Halloween month is here! As usual the next 31 days will be filled with my usual topics PLUS neglected horror films, novels, operas, etc.
Tales of Hoffmann
TALES OF HOFFMANN (1881) – Yes, as if I wasn’t boring enough already I’m also into opera! Now, I know traditionally “the” Halloween Opera has always been Don Giovanni , but I’ve never bought into that notion since there’s really only one scene in the whole opera that qualifies as spooky and supernatural.
At this time of year I prefer Offenbach’s Tales Of Hoffmann. Not only is it full of appropriately eerie and menacing elements, but it’s also the perfect opera for you to share with someone who’s seeing their very first opera.
One of the reasons for that is that it’s in short segments, surrounded by a wraparound opening and finale. Offenbach adapts short stories written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, who in real life was a pre-Edgar Alan Poe author of eerie short stories in his native Austria during the 1800s. At any rate since this opera’s in short segments novices to the artform won’t have time to get bored.
Another reason is that, though the climax of these tales no doubt seemed shocking to the people of Hoffmann’s (or for that matter, Offenbach’s) time period, modern audiences are so used to anthology series’ like The Twilight Zone and Tales From The Crypt, etc that today’s viewers will spot the “twist” endings coming from a mile away. This combats another common complaint of opera novices: that they have trouble following the story. Continue reading
Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. 
Midnight strikes in Paris. An eerie double-decker horse-drawn omnibus bursts forth from the ground and begins making its way through the nearly empty, night-darkened streets. 
THE KINDRED (1987) – This monster movie was the third horror project from the writing and directing team of Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow. 
Rod Steiger, just one year away from his outrageous tour-de-force performance in the slasher film American Gothic (with YVONNE DE CARLO), plays Dr Phillip Lloyd, the villain of the story. The mad Dr Lloyd has been trying his own hand at the kind of research that Amanda Hollins excelled at. To that end he’s been paying an unscrupulous ambulance driver to covertly provide him with accident victims to use as human guinea pigs. 
Balladeer's Blog 