Happy Hanukkah!

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! If you've got a menorah, fire it up!

I've noticed a trend towards Christmas horror movies, or at least horror movies that are released at Christmastime. Wolf Creek was the first one that caught my attention, and this year there's Black Christmas , apparently a remake of a 1974 film. Last year there was Santa's Slay, a hilarious, violent, and nicely-made tale of the Viking demon Santa Claus, forced to bring presents and cheer each Christmas as a result of losing a bet with an angel , and what happens when he manages to get out of the strict terms of the bet. It's not necessarily anything new - back in my youth there was Silent Night, Deadly Night, and there's actually an old tradition of Christmas ghost stories, as evinced by Dickens' A Christmas Carol and the line about "there'll be scary ghost stories" in the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

So why not Hanukkah? When will someone come up with a Hanukkah-themed horror movie? Maybe "Menorah of Death: Eight Nights of Terror"! Hey, it could work. And weirder projects have gotten greenlighted.

(An aside: I was expressing my contempt for the "young, attractive kids captured by sadists who torture, mutilate, and murder them" horror film cliché when I thought of an interesting variant: a group of bloggers are captured by sadists who proceed to torture, mutilate, and murder them. The trick is, there are computers throughout the place where they're being held where they can access and post to their blogs! So will they try to escape, try to rescue their fellow bloggers, or just sit down and blog about the experience? And if anyone has the smarts to make a desperate plea for help on their blog, is anyone out there even reading, and will anyone who reads care enough to organize a rescue mission? Excitement! Gore! Blogging!)

Anyway. The first candle is lit. Seven more to go! Happy Hanukkah, everybody!