M&M: Agatha Christie's Poirot: Hallowe'en Party

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

Only a job part 2

Dear reader,

this goes to show, how little I take notice in some things. Or maybe it shows exactly the selective perception typical for Sherlock Holmes, too. After all, he too wouldn't care about trivialities and gossip. Some people are fans of actors and watch just about everything they could get their hands on with them in it. And some fans, mostly late ones, are especially odd. Mark Gatiss, portraying the older brother, Mycroft Holmes, in the BBC series “Sherlock” is consequently seen as Mycroft and not Mark Gatiss. Before “Sherlock” he was known for being one of the four creative forces of The League of Gentlemen. Noticing Mark Gatiss as Mycroft Holmes though, you'll find comments to The League of Gentlemen clips on Youtube like “Mycroft!!!!” or “So this is what Mycroft is doing in his spare time.” (Never mind my doubts that Mycroft actually takes some time off work...) I can actually sort of understand it somehow. I am, after all, one of those sad fans, who finally noticed him really with “Sherlock”. But for me Mycroft Holmes is Mycroft Holmes and Mark Gatiss is Mark Gatiss. He plays Mycroft Holmes, but nothing more. He also played many other characters, especially in the three seasons of The League of Gentlemen. An extremely creative group they are!

Stephen Fry is another actor, at least equally creative and versatile like Mark Gatiss. He too played Mycroft Holmes, namely in Guy Ritchie's second Sherlock Holmes movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I needed even longer than it took me for the first one, of which I wrote in Price and prejudice, to finally watch it. I like Stephen Fry a lot, but I can't stand Hans Zimmer and as a soundtrack fan, I'm probably more aware of the music than others. Also I thought the story as a whole was somehow confusing this time. I didn't like the movie. Stephen Fry was good and fitting and I did like some scenes. But I'm sorry to say, that's about it.

Maybe I'm just an atypical fan. But I found a picture of Mark Gatiss with Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss' caption "The two Mycrofts! A two pint problem..." (referring to Sherlock Holmes' “three pipe problem”), before my mind actually made that connection. Of course! The two Mycrofts! Others were head exploding and fainting just seeing that picture of the two Mycrofts, as you can read from the comments, when my first reaction was, “Oh, Stephen Fry and Mark Gatiss together.” I like the two of them really a lot and I liked to see them together. But obviously my mind just doesn't make certain connections or at least not as fast as would be normal for others. Whatever. It seems that I'm just not ordinary.

Until next blog,

sarah