This week’s Monday Morning Movie Review is a double feature: I’m reviewing the comedy-horror flicks House (1986) and the even goofier sequel House II: The Second Story (1987). While the films share a name and both take place in odd houses, the two storylines are completely independent of one another.
It’s a late Lazy Sunday today. A very long homecoming weekend at school, followed by a Saturday spent at the South Carolina State Fair and a University of South Carolina football game, has me behind on the blog a bit. As soon as I churn this post out, it’s straight to writing comments for report cards. So much for a day of rest.
But I digress. For the first time since Lazy Sunday CXXV, I’m back with more movie review retrospectives. It’s fun (for me, at least) to go back through these movie reviews; I’ve written so many of them, I’ve started forgetting which movies I’ve reviewed!
This week we pick up where we left off ten Sundays ago with another three flicks:
That’s it for this week’s belated Lazy Sunday. Enjoy the rest of this quiet day!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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It has long been the position of this blog that Halloween gets a bad rap, especially from the Christian Right. The holiday’s association with deviltry, witchcraft, and the occult is, of course, difficult to deny, but the holiday’s name is an abbreviation of “All Hallow’s Eve”; that is, the evening before All Saints’ Day on 1 November.
Granted, the Internet atheists will claim the roots of Halloween in Samhain, the Gaelic festival of the harvest. They are not wrong, per se—the influx of Irish immigrants into the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought a peculiarly Celtic flavor to the holiday. But the holiday is a Christian, specifically a Catholic, one—the Irishmen bringing tales of Jack O’Lantern and his carved turnip (it would only later become a pumpkin) were not ancient pagans, but among the most devout believers in Europe.
Certainly the medieval Catholic Church had a habit of taking pagan holidays and replacing them with Christian observances. For some reason, Internet atheists always use these replacements as examples of Christianity’s secretly pagan roots. The argument is ludicrous.
When Hernan Cortez destroyed the Aztec temple at Tenochtitlan and built a cathedral in its place, was he honoring the bloodthirsty Aztec gods? Or was he symbolically noting that The Holy Trinity had displaced the false gods and idols of the Aztecs? It is almost certainly the latter. Similarly, when Christians took existing pagan observances and replaced them with Christian ones, they were symbolically and practically demonstrating the victory of Christ and His Church over pagan gods.
Indeed, much of the American Protestant objection to Halloween must have been due to its associations with the Papists, rather than the Devil. The mischievousness of the holiday in the twentieth century, especially the concept of trick-or-treating, probably has more to do with its more sinister modern associations.
But the latest assault on Halloween is coming from a different quarter. No longer are conservative Christians alone in hedging their bets on the holiday.
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One of my favorite aspects of blogging is discovering new writers—either those just starting out or, as is more frequently the case, those writers who are new to me. Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of discovering one such writer, whose blog and, I take it, pen name is Whipped Owl.
It’s that time of year again—the so-called “spooky season,” when Halloween decorations go up, scary stories get told, and overwrought bloggers with delusions of grandeur stage over-the-top concerts from their front porches (well, maybe that last one is just me). As the weather turns cool and the leaves begin to fall, it’s almost impossible not to settle in with some hot coffee and a good collection of ghost stories.
So, for the second year in a row, I’m looking back this TBT to 2019’s “On Ghost Stories,” a post that now will hold the distinction of being a perennial favorite.
One might think that as scary as the real world is, we’d spend less time reading spooky fiction. It seems the opposite is the case. Perhaps the idea that malevolence is not necessarily the result of human frailty, but rather due to wicked supernatural influences, is oddly comforting. That evil is the result of our fallen nature—and, of course, the malignant supernatural influence up on it—is a bit easier to forget, perhaps, when reading about some ghostly figure wreaking havoc in the English countryside.
More likely, it’s just that we enjoy being scared—when we can easily flip off the television or close the book. Horror is fun when there are no real consequences attached to it. Then again, just watching horror movies probably isn’t healthy (I’ll report back if I suddenly get any macabre urges).
Well, whatever the reason, a good ghost story is hard to pass up. With that, here is “TBT: On Ghost Stories“:
As I noted in various updates about delayed posts, I was back in Athens, Georgia this weekend. On the way over Friday, my GPS routed me a different way than usual, apparently due to a massive wreck on I-20.
The rerouting took me off I-20 at Lexington, South Carolina, taking me through painfully slow traffic in the bustling county seat before spitting me out on US-378 West, which wended its way towards the Upstate.
I then hit US-178 West towards Greenwood and Abbeville, transferring to various State roads. I eventually ended up on SC-72, heading through Calhoun Falls at the South Carolina-Georgia border.
At that point, SC-72 became GA-72, which took me through Elberton and Comer, Georgia, before depositing me in Athens.
As many of my readers are not from South Carolina—or even from this country!—let me translate that for you: I went through a lot of small towns in very rural parts of South Carolina and Georgia.
Well, it’s not quite morning, and I’m still playing catch-up after a weekend of indolence and ice cream, but but I’m eking out this Monday “Morning” Movie Review for your daily delectation.
I often review films that I like, or about which I can say something positive. This week’s film, In the Earth (2021), is one that I cannot recommend to most viewers, but one I nevertheless enjoyed.
Today’s Monday Morning Movie Review will be a bit delayed. It was a long drive back from Georgia, and with preparations for the week, I did not have time or energy to craft a compelling movie review.
I’ll also be getting caught up on this weekend’s SubscribeStar Saturday, thought it likely won’t be until midweek.
The tempo of work, lessons, and other obligations have made it difficult to keep up with the blog this weekend, and this week is looking to be a doozy. Rest assured, though, that I’ll get back into the regular schedule as soon as possible.
Happy Monday!
—TPP
Well, I’ve finally gotten enough new editions of Supporting Friends Friday to do another retrospective. This weekend’s posts include the most recent three editions, and they’re all writers:
Well, that’s it for another Lazy Sunday. Here’s hoping yours is relaxing, too!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
