So, this is Rob, guest blogging for David, who is guest blogging for Faustus. I used to have a sign-in name. but can’t seem to recover it. Ah well. I’ll try not to lose any of David’s hard-won audience. Here goes.

A further report on Halloween doings. We were invited by some adventurous friends to dress up in matching Krofft-esque glam witch costumes and hit the Village parade, but instead, we did our usual. And by “our usual”, I mean dressing the dog up, parading her around Central Park, and then watching movies with Faustus.

Yes, yes, it’s more excitement than any two people should be allowed to have.

Since Faustus was on his way to London on an 8:00 pm flight, we shifted the movie watching to the not-as-spooky hours of late afternoon. He was a teensy bit late (cough two hours cough) but really, it was wonderful that he made the time to come at all. God knows if I were packing for a London trip I wouldn’t be doing anything else that day.

Another friend of Faustus’ came along; I forget what clever code name Faustus has assigned him, so for the moment, he will be the Other Frisbee Guy.

I was in charge of the movie lineup; I had intended to get Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, which is a classic of 70s psychological horror, despite the cheesy title. A better title might be Let’s Push Jessica to the Edge of Sanity by Making Her Think Everyone’s a Vampire, but Hey, She Might Just Be Imagining It All and She’s Probably Crazy Anyway. My sister and I can still creep each other out by whispering “Jesssssica ... Jessssssica” in imitation of the soundtrack.

I couldn’t find it for rent anywhere. My sister sent me a copy-of-a-bootleg copy a long time ago, but that was nowhere to be found.

My second choice was going to be Who Slew Auntie Roo?, a late-60’s-or-early-70s British film starring Shelley Winters, who had made her transition into horror films like Joan Crawford in Trog.

(Sorry I’m not linking all these to the Imdb – I can barely handle italics much less hyperlinks. Look them up yourself.)

I first saw this movie (which is an updated version of Hansel & Gretel, with Winters as a kindly woman who invites local orphans to a lovely Christmas party ... and decides to keep a few ...) on a road trip with my mother and brother and sister. I believe we were driving cross country from Arizona to Florida, to see my grandparents. We saw this movie late at night in a motel somewhere in Alabama (already creepy enough.) It tells you something about my family that this became one of our favorites.

I know it’s out on DVD now, but alas, not for rent anywhere.

So ... instead I got The Sentinel, a film from the 70s “Catholic horror” genre, which I know is dear to Faustus’ heart (or whatever organ sits in that location.)

Basically, Cristina Raines (a beautiful non-actress who looks like a bit like Jennifer Love Hewitt and has the flat speaking voice of Shelley Hack) plays a model who has attempted suicide a few times, and moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights. (Not that those two things are related.) She lands a huge apartment in an old brownstone building for $400. Yay! But she must endure the attentions of the other creepy tenants, including Burgess Meredith playing an old-queen-with-cat-and-canary, and Sylvia Miles and Beverly d’Angelo (in her first film) as lesbians who appear to have just left the circus. It turns out that the apartment house is the Gate to Hell, as described in Paradise Lost.

We all knew it had to be in Brooklyn.

I think I first saw this film at a drive-in with my grandmother; we used to slather ourselves with insect repellant, pop up a grocery bag’s worth of popcorn, and go see a triple feature of bad horror movies.

Yes, David, that does explain a lot.

I wonder, though, how she explained the following scene: Cristina Raines is having coffee with the Circus Lesbians, when Sylvia Miles excuses herself to take a phone call. Beverly d’Angelo, mute up to this point, begins Touching Herself In Her Swimsuit Area, much to Cristina Raines’ embarrassment. She brings herself to ... uh, well ... the conclusion, and then drops back onto the couch, sighing in relief.

(When asked “How can you tell when you’re in a bad movie?” Beverly d’Angelo replied “Apparently I can’t, since I’ve been in so many of them.”)

Seeing this scene again, I tried to imagine what my ten-year-old brain would have made of such a display, and how my grandmother would have explained it.

I think I thought that she was just itchy.