texas chainsaw massacre

We Americans enjoy scaring ourselves so much we’ve dedicated a holiday to it, and I’ve got to admit that I prefer a good horror movie to all the candy associated with Halloween – and I have quite a sweet tooth!

If you ever wondered why our culture enjoys the horror genre so much, three URI professors have an answer for you. Philosophy chair Cheryl Foster, communications professor Ian Reyes and French teacher Karen De Bruin, the three co-hosts of the Beauty Salon, a weekly radio show on WRIU, dedicate this week’s episode to the topic of horror movies.

These three are great thinkers and I promise their show will shed some light on your fascination with horror films, or whatever their topic of the week happens to be … it’s one of my favorite local radio shows, so I hope you enjoy it too.

If they manage to spark your interest in horror movies, you can watch one of my favorites here:

Yes, I’m totally embarrassed that I like this movie, but I do. It’s actually not at all gory by modern standards (you’ve probably seen worse on network TV) but it is very disturbing and scary, especially if you’ve ever traveled through the more rural parts of the country…

…Or, if you have a little less time to kill (pun intended!) and are rightfully unnerved by the latter, you can watch one of the all-time best non-scary scenes from a horror movie:

American Werewolf in London is a great example of how horror doesn’t have to be scary.

But the “Friday the 13th” series is actually one of my favorites of this genre as few movies manage such a strange way of delivering a morality message. The theme in every installment (until they get too ridiculous to really have a theme) is the camp councilors always get killed when they break the rules – either smoking pot, drinking or having sex.

Full Friday the 13th disclosure: I’ve always wanted to remake the first two in the series into one movie and tell it the same way Francis Ford Coppolla tells The Godfather Part 2, jumping back and forth between generations. Those who know these movies will understand why…

Here’s the Boston Globe’s list of 50 scariest movies of all time.

Please feel free to comment some of your favorite horror movies below … or, if you prefer, just let our readers know who creepy you think I am!!

It seems in David Cicilline’s struggle to retain his seat in Congress that it will all come down to the so-called ‘get out the vote’ efforts, or the boots on the ground in the final few days of the campaign, according to a new WPRI poll that shows Cicilline with a 1 point lead over challenger Brendan Doherty. Check out WPRI’s really, really cool interactive pie chart on their poll results here.

The biggest surprise in the Cicilline v. Doherty slugfest is not that the race has seemingly tightened (polls typically do as the election gets closer), it’s that Doherty has perhaps managed match Anthony Gemma in ugly and untrue campaign accusations. While Doherty hides behind the fact that some of the worst ads weren’t paid for by him, he’s certainly setting the tone. Case in point: his campaign defends the often untrue TV ads by saying that Cicilline started it by going negative first. That’s uncommon integrity in the same way that Oliver Twist possessed uncommon wealth … uncommon because of its dearth. Ian Donnis has a nice piece on the new dueling Doherty ads that hit the airwaves yesterday.

Also from the WPRI poll: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin are still expected to walk to victory over their Republican challengers. “…the big thing is Collins is drawing 9% of the vote,” pollster Joe Fleming told WPRI. “That is very high for an independent, and in turn Michael Riley can’t get any traction going because Mr. Collins is drawing votes away from people who don’t like Jim Langevin.”

Remember on Sunday when I postulated that hurricanes could be called progressive natural disasters because they disproportionately affect the rich and powerful? Well RIPR reports that both our US Senators and the governor are still without power. I don’t know where Sheldon lives, but Jack Reed lives in a coastal neighborhood in Jamestown and Gov. Chafee lives right on the water in the Potowomut area of Warwick. According to folks I know in both those neighborhoods, Reed got power back yesterday around 3 p.m. and Chafee’s street is still without electricity.

Think about this for one second: as a result of little more than simply growing up in an affluent suburb, I know neighbors – and friends – of probably most of our state officials … journalists who grew up in West Warwick and Central Falls don’t enjoy that advantage. It’s just one of the many benefits of being raised around affluence. And why if society doesn’t work hard to level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots it can quickly spiral out of control, as we’re currently witnessing…

Speaking of the socioeconomic divide in America and why we should mitigate against it, consider this NPR headline: Want To Be Rich? Be Lucky, Know The Right People.

And speaking of Hurricane Sandy, every storm that the Ocean Mist survives is a gift. Check out this ProJo photo and you’ll see why. We won’t have this iconic beach bar forever, so enjoy it while you can…

And speaking of the Ocean Mist, I know a guy who used to moonlight as a bouncer there so he could make ends meet while working for a municipal public works department during the day. He worked throughout the dangerous winds and even more dangerous surf of Sandy all Monday and into early Tuesday morning, just so the world would be a bit safer for the rest of us. This is the kind of person who is getting their retirement security slashed by pension reformers.

If you think gerrymandering has become too political, read about how Nevada became the 36th state, which happened today in 1864.

Happy Halloween, everybody … did you know you can watch the horror classic “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on YouTube?

Tag: texas chainsaw massacre

URI Profs Shed Light on Why We Like to Be Scared

Progress Report, Halloween/Post-Sandy Edition: Cicilline, Doherty Neck and Neck; Pols Without Power, Ocean Mist