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Students are never too old to dress up
By Jordana Tusman
For those who think Halloween is just
for kids, they are sadly mistaken. Many students at Rider agree that Halloween is one of
those holidays that provide plenty of amusement for people of all ages.
Senior Jennifer Walentukonis is just one
of the many students who is a strong advocate for the exhilarating holiday.
“Halloween gives you a chance to be a
child again and dress up in fun and crazy
costumes,” she said.
Being able to dress up in a costume and
be someone other than you for the night
is perhaps one of the most exciting things
about the night of Oct. 31.
“When I was ten, I was Catwoman and
I saw some kid dressed as Batman and he
totally flipped out on me, like he invented
the idea,” said sophomore Rachel Ashley.
No one wants to be seen wearing the
same costume as someone else. It’s like wearing the same dress as a girl you don’t like
at a party. This is why it is important to be
original with your final costume decision.
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Friday, October 29, 2004
“I saw a guy with a penis costume once.
It was on the guy’s head,” said senior Jerelle
Napolitano. “I also saw a guy who wore all
white and pinned trash to his shirt and went
as white trash.”
For those that would like to remain less
vulgar, dressing up like your favorite character or person is another fun way to go.
“Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the
Caribbean inspires me cause he’s yummy,”
said sophomore Stephanie Hensle. “I’d be a
sexy girl pirate, but without the beard, cause
that’s just freaky.”
Napolitano remembers what it was like
to be her favorite TV star “back in the day.”
“When I was younger, I dressed up as
Blossom,” she said. “It was definitely the best
costume I ever wore and I won in my school
contest for being the most creative.”
Making your own costume is definitely a
good idea if you happen to be short on cash
because costume shops nowadays are particularly expensive and take a good dig at your
wallet.
“A hippie is always an easy costume to
make,” said Ashley. “Just grab some flared
jeans, a tye-dye shirt and some beaded jewelry. A wig would be cool too.”
However, what good is it to find or make
a costume if you have nothing to wear it to?
“To celebrate, I’ll be going to ZBT’s
party and then to Shady Brook Farms with
my family,” said sophomore Jennifer Kriston.
“On Halloween, I’ll have door duty at my
house and admire all the cute little kids’
costumes.”
Kriston knows that Halloween parties always promise a good time, but some
other just as exciting alternatives include
haunted houses and hayrides. More specifically, some good options are the Eastern State
Penitentiary or Fright Fest at Six Flags.
“I’m taking my niece trick-or-treating
and then going to a club in Philly with
my friends,” said Walentukonis. Clubs are
another good idea for those that like to party,
dance and meet new people.
No matter what you decide to be or
where you go, one thing is for sure. Everybody
craves candy.
“Dressing up is fun,” Ashley said, “but
getting free candy is even better!”
Monster mash
By Brian Kibble
Rarely does a summer movie come along
that is just plain fun to watch. Writer/director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) has, yet
again, delivered a non-stop roller coaster of a
movie with Van Helsing, a movie that audiences can sit down and enjoy from start to
finish. Now Van Helsing has been released on
DVD for audiences to experience again.
Hugh Jackman plays Gabriel Van
Helsing, brother to Abraham from the
novel Dracula. Van Helsing’s job is to vanquish evil, and, in this case, he encounters not only Count Dracula (Richard
Roxburgh) but the Wolfman (Will
Kemp) and Frankenstein’s Monster
(Shuler Hensley) along with a few
other surprises as well.
Helsing is an action movie complete with special effects
and while the story is good,
it is never taken too seriously, allowing for the
action and special
effects to take
over many
scenes. At
times,
this can
be a bit
much,
losing
t h e
story
a little,
but the film picks it back up and continues.
The movie is available on DVD in
both 1.85:1 widescreen and fullscreen versions. The video is clear, but too dark for
some scenes. Even though many scenes are
at night, the video appears darker, making
objects less visible than they should be. The
DVD supports Dolby Digital 5.1, but does
not feature a DTS track, odd for a Universal
release. Although DD is good for audio,
DTS offers far superior quality in sound,
especially for an action packed movie like
Helsing. This is truly disappointing, as even
the dialogue-driven American Pie series came
complete with DTS mixes.
The extra features on Van Helsing start
with an audio commentary with Sommers
and producer Bob Ducsay. They discuss
everything from casting decisions to locations
and is an interesting, but a light listen. The
second commentary is with the monsters
themselves, Roxburgh, Kemp and Hensley.
This track is more fun, as the actors joke
around and discuss what they did to prepare
for the roles and challenging scenes.
The rest of the extras are a series of featurettes, a tour of Dracula’s castle, bloopers,
trailers and a playable demo of the X-Box
Van Helsing game, which is pretty much a
waste of space since the game has been out
since May.
Now fans of the movie will either love or
hate this, but in addition to the widescreen
and fullscreen versions of the DVD, there is
also a three-disc set available. The widescreen
version of the film is present, along with a second disc of extras, including two featurettes
and a 360-degree tour of Frankenstein’s lab
among a few other goodies. The third disc
also contains the original films that inspired
Sommers, Dracula, Frankenstein and The
Wolf Man.
Releasing the original films in this set is a
rather nice touch, unless fans already bought
the Legacy Collections back in April.
The Van Helsing DVD is worth adding
to one’s collection, but Universal has made
a grave mistake in making the additional
supplements available only with the older
movies.
