Presenting a binary choice in anything these days seems rife for complaint and fuckery, so of course I had to put up some of these polls on Twitter for the Halloween season! (That’s just the kind of dick I am.)
‘Hocus Pocus’ or ‘Practical Magic’? This is an easy one for me: ‘Practical Magic’ all the way, mostly for that magnificent Victorian and setting, that glorious little greenhouse where the starry paperwhite narcissus get a guest shot, and the cute little soap store that Sally opens.
‘Hocus Pocus’ has Bette Midler, it’s true, but I feel like you had to experience it growing up to truly love it, and I simply missed that. On FaceBook, this one generated the most heat, with people mostly demanding both because it was too much like ‘Sophie’s Choice’. Twitter seemed decidedly in favor of ‘Hocus Pocus’.
‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ or ‘Clue’? Tim Curry plays the main parts in both, so maybe it’s a question of whether you prefer him in a butler get-up or garters. Strangley, I’m going with the former, as ‘Clue’ will always be a favorite (again, because I grew up on it and recall watching it on rainy Saturday afternoons with my brother).
I came to ‘Rocky Horror’ much, much later than just about everyone else, and I’m weird in that I really don’t like getting water and rice thrown at me in a public theater (or anywhere for that matter). [At my first public viewing of it I had more rice in my underwear than I put in the rice cooker on certain nights. Luckily I’m so hot and wet that some of it was edible the next morning.]
‘Sleepy Hollow’ or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’? Tim Burton gave his weird and wonderful directorial touch to both, and Danny Elfman composed his hauntingly atmospheric music for both as well. I’m a big Burton fan, again largely through nostalgia and growing up to some of his classics.
Though ‘Nightmare’ brought an instantly iconic character to animated life and is undisputedly the more artistic endeavor, I fall prey to the enchanting upstate New York setting and classic story of Ichabod Crane in ‘Hollow’, even if it was more grossly and blatantly commercial, so my preference leans to that. (Christopher Walken does another chilling turn that is so indelible you feel his menace even when he’s missing his head – I don’t even care if that wasn’t him in those scenes).
Based on all the polls, my picks are three-out-of-three not the favorites of the majority of those who frequent my Twitter account, and I’m ok with that. Good taste doesn’t always translate to mass appeal. To each their own.
Back to Blog
