book again to see if this movie is as good as I think it might be.  In the meantime, I will give this three and a half hall of mirrors out of five, after I read the book I might have to up the score but this feels right for now.