Ah, October!

Well, you know I was resisting the end of summer, but now I'm on board for October.

I love the tree that's in front of our house.

I love how excited I get about cooking! I want to make butternut squash pie, and squash curry, and bake pumpkin cookies, and make soups and stews, and bake bread. After a hot summer of cold meals and salads, I am always ready for hot, homey food in October.

My other October love, which you may already know, is SCARY MOVIES!!!! I love to watch them all month long. This year, I started with zombie movies.

1. 'Shaun of the Dead.' This is pretty much a British spoof of a zombie movie, but it is awesome. At the beginning, the zombies haven't even come into existence yet, but we see the people in the city as zombies, going through their boring lives without noticing anything, and living in a daze. This is absolutely an homage to George A. Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' series. Romero liked it so much that he let the two stars of it make cameo appearances AS ZOMBIES in the newer 'Dead' movie: 'Land of the Dead.'



2. The original, 1968 'Night of the Living Dead.' I love this movie so much. One thing I love about all the Romero 'Dead' movies are that the hero is always a black man. In the 60s, that was very unexpected. The black man is always the bravest, most levelheaded, and smartest person there. He is completely disinterested in, even disgusted by, the white woman. This totally undermined all the racist expectations of the 60s. The older, white man is the biggest jerk, the most selfish, the least courageous, and the one with the worst judgment.

This movie begins with a brother and sister in a cemetery, putting a wreath on their long-dead father's grave. A man comes lurching slowly toward them, and Johnny teases Barbara, who is freaked out in the cemetery. "He's coming to get you, Bah-bah-rah! They're coming for you, Bah-bah rah!" in an ominous voice. Well, that lurcher IS coming for her! He grabs her, and Johnny has to fight him off. Once the zombie gets Johnny's glasses off, it's all over for him. In 'Shaun of the Dead,' the two guys are going to rescue Shaun's mom, so they call her up to tell her they're coming. "We're coming to get you, Barbara!" yells Ed. :)

There is a great scene near the end of 'Night' with a little child zombie! Kids are so great in horror movies. They can always take the creepy up a level or two!



3. 'Dawn of the Dead.' Now it's 1979, and the zombies are coming (but it doesn't carry on as if they've come 11 years before -- it's like: what would happen if they came in 1979 instead of 1968?) So, our human protagonists are two white guys, a white woman, and a black man. The men are two military members and a pilot, so they're able to stay pretty calm and make strategies and use weapons.

They decide to hole up in a shopping mall, which were kind of new then. Zombies are flocking there, since they vaguely remember loving to shop. They just want to do things that they like, and also kill people and eat their flesh.

The humans find a way to live safely for months, and they VERY much enjoy stealing tons of stuff from the mall, until a traveling army of humans comes and wants to pillage the mall. But first, the army plays with the zombies. They steal a zombie woman's jewelry, which makes her scream instead the usual "unnh." They find cream pies and throw them in zombies' faces! They spray them with seltzer! What the heck, Romero? This one is obviously a jab at Americans for being so consumption-driven, so why the slapstick comedy?

My favorite zombies are a nurse, who keeps her little white hat on her head and CLEAN for months, and the Hari Krishna monk who tries to kill the human woman. I love the zombies riding the escalators up and down, and trying to ice skate. I love the zombie who goes to the pay phone, picks up the receiver, and then just looks at it sadly.

This one has a brief appearance by TWO zombie kids, taking it up a notch.

I'll be back with more movie-watching updates soon.