Haunting the Halls
Hill RHA transforms residence hall into house of torture
By Vincent Civitillo
While residents of Hill Hall are accustomed to the sounds of
construction outside their building, this past Wednesday, walking
through the inside, all one could hear was screaming.
The fourth annual House on Haunted Hill took place from 9 to
11 p.m., transforming the A and B-first wings of the residence hall
into a haunted house, which members of the building’s RHA declared
“The House of Torture.” Turnout was much better than expected,
according to senior Deidre Nowak, who said the event buried last
year’s effort.
“We had about a hundred people come through, not counting
the guys who cycled in about eight or nine times,” she said. “We went
with more of a horror movie theme this year and it really paid off, this
was my fourth, and last, year involved and I’m glad I got to go out
big.”
Walking down the hallway, participants of the House on Haunted
Hill would find themselves in a dark environment, lit only with black
and strobe lights. There were monsters there to jump out at people,
a girl chained to a wall being tortured, zombies crawling around half
dead and, of course, the haunted house wouldn’t be complete without
a sadistic clown fumbling through a bunch of balloons. However,
one of the big surprises planned for the tour was an encounter with
Leatherface, played by sophomore Brian Quigley.
“We had a really good idea to remove the blade from a chainsaw
and jump out at people with it roaring away, and it was really awesome for about 10 minutes and then it just died,” Quigley said clad
in a bloody apron. “It was OK though, because we were able to carry
on and adapt on the go. Actually, I think it turned out much better
because when it burned out it made me smell like real burning flesh
for the rest of the night.”
Despite going over budget, Hill’s RHA President, Tara Maerling
said she was more than pleased with how the event played out.
“I think the thing I appreciated most was the girl who was crying and freaking out the whole way through giving the middle finger
to everyone who scared her off her feet,” she laughed. “Next year I’d
like to make it even scarier though. Get a bigger budget, get other
organizations involved and maybe rent some massive props. Make it
a giant Halloween party, but a really scary one.”
Photos by Vincent Civitillo
(Left) sophomores Chris Mattie and Adam Moltisanti, junior Arthur Couthen, senior Deidre Nowak and sophomore Adil Murat gang up
on passers-through in Hill’s fourth annual House on Haunted Hill. When asked what each monster thought was the scariest thing in
the house, each responded, “Me.” Sophomores Brian Quigley and Tara Maerling, seen at right, prepared for the event a week in advance
by gathering materials and paper-maceing spiders out of balloons.
Will cinematic evil ever die?
By Vincent Civitillo
“Why won’t you just die!?” Freddy Krueger, the loud-mouthed,
80s horror icon screamed to Jason Voorhees during their climatic
battle in the 2003 blockbuster Freddy vs. Jason. Good question.
Why is it that horror icons like Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers
have such terrible cases of sequelitis? Between just those three slashers
alone, a staggering 27 films have been released to theaters (eight for
Michael, seven for Freddy and 10 for Jason, with an additional film
where Freddy and Jason share top billing).
This fall Seed of Chucky, the fifth in the Child’s Play series starring the psychotic Cabbage Patch-looking Chucky will hit theaters
and the ninth installment to the Halloween series is in production
for next year. But why? Were any of these films ever good enough
to warrant this kind of continuation? Halloween and A Nightmare on
Elm Street were indeed classics, but Child’s Play and Friday the 13th
weren’t even watchable the first time around, let alone worthy of 14
sequels between the two of them.
Obviously the superficial answer is money. Last year, Freddy vs.
Jason pulled in approximately $113 million worldwide, according to
the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). An astronomical figure when
compared to its low $25 million budget. So long as studios can continue to produce low-budget horror to big success, we will continue
to see maniacs like Jason and Myers punishing promiscuous teens
over the same played out clichés. But the real question this poses
is why do these films, that we admit are so hackneyed, continue to
interest us enough to make them successes.
Halloween: Resurrection, the last of Myers’ rampages to date, was
given an average vote of 4.1/10 by nearly 4,000 voters on IMDb’s
user poll. However, these same people who gave it such a negative
review still paid to see it, which is evident in the fact that its boxoffice gross in the U.S. alone doubled its $15 million budget.
Perhaps the reason for their successes is that many of them have
shied away from trying to be scary and have moved into the realm
of intentional humor. After all, it is only the icons that made the
switch to comedy that have survived the straight-to-video stigma that
franchises like Hellraiser have fallen victim to. Part of the reason for
this, according to Wes Craven, director of Scream, is that the MPAA’s
rating system makes it difficult for truly scary films to receive an R
rating in the first place.
“It’s difficult to have intensity in a film without being censored,”
Craven said in an interview with E-Online. “For [the MPAA] to have
restrictions, [is] really censorship. It decides for an audience what they
are or are not allowed to see.”
Perhaps what we, as consumers of media, are saying is that if the
MPAA won’t let us have scary movies, at least we can have funny ones
themed to Halloween to celebrate the holiday. With all the recent
media censorship surrounding cases like Janet Jackson and Howard
Stern though, do we really need censored horror movies?
My plea to America is, please, don’t see Seed of Chucky or
Halloween 9. Send the message to the MPAA that censorship is
unconstitutional and that we will not continue to buy in to movies
like Jason Takes Manhattan and Leprechaun in the Hood. If you don’t,
the result could be another 11 Jason movies, and the man behind the
hockey mask may never truly die.