I’m an introvert by default and, duh, obviously a horror fan, so that means a lot of nights in watching Silver Bullet or Halloween IV for the 300th time while rustling up some grub for me and the rest of my fam from the comforts of home. Also, me, serving as the main person cooking for the house since everyone else can cook about as well as Charlie Brown only burning toast half the time, that leaves me with a lot of pressure to come up with a variety of meals that are easy and fast enough to pull off so as not to bore everyone to death on a weekly basis. Personally, I could live off cold Pizza and Grilled Cheese but with me being a mom, I guess I have to do the responsible thing here. Thankfully, a new cookbook is now available for horror fans that love to cook, or like me, forced by default, with deliciously deadly recipes that are easy enough to follow for even the most culinary-handicapped person. And what’s better, there’s a cocktail menu too!
To answer your question, YES. There’s a Shaun of the Dead inspired dish AND cocktail called The Winchester in the book because THANK GOD.
If you’re looking for kitschy Pinterest recipes like coffin-shaped cookies or zombie finger sandwiches, look elsewhere. With The Horror Movie Night Cookbook, you’ll find recipes inspired by horror’s most frightening favorites, including:
Crawling Steak (Poltergeist)
Campfire Sour (The Blair Witch Project)
Zombie Baby Kale Salad (Dawn of the Dead)
Bloody Floaties (Jaws)
Alligator Bites (Crawl)
The Mama’s Boy Martini (Psycho)
And more!
Unlike other movie-themed cookbooks, The Horror Movie Night Cookbook takes you inside the films. “Inspired by the film itself, the recipes are built around food that is being eaten in the films or iconic lines or characters within. It’s not just a cookbook to pull out in October,” Sargent says. “My recipes are thoughtful and creative meals that can be served any time of the year.”
Now because I’m sure some of you would love a sneak peek at what exactly some of the recipes look like or entail, I’ve taken the liberty of attaching a few of my personal favorite excerpts from the book for a bit of a looky-loo.
JAWS
SCREAM
POLTERGEIST
STIR OF ECHOES
HALLOWEEN
EVIL DEAD
The Horror Movie Cookbook by Richard S. Sargent and is published by Ulysses Press with distribution by Simon & Schuster. You can pick up your copy and get it tomorrow from Amazon by clicking here!
Yep. You read that headline right. When we see “based on true events”, I always take that with a mighty grain of salt and throw it over my shoulder like a silly superstition. Film inspiration is almost ALWAYS taken from somewhere: a newspaper clipping, a weird memory, or even a lucid dream from the creator. However, did you know the legacy of the gelatinous Sci-Fi national treasure, THE BLOB, is based on a “supposedly” actual event based on a police report taken in Philadelphia back in 1950?
Suck it, Roswell.
In the September 27th, 1950 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, readers were exposed to a pre-Bat Boy-like headline that simply read, “Flying ‘Saucer’ Just Dissolves.” Take that with your cup of coffee on your way to the office, Philly folks.
The piece stated that two veteran police officers, Joe Keenan, and John Collins, both spotted a mysterious object falling from the sky while the pair were making their nightly rounds. Of course (and who wouldn’t be curious), the patrolmen duo followed the strange object’s descent to the corner of Vare and 26th Street, where they were met with a rather large, glittery mass of something that they later described as a pulsating, “purple jelly”; six feet in diameter, filled with a crystal like-substance, and letting off a mist.
According to both officers – and possibly the coolest detail – the globby substance seemed to vibrate and move on its own, with one other report claiming this thing crept up a nearby telephone pool. Regardless of whether it actually did or not, the fact that Aunt Fannie’s jello mold from hell was moving at all is, clearly, kind of terrifying and indicative of some type of living organism.
After the pair called for backup, James Cooper and Sergeant Joe Cook arrived at the chaotic scene, making it a total of four officers in the presence of the wondrous blob. At this point, Collins decided it was a good idea to touch the thing, tiny globules stuck to his hand and evaporated rather quickly, leaving behind an odorless scum of a residue.
Well, at least it didn’t latch on and slowly eat away at his body like this poor dude.
As with the goo retrieved by Collins, the rest of the blob seemed to disappear entirely about 30 minutes after the cops’ first sighting. The following day, the men in blue addressed the local media, claiming what they saw was, indeed, a living thing… possibly from outer space. And behold, a story was born that has endured two cinematic versions throughout the past sixty years.
The story sounds like a common episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE or something Scully and Mulder would have encountered on one of their many X-FILES adventures. But before Rod Serling could get his hands on the idea, it became the inspiration for the 1958 creature feature starring Steve McQueen, and then, 30 years later, reignited in Chuck Russell’s fantastic and gory vision. Whether you think the article itself holds any substance or chalk it off as pure tabloid garbage, this wasn’t the only report that has surfaced containing gleaming purple goo falling from the sky; albeit this IS THE ONE that inspired the first film.
Reports go as far back as 1846 wherein Loweville, New York residents claimed to have witnessed an object in the sky crash to the ground. The object in question was described as a “heap of foul-smelling luminous jelly” about four feet in diameter that also evaporated within minutes after hitting the ground. The most fascinating occurrence, however, seems to come from Australia back in 1969, when scientists managed to collect and study over 200 pounds of jelly-like material following a meteor shower in the area. These samples were found to contain amino acids – you know, the chemical building blocks of life.
Fortunately, nobody got sucked down a garbage disposal or overtaken by the putrid pink goo in a phone booth. But according to reports, one of the officers ended up tiny, pulsating globules stuck to his skin that later evaporated completely. In any case, if you’ve ever touched old, wet food clinging to dirty plates in your kitchen sink, I can imagine that would be just as disgustingly horrifying.
