Summerween!

Vol. 157: Because being creepy is a year-round thang.

Among Halloween weirdos like us, Summerween is nearly an official holiday. Why should we settle for only seven or eight weeks of the year where we hang paper skeletons and drink pumpkin spice coffee and stand across the street from a nine year old’s house wearing a hockey mask and pointing at the kid before crooking that finger round in a ‘come here or else’ way that emotionally scars them. Let’s do it all in Summer too!

Gather round and let me tell you about how Summerween came to be….It was 2012, and the Disney Channel had a cartoon called Gravity Falls. It was about siblings Mabel and Dipper (voiced by Kristen Schaal and Jason Ritter) who are left with their Great Uncle (Grunkle) Stan for the Summer in a town that has all kinds of weird paranormal and sci-fi stuff happening, but on June 22, Gravity Falls celebrates Summerween. It’s a night of trick ‘r’ treating and terror because the Trickster comes to town.

So, the Halloween freaks saw this episode and in unison yelled, “Hell Yes!” and Summerween came to life.

Horror is Hot, Hot, Hot

Sure, we’d all be so much happier is there were no fucking summer and we could live all year round in forty degrees. As my heat hating father once said, “I know we need the sun to grow things, but if it weren’t for that, I’d be fine without it.” True, true.

But some people make the best of a bad situation, by which I mean that there are plenty of Summer-related horror books and movies to get us through until life is worth living again. Some feature a hot locale, while others are about vacations. You know, how some people like to go from one sweaty, overcrowded place to another sweaty, overcrowded place? This is the only way I can acknowledge the situation. Summerween!

1. Get Away- this Shudder horror-comedy was written by and stars Nick Frost as the dad of a British family who put a lot of effort into attending the traditional Summer ritual on a small Swedish island. If you think that summary tells you where this movie is going, just watch.

2. The Troop by Nick Cutter- a troop of boys and their leader have just begun their yearly excursion to a somewhat isolated island, where they canoe and hike and learn how to survive. Maybe.

3. The Fog (1980)- A small coastal town is ready to celebrate their centenary when a thick fog begins rolling in at night, bringing vengeful ghosts with it. The original stars a slew of horror greats like Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, and Tom Atkins. I didn’t get through the remake.

4. Joyland by Stephen King- a heartbroken young man takes a summer job at a small amusement park in the hopes of getting over his ex. What he finds is that he’s very good with the patrons, he makes new friends, and he slowly learns about the deeply hidden death at the park long ago.

5. Knock at the Cabin Door-based on the Paul Tremblay book A Cabin at the End of the World, about a family who rent a cabin for a happy getaway. It’s completely ruined by a group of strangers who insist that one of the family members must die.

6. This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer- the reader knows early on that three of the four people from a geographical dig in Kentucky are dead, their bodies found in various states of decay. But what happened to the fourth?

7. Pinata by Leopoldo Gout- Carmen has no choice but to bring her young daughters along to Mexico as she works on renovating an old abbey, one that has unsettled spirits. Let’s just say that the family may have brought home more than memories.

8. The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig- the newest from Wendig, it’s the story of a group of high-schoolers who go on a summer camping trip and find a staircase to nowhere out in the woods. When one kid goes up, the rest are left to sort out what to do.

9. I Know What You Did Last Summer- Not much of a reach when it’s right there in the title, but the 1997 version is a classic of the teen slasher genre. Johnny Galecki’s death alone...but of course, there’s the updated version coming out in July, and both come from the 1973 novel by the queen of sinister YA, Lois Duncan.

10. Sundial by Catriona Ward- this 2022 release is the sinister story of a family whose daughters experience strange childhoods on a ranch in the Mojave Desert.

We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Tote

I can’t ignore the original Summer blockbuster, the one that brought horror into the hot sun. Jaws is 50 years old this Summer.

I genuinely love this movie. It’s a look at a series of horrifying deaths in a quaint coastal town that is run by a blasé mayor and protected by a sheriff who is in over his head yet brave and determined to fulfill his duty. Having to mow over the mayor to protect the town, he enlists a young shark expert and a mercenary shark hunter.

It’s a bright, sunny Summer movie. It’s an adventure movie and a survival movie. Much of it is a family movie, in that Brody’s wife and children figure prominently in the first half. The half in which parts of a girl wash up on the beach, and a severed head corks a hole in a boat, and a man’s leg, tennis shoe still tied, sinks to the estuary bottom. Anyway, enough reminiscing about the shark’s kill count. This Summer is the 50^th anniversary and there are lots of special events going on. You pretty much have to be on the East Coast to take part, but there are ways for everyone to celebrate.

Events

June 19-23, Martha’s Vineyard Museum, Vineyard Haven- the museum is celebrating big, including hosting an event with Robert ‘Quint’ Shaw’s nephew, another with author Peter Benchley’s wife, another with Joe Alves, and another with Jeffrey ‘Deputy Hendricks’ Kramer.

June 20-22, Edgartown, Mass.- a celebration here means meeting the actor who played shark chum Alex Kintner, plus “special guests”.

June 20-22, Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard- a new replica of the ORCA will be on display for inspection and photos, along with the movie’s production and art director, Joe Alves. Oooh, and Jaws-themed cocktails! The boat is expected to remain until the 30^th.

Don’t have the chance to cop a squat on the rarefied soil of the Vineyard? Me neither. But you can buy a 5oth Anniversary collectible wherever you are.

NECA has issued figures of Quint and Hooper. The 7” Quint comes with a machete and harpoon gun and beer can and baseball bat and bandanna and three interchangeable heads!!! Now Quint’s pissed, now he’s happy, now he’s amused by Brody’s hissyfit!

Vineyard Gazette publications has issued a commemorative magazine to order.

Along with many Jaws-branded items, Universal Studios Orlando is selling Jaws candles with the scents of ocean air and salty breezes. I think it should be the scent of shark guts and old metal license plates. The Giant thinks it’s a missed opportunity for a shark-shaped candle that drips red as it burns. Together, we’re genius.

I have a few Jaws books to recommend. There’s the best known, The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb. He was one of the script writers and played the reporter in the movie. This is his daily journal during filming of what was going wrong on each particular day.

You could read the original 1974 novel, but...I don’t recommend it. It’s one of those rare occasions where the movie is far superior to the book.

There’s the fascinating non-fiction Close To Shore by Michael Capuzzo, which is the account of the 1916 rash of shark attacks that inspired Benchley to write Jaws.

But my favorite about the movie is Jaws by Antonia Quirke, part of the BFI Modern Classics collection. Quirke delved into the psyche of the characters and their actions in the movie, while comparing them with the novel versions. She comes up with some hard-hitting examinations, such as this about Mrs. Kintner, the woman whose son is sacrificed in the name of commerce:

Just as Alex was the most desirable thing in the water to the shark, he is the most valuable thing on the beach. To Mrs. Kintner. No-one could be more necessary to somebody else, not Michael to Ellen, Ellen to Brody. Instinctively we know that this woman is on her own. Earlier in the scene, when Alex asked for permission to go out for another few minutes, there was something in the way she wasn’t luxuriating in the heat, but cradling a book in her peeved, white arms. Even though she wears a wedding ring, she is surely a widow.

Finally, you can always celebrate by simply watching the movie again (I’ve lost track of my view number at this point) and keep tabs on all the goings on by checking in on The Daily Jaws, a site that is all Jaws news.

---

Next time: a new, yet somehow familiar, short story!

Stick with me this Summer like a fat thigh on a hot car seat. We’ll dip in and out of Summerween while still being true to Autumn. Now hand me that knife.