Halloween Is Over

From John Ireland's lilac-tinted turtleneck in HOUSE OF THE SEVEN CORPSES to Keir Dullea's interestingly textured forest-green turtleneck in BLACK CHRISTMAS, which also contained seven corpses, more or less (the movie did, not the turtleneck), our annual Halloween Film Festival had so many turtlenecks - two of them, in fact, and - as any Halloween film festival must - so much John Carradine. Yes, the old Halloween Film Festival surely careened between some dramatic ups and downs this year. It concluded last night when Dr. Theresa and I went over to Megan Abbott's place to avoid the trick-or-treaters and watch DRACULA'S DAUGHTER in a double feature with Megan's pick, the aforementioned BLACK CHRISTMAS, which had a cat in it, one of those cats that make you say, when

watching a horror movie, "Oh no! Something is going to happen to that cat!" and I said it aloud, and something indeed seemed to happen to the cat, but not long afterward the cat was seen fondly nuzzling a corpse, whereupon Megan Abbott brightly chirped, "See? Nothing happened to the kitty." (See also.)