31 Days of Halloween { guest author + giveaway } Katie MacAlister
Today we are joined by author Katie MacAlister, who shares with us her fave films and books that get her in the mood for Halloween. Be sure to stick around after reading for a chance to win her latest book, Much Ado About Vampires, and to answer her questions :)
I love Halloween, although I don’t do much to celebrate it, since I live in the boonies with no trick-or-treaters on my unlit, no-shouldered country road. Other than a pumpkin or two, I celebrate Halloween with a month long monster-fest, of the movie variety.
But I don’t want any of those newfangled horror movies, no thank you! People popping out of nowhere to make you jump out of your seat…blood and gore splashed everywhere…oddly dislocated Japanese people lurching out of TVs…none of that is for me.
I’m a die-hard black-and-white classic monster movie fan. Give me Frankenstein! Give me the original Dracula! Give me Abbott and Costello meeting the Mummy! Give me every single cheesy, campy b&w monster movie you can find, and I’m a happy, happy cowpoke. And if that movie has received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, then I’m doubly happy (I do love the MST3K monster and sci-fi movies. They satisfy my need to poke fun at movies that are quite often poking fun of themselves).
In addition to the monster movies, I also love to watch old mystery movies during the month of October. One of my favorites is a Vincent Price/Agnes Moorehead movie called The Bat. That movie fulfills my cravings for spooky houses, deranged murderers (who never spill a drop of blood on screen), and a twist at the end that keeps you guessing. And how can you go wrong with Vincent Price, not to mention Agnes Moorehead as a mystery writer?
I’m also prone to reading a few mysteries around Halloween, but like my movie viewing habit, the mysteries I read are all old ones, usually Georgette Heyer mysteries. My favorite Halloween fare is Footsteps in the Dark, which is set in a gloomy old house, and has a wickedly funny secondary character whose droll comments never fail to entertain me.
The last thing I do for my Halloween celebration is to dip into my favorite vampire books. Christine Feehan, Lynsay Sands, Amanda Ashley…I line up all their books in a row, and go through an annual re-read-a-thon that I know will make me swoon, giggle, and desperately wish for a vampire all my own. Ah, if only we could bring fiction to real life.
So, what do you do to celebrate Halloween? Are you a “stay at home and watch monster movies” fan like me, or do you get out there and mingle with all the other ghosties and ghoulies?
Giveaway
