Dear reader,
at first I thought for a long time whether to write
about “The Exorcist” today or the episode “Hallowe'en
Party” (season 12, episode 3) of “Agatha Christie's Poirot”.
“The Exorcist is a classic horror film. So it would certainly fit
and I will definitely write about it some time. Today I feel more
like going for that episode however, because Hercule Poirot says
something in it, which may change the reader's mind a bit about
Halloween, too. He doesn't like Halloween much and especially not the
tradition of horror and horror stories. He turns off a horror story
on the radio, because he can't stand listening to it anymore. He
investigated too many real murders to be “entertained” with a
fictional one today.
Hercule Poirot is a belgian private detective, who is always willing to help out friends. So it's no question for him to go right away to help his friend Ariadne Oliver, when she calls him. During a children's party at Halloween, the girl Joyce tells everyone present, that she saw a murder. Although she only understands now what she saw and that it had been a murder. One of the children's games was apple bobbing, in which apples are put in a bucket full of water and they're supposed to eat them without using their hands. Joyce is found drowned in that bucket with the last apple in it.
Nobody but Hercule Poirot believe what Joyce said.
She's just a kid after all. Also she was known to exaggerate and
story telling a lot. What kind of a murder was she supposed to have
witnessed? But Poirot finds out that over the past years, there had
been three deaths and Joyce might have told the truth about one of
them after all.
I haven't read the novel by the same title (yet), on
which this movie is based. So I can't tell how “well” the movie
is done in comparison. I do however like the episode. A murder on a
child and Halloween are two scary themes in one movie. Certainly
exactly what attracted the writer of the episode, Mark Gatiss, most
about it, too. I know how much he likes Agatha Christie or a good
detective story and horror and all things scary. Like I wrote
before, I'm one of those “later fans” of Mark Gatiss. So it's
no surprise that I like this episode written by him.
Hadley Freeman from the Guardian seems to have
similar dislikes for certain behaviour of people on Halloween like
Hercule Poirot. Although in her article Why
are Halloween costumes so ‘slutty’?, her focus is more on why
so many women costumes are so unbelievably short and show much skin.
In october! Rightly so, she suggests to get the women in those
costumes a good pullover so they don't freeze that much. The other
day I stumbled upon a website with Halloween costumes. I couldn't
forbear and check the women costumes. Indeed all the costumes I saw,
where short and designed to show much skin. I wouldn't actually walk
the streets and collect suits. But even just to go see some friends
for an evening together, I wouldn't put on one of those short things.
Way too cold!!! I prefer going with Mark Gatiss' edible(!) or rather
drinkable authentic
fake horror movie blood. But I'm getting off-topic here... I want
to close this post with Hercule Poirot's final words of the movie,
which are:
“Halloween is not a time for the telling of the
stories macabre, but to light the candles for the dead. Come, mes
amis, let us do so.“
Until next blog,
sarah
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