Halloween Candy

Rating:
Summary: Sweets for the Horror Junkie
Review: Halloween Candy is a must for any serious fan of the horror genre. Thomas Sipos not only gives you a taste of several media for the horror tale, he lets you explore horror as art, illustrates horror as culture, describes horror as business, and even gives a rather scholarly framework for distinguishing sub-genres and separating the true horror film from other types of entertainment with which it is often confused. Short stories, essays, and a wickedly clever screenplay combine to amuse and inform. It takes years of hard work and a lifetime of observation to create an anthology such as this, but, like the candy from which it derives its title, it doesn't take you long to get through it because it just tastes so darn good going down.

Rating:
Summary: Sweets for the Horror Junkie
Review: Halloween Candy is a must for any serious fan of the horror genre. Thomas Sipos not only gives you a taste of several media for the horror tale, he lets you explore horror as art, illustrates horror as culture, describes horror as business, and even gives a rather scholarly framework for distinguishing sub-genres and separating the true horror film from other types of entertainment with which it is often confused. Short stories, essays, and a wickedly clever screenplay combine to amuse and inform. It takes years of hard work and a lifetime of observation to create an anthology such as this, but, like the candy from which it derives its title, it doesn't take you long to get through it because it just tastes so darn good going down.

Rating:
Summary: Full of goodies
Review: Halloween Candy is like a candy container after an evening of trick-or-treating. It's chock full of a variety of goodies, of varying sizes, shapes, and flavors. You name it, Halloween Candy has it: several short (short!) stories, numerous essays, an interview, a review, and a screenplay.

Treats include: a dead-on assessment of the current, sad state of the Saturn Awards (with disagreement with the author in only one minor respect: he believes them to be of more importance and influence than does this reviewer); an interview with Jonathan "Barnabas Collins" Frid, from 1986--previously published in an abridged version, here in its entirety; an essay which explores the use of actors as villains in horror films ; a comparison/contrast of the TV series The Night Stalker and The X-Files, and the inspiration of the former on the latter; an essay which tries to define that ever-elusive genre called "horror"; and the previously-mentioned screenplay.

Some elaboration: the interview with Frid, although dated, is interesting. Frid has never had much interest in discussing horror movies or vampires, so hearing his remembrances of Dark Shadows and Barnabas are much fun, as is learning how the actor has kept himself busy since the series folded. Also, the essay defining the horror genre, while a bit lengthy, is informative, well presented, and certain to inspire many heartfelt debates.

But the screenplay is the heart of the book. Halloween Candy (screenplay) is an anthology, relating the fates of four children after they get on the bad side of a witch. Optioned several times, and once almost directed by Tom Savini, I'm perplexed by the fact that it still sits unproduced (the screenplay's lengthy history is detailed in the book's introduction). It is very good, and would certainly make a better movie than some of the fare that somehow does make it to the big screen today.

There are two aspects to the book, however, that I feel are small missteps. One, a review with a title of Haunted Houses In California, actually reviews only a handful. Published in 1997, the information is more than likely dated, and the reader would have to either live in California, or have the means to visit, for the information to be of real value. Second, duplication of material, as one of the longer short stories is a novelization of one of the stories contained in the screenplay.

The above two quibbles, however, are decidedly small and in no way take away from the overall enjoyment of the book.

Halloween Candy, with its mixed bag of contents, has something for everyone. Dig in your hand and you're sure to pull out a treat.