Vincent Price and Fireside Snuggles with Mom

California's Foggy Coastal Highway

It's October!  In America, most of us are getting ready to enjoy crisp, cool weather, pumpkin spice everything and all of the fun that comes along with Halloween.  I love Autumn.  It's my very favorite season in every region I've lived.  But strangely, there's a bit of melancholy that accompanies Fall and I hadn't been able to pinpoint its cause until recently:  Homesickness.

My favorite part of October has to be the Spook-Factor.  The stores are stocked with costumes, make-up and enough house-and-garden decor to turn the whole town into one large Munster's House or abandoned cemetery.  Walking those aisles makes me giddy.  There's also a renewed interest for setting the mood with horror flicks--everything from Goosebumps to Saw.  I don't enjoy horror movies per se, at least not the Freddy and Jason type, where body-count and gore is valued over atmosphere and story.  I much prefer a creepy mystery.  A big, old house, filled with shifty characters trying to cover up some long-past, heinous goings-on.  Newcomer arrives, unravels the mystery and is imperiled