If you're creepy and you know it, clap your hands!
Vol. 32.
Holiday Horror!
The holidays are a time of cheer, but who's to say what makes everybody cheerful? Doesn't have to be an ugly sweater or candy canes, you might be someone who gets the warm fuzzies from a fright. Read on to find books and movies that defy a silent night, because you'll be left wide awake and whimpering.
Merry Scary Books:
1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Yep, we're starting with the original Christmas horror. British Christmas traditions include ghost stories, so Dickens published the Big Daddy of Christmas Stories in 1843, at the height of his popularity. And boy, does this tale of a mean-spirited man who is visited by the ghost of his late business partner, then by three Christmas ghosts, fit the horror bill. Scrooge sees restless spirits, is taken to his own grave, is shown the consequences of his parsimony, and witnesses the happiness his death brings to those around him. We've all seen a movie version of this story, but do read the book. Dickens was a great wordsmith.
2. Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer
This story of young Lussi, newly employed at a publishing house and not feeling the love from her co-workers, is a horror comedy. Things get crazy at the company Secret Santa exchange when Lussi is gifted a weird demonic looking thing that may have something to do with what's happening to her co-workers.
3. Snow by Ronald Malfi
Todd and his son are stranded at the airport at Christmas, making a holiday with relatives he doesn't want to see even worse. He and some of the other travelers rent a car together and set out in the storm, but allowing that messed up hitchhiker in the car was a mistake.
4. The Final Girl's Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Not a Christmas story per se, but one of the final girl's has a horrible backstory that happened on Christmas.
5. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Promising the children he kidnaps a wondrous trip to Christmasland, instead, vampire Charles Manx kills the children's parents and takes them to a Christmasland of little rabid vampires. Then Manx makes the mistake of taking a little boy that Vic McQueen loves.
The big budget Violent Night opened in theaters December 2nd, and you'll likely come across favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas on cable seventy-five times this month. Or you can be the weird adult at Christmas who introduces the kids to holiday nightmares with one of these.
Merry Scary Movies:
1. Black Christmas (1974) and (2006)
A group of sorority sisters stay at school during Christmas break. Obscene phone calls to the house turn to murder. The original stars Olivia Hussey and John Saxon, and was directed by Bob Clark, who directed A Christmas Story less than ten years later. The remake stars Hallmark Queen Lacey Chabert and Michelle Trachtenberg.
2. A Christmas Horror Story
Stars William Shatner as a late night radio dj working at Christmas. This anthology of creepy Christmas stories delivers on both holiday atmosphere and the scares.
3. Krampus
Starring Adam Scott, Toni Collette and David Koechner, this starts out with a kinda National Lampoon feel. A big gathering for Christmas, even the weird branch of the family that no one really wants to see, but the story quickly morphs into true horror. Even the kids get taken out.
4. Await Further Instructions
This 2018 British horror is a study in blindly following authority. A family gathers for the holiday only to wake up Christmas morning to find they are sealed inside their home. Instructions are given via the television and the demands get progressively worse.
5. Holidays
An anthology of scary stories, each taking place on or around a certain holiday. The Christmas segment has Seth Green making a decision to get his son VR glasses for Christmas, no matter what.
Hey, let's get put on matching sweaters, join hands and sing “Silent Night” while we think about the Lord. Kidding. We're going to look at piranhas, of course.
Piranhas: Strippers of the Amazon
Found in most areas of the Amazon River, piranhas and humans have coexisted in the area for over a thousand years. With the river being the main water source, people have been bathing in, drinking from and washing everything else in the river that is teaming with aquatic life, and that includes schools of piranhas that can number between twenty to one hundred fish.
In good times, when the water mark is high enough and there are plenty of leaves and smaller fish to eat, piranhas are shy creatures who flee from threats, including people. They are fished for food and have a reputation among locals for being timid enough that swimming among them is usually safe. Usually, I say, because we wouldn't be discussing them if not for those times when Piranhas Go Wild.
The piranha is an opportunistic eater, and until very recently was known to scavenge only on already dead flesh, shying away from living people unless provoked. This happens in extreme circumstances, such as the water levels dipping very low during the dry season, leaving the fish hungry and aggressive, or when they're disturbed during spawning season, October through March. The usually mild-mannered fish has a switch that flips.
