Decon Theed’s Halloween Mood Corner-Of-A-Desk

Dio first introduced me to Matt of Dinosaur Dracula back in his X-Entertainment days, and by proxy, she introduced me to the idea of a Halloween Mood Table. The basic idea is that you set aside a table, big or small, and turn it into a little shrine to all things booky to help keep your Halloween Spirit up. This is the first year I've tried it myself, and given that time not spent banging out the tunes should really be spent doing the job I'm paid for (writing terribly exciting blurbs for an online games retailer and editorials for a Kitchen wholesaler), it was absolutely imperative that my Mood Table be situated where I needed it most; my “office”. As such, I kept things reasonably concise, but was able to fit in a nice, varied assortment of stuff from my collection of scattershot nerd guff.

First up, we got some books and DVD’s acting as the support base for the little corner. That “Totally Unauthorised” guide book for the first Resident Evil by Brady Games has been knocking about for some time, and no doubt served me well in the past (back when I was too thick to not realise you poisoned that damn plant to get the much-needed Shield Key, and thus never got very far). Though the quality of the films is a little shaky at points, like most of its ilk, I still have a great fondness for the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise- New Nightmare especially is a highly underrated gem, and I will gladly die on that anthill thank you very much- and thus the boxset remains a permanent fixture of my collection. Though I imagine it’s unknown to most audiences outside of the UK, Ghost Watch is a dramatised version of the Ghost Hunter show formula- arguably the progenitor for it, too- that managed to hoodwink the entire nation so badly that it had a decade-long embargo on public broadcast placed on it; it was legitimately that unsettling despite the low-budget and lack of gore, and comes highly reccomended. You can check it out HERE. Seth Grahame-Smith’s How To Survive A Horror Movie was a birthday gift from Dio a few birthdays ago, and is a thoroughly entertaining read that hits that sweet spot between lampooning the cliches and shortcomings of horror movies, but without being mean spirited or hateful out of it. Another anthill I’m more then happy to die on is that the Hellsing TV Anime from 2003 is, for all it’s rough spots, my favourite incarnation of the franchise as a whole, with one of the greatest soundtracks ever soundtrack’d, and an amazing atmosphere that never lets up throughout the whole thing. And finally, we have Candyman, my single favourite horror movie of all time, that ALSO boasts an incredibly well crafted atmosphere, one of the finest scores to a horror film ever (courtesy of veteran composer Phillip Glass), and a performance by Tony Todd as the titular Gentleman of a Confectionery Nature that is two parts captivating, and eight parts terrifying.

I love me a bit of classic Doctor Who, and I especially love me a bit of the Sylvester McCoy era of classic Doctor Who, in part because the stories from his final two years were pretty fantastic, and because of the masterful performancesfrom the man in the role of the Doctor’s Seventh incarnation (and an equally masterful performance from Sophie Aldred in the part of his companion Ace). Ghost Light was the first real bit of classic Who I sunk my teeth into- one hell of a way to dive into the series, to say the least- and remains a firm favourite with me, balancing grim Victorian spooks with some seriously high concept Sci Fi (for the telly, anyway).

My corner simply would not have been complete without my copy of the Japanese version of Splatterhouse 2, originally bought by accident many years ago yet still deeply treasured, in no small part for it’s absolutely phenomenal box art (which dwarfs the utterly woeful art used for the European and American releases). Next to it rests the Sega Saturn port of The House Of The Dead, a game that by now most anyone that knows me knows I absolutely fucking adore- that is, the arcade original. I adore the arcade original. The Sega Saturn port is, shall we say, a little bit flawed. Ironically, it’s the Western releases of the port- especially the American version- that are the rarest, meaning that getting a replacement case and manual for this thing is going to be an absolute bloody nightmare. They’re resting atop my trust Predator light gun, a neat little blaster that by way of wiring trickery has pin outs for both the Playstation and Sega Saturn control ports, meaning it can be used with either, just on the offchance I need to give my trigger finger some well deserved exercise.

I’ve had this toy of the Baby Alien from Alien: Resurrection since I was a child, and I don’t really know how or why. I don’t even remember enjoying the film that much when I caught it as a kid. Whatever the case, the thing honestly looks miles better then the actual Baby Alien in the film did, and the molding of his hands makes it look like he’s Bigging Me Up™ for spinning some real Rude Bwoy platters, so I’m happy to keep him around.

Finally, we have some selections from my expansive music collection sitting loudly and proudly atop my Singles racks. It was actually fairly hard to pick from my few explicitly horror themed CDs, but in the end I settled on the fantastic D2 Remixes album, containing reworked versions of tunes from Kenji Eno’s seminal semi-philosophical survival horror game for the Dreamcast by artists like Hardfloor, Coldcut, and DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid (a fantastic and appropriate name, I think you’ll agree); the first in the Rotterdam Techno Is Hard Hard Hard!! series of compilations put out by the legendary Japanese label Avex Trax- for the uninitiated and non-anoraks among you, Rotterdam Techno was a harder spinoff of early techno that originated in the city of the same name, yet became more popular in Japan then anywhere else- that I’m including partially because of the gloriously gory cover art, and partially because it has this song on it which means it totally counts; and last but not least, we have the soundtrack to Ghostbusters II, which barring the still-pretty-decent-but-not-even-close-to-the-original cover of the theme by Run D.M.C. is better then the first films selection of tunes, in my incredibly biassed opinion. The first film had a song by The Thompson Twins in it, but you know what song it DIDN’T have? FLIP CITY. Any film that doesn’t have Flip god damn City in it is a worse film for it.

And, as a bonus, this grim faced feller is watching over me as I type my way through the season, bringing with him the ballsy boast that his game is “so profitable it’s SCARY!”. I mentioned above that I’m a big fan of The House Of The Dead, but I neglected to mention that I’m one of those “big fans” that would gladly pay money for the promotional flyers that would have been distributed to arcade owners back when the game originally came out in 1996 and then frame one of them, because I have never known and will never know the loving touch of another human being.

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the strange things I fill my time with~

~ Decon (14/10/15)