It’s one of the oldest horror movie tropes played in the genre-the jump scare. Some film snobs think it’s cheap, tacky, and just plain overused. I can agree to some extent that it can be used as a lazy way to scare the viewer without putting a lot of effort behind it, however, when done properly, it can elevate the movie to an entirely different level of heightened emotions that leaves us remembering that movie for pretty much the rest of our damn lives. As someone who lives with a debilitating anxiety disorder, the PTSD after a well-executed jump scare is one that I welcome, since I’m just an anxiety cucumber anyway.
You know, mostly made of water and anxiety. Actual photo of me in the wild.
Anyway, the jump scare is a fine art that shouldn’t be used lightly or in a cheap manner that attempts to compensate for poor storytelling in a shit-horror movie. It all comes down to proper timing and set-up for it to actually be a memorable that we, as the viewer, will take home with us thinking about it for days on end. Audio, for example, plays a big part in pulling off a successful startle. An auditory stimulus can be processed faster than a visual one. You can close your eyes or look away from a nasty image, but you sure as shit can’t close off your ears. Sound plays a crucial role in both parts of a scene that end with a jump scare—in both the buildup and the climax. Without sound, establishing an atmosphere of dread or apprehension is crucial for fulfillment, and can make the execution a little more difficult, but the pay-off is unremarkable and, truly, some of the best ones are silent. As stated, for someone like me who dreads the unknown, this is the way to really mess with us.
If you’re like me and jump out of your seat and start air-swimming away like a zany-cartoon character, I see you. And we’re going to honor those moments in horror movies where the jump scare goes from a bargain-basement scare tactic, to a fine art that acknowledges what a filmmaker can do with something simple as a noise or a sudden reveal. Remember-These are just my personal opinions and what has scared the crap out of me.
That being said, I want to start off with an honorary mention that is NOT a horror movie, but a recent series that literally had me throwing a chair because of this startle.
The Haunting of Hill House
I’m usually pretty damn good at predicting when a cinematic rush of adrenaline will happen, but this REALLY caught me off guard and fucked my whole night up. That being said, shout out to Mike Flanagan for killing me dead on my couch for this one.
Imagine going out into the night and seeing a figure coming towards you out of the darkness, and you learn that it’s your own bloated corpse staring right at you. This startled the ever-loving shit out of me, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone here.
A perfect example of something so simple as a head-turn being effective and making you want to straight jump out of a window. This scene just elevated that whole movie and was worth the watch just for this alone.
The oldest on this list and one that still haunts me is Ben Gardener’s severed head discovered by Hooper. Paired with John Williams score, it’s just classic. I can also appreciate that this same audio was used in JAWS 2 in the infamous unrated helicopter attack scene.
The music set this scene up for perfection and had us thinking it was all over upon a first-time viewing. A tried and true classic that’s been both copied and parodied countless times because of its perfect execution.
One of the best things about this scene is when the blood reacts, it’s someone MacReady was not expecting, so he’s barely paying attention. It just comes out of nowhere for the audience, too. Fantastic work by Carpenter here, conditioning us into thinking nothing is going to happen and then BOOM.
The lawnmower scene got me REAL good, and it is pure magic my friends. The foreboding atmosphere that surrounds the set-up to this is one of horror’s finest pieces of cinematic art.
The appearance of what we all like to refer to as “Derpy Darth Maul” behind the head of Patrick Wilson has become one of the most infamous horror movie shots of modern times and with good reason. This scared the bejeezus out of nearly everyone who saw it for the first time. Now, it’s just hilarious to me, but that first go-around… OOOF.
I will forever champion this scene as one of the greatest, most tension-building set-ups of all time. The range of emotions you feel alongside Joaquin Phoenix as you stare in disbelief of what is unfolding right in front of you is an emotion I never forgot and sticks with me every time I see this.
Listen. I nearly melted into my seat when I saw this in the movie theater as a teenager and is a prime example of how a jump scare can be done brilliantly. Of course, for added effect, none of the actors in this scene knew Vincent (Sloth) was going to move, so those reactions are genuine and ripple down towards us the viewer because that shit was terrifying. Also, I just love how they draw their weapons like he’s a zombie or something like that.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the nurse and hospital hallway scene from The Exorcist IIIis the Mona Lisa of all horror movie jump scares. I saw this in the theater when I was eight-years-old, folks. My dad took me to see this along with my uncle and cousin, not giving two shits that he was supposed to be taking me to see Three Men and a Little Lady, I mean that’s what he told my mom anyway. While I was too young to understand a lot of what was going on, I understood one thing quite perfectly- that William Peter Blatty could successfully make me squirt lemonade in my pants.
Nothing has ever, and possibly will ever, top the tension-driven slow-build of the climatic fate of Nurse Keating. The silence of nothing but the rustling of papers and doors closing per a normal night shift desk job, with the security guards milling in and out of the scene, times it up so well. We are lulled into almost boredom until it happens, and it then knocks us right out of our chairs. But perhaps one of the biggest payoffs, is the fake-out jump scare that happens right before the big reveal, tricking us viewers into thinking the danger is gone. PERFECTION.
Growing up in a horror household, there wasn’t a lot that scared me as a kid, being as how I was watching things like Halloween and Jaws in my diapers. However, and I still can’t explain why, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet scared the ever-loving piss outta me. And particularly speaking, this scene in general where Joe Haller is poking around in Reverend Lowe’s garage. The music really helped set this one up and I KNEW something was coming. In the end it scared the crap out of me anyway and gave me nightmares for 2 weeks straight. That being said, Silver Bullet became one of my comfort movies after the trauma subsided and went to sleep with it almost everynight a few years later when I was a little older. Some kids go to bed with some Disney shit on the TV, I went to bed with Gary Busey wrasslin’ a werewolf.
Comment below with some of your favorite jump scare stories and scenes!