Probably the most infamous account of a human being consumed by piranhas happened in 1966. Eric Fleming, a popular actor from the tv series Rawhide, Doris Day's Glass Bottom Boat, and several B-grade space movies, was filming an episode of the anthology series Off To See the Wizard. He had recently been written off Rawhide, losing his prime role and a $220,000 a year salary, the equivalent of $2 million in today's money.
Fleming was a handsome forty-one year-old, but he was also genuinely tough. He'd been a clubfooted kid on crutches who left an extremely abusive home at the age of eight. Fleming, birth name Edward Heddy, Jr., had tried to defend himself from another beating by pointing a gun at his father, but the gun jammed when he pulled the trigger. The boy jumped on a train, and wound up working as a gopher for the mob in Chicago for the next three years. He returned home at the age of eleven only after his mother divorced his father. At that point Fleming had been wounded when he got caught in a mob shootout.
He joined the Navy in 1942 at the age of seventeen, soon after the U.S. entered WWII, and at some point during his tour he very much lost a friendly wager that he could lift 200 lbs. He couldn't, and the contest resulted in him having extensive facial reconstruction surgery.
When you think about the torment Fleming, his co-star Nico Minardos, and the crew were willing to go through for this tv episode, you now have an idea of what he had already endured in life. The script must have looked arduous, but not too much for someone who had spent a few years riding horses all day. Filming for this tv episode was nearly as long as a movie, as the tragedy occurred six weeks into the shoot.
The Amazon was sweltering, their clothes never dried and they had to carry their food with them and sleep in camps.
The story had Fleming and Minardos navigating a dugout canoe along the Huallaga River, part of the Amazon, and they did this successfully for weeks, but on September 28th the two were caught in sudden rapids and the canoe overturned. Minardos quickly emptied his pockets and swam to shore. He saw Fleming still in the rapids and tried to reach him, but he, the crew, and Fleming's fiancee could only watch as Fleming was swept away. When his body was found a few days later, the condition it was found in got round even though the crew tried to keep it quiet. Piranhas.
A very similar story occurred in Peru in 2013, when a six year-old boy vacationing with his family fell into the Amazon. He's believed to have drown, but his recovered body had severe piranhas bites that reached bone.
Piranha attacks on humans often happen in spats, whether due to scarcity of food or disturbed spawning. There were several attacks in a row in Suriname in 2005, and in 2016, 50 swimmers were attacked in Brazil, none fatally. But this year has been different. At the beginning of 2022 in Paraguay, four deaths were attributed to piranhas, with witnesses saying they saw schools of piranhas attack swimmers, dragging them underwater to drown. Recovered bodies had much of the faces eaten. Is this a new generation of more aggressive piranhas, or another example of humans encroaching on wildlife territory?
The Walking Dead- Did I Get Anything Right?
Regular readers of ALH will recall my predictions at what would happen in the then upcoming series finale:
“What do you think will happen? I'm a bad guesser, but judging by the spin-offs in our future: the battle between our group and The Commonwealth will result a tidal wave of deaths, possibly Eugene, Princess, Mercer, and Yumiko. Pamela will have a horrible, horrible death (goody!) while Maggie and Negan escape, and I'm going to say that Negan's pregnant wife does not make it because she makes him happy. Daryl lives, of course, but is alone. I hope Carol and Ezekiel survive and meet up with Morgan on FTWD. And just maybe, Rick will show up.”
So, how'd I do?
“Tidal wave of deaths”- Check! Mostly of the faceless storm trooper variety. There was a lot.
“Eugene, Princess, Mercer and Yumiko”- Wrong! And I never thought of Rosita as being our big sacrifice, but she certainly was.
“Pamela's horrible, horrible death”- Not even close. She was put in a cell, possibly to be forgotten about. So she may die there but we won't have the fun of seeing it.
“Maggie and Negan escape”- Check! Yes, they live, and maybe Negan's wife and baby do too, I'm iffy about that, so let's say I'm 50% right.
“Daryl lives but is alone”- Another 50%. Daryl lived and remained part of the community for a year before deciding to take off on his own. The lonely loner.
“I hope Carol and Ezekiel survive and meet up with Morgan”- Check, they both survived, but Morgan is still in a different time slot.
“Rick will show up”- Check! And bonus, Michonne is alive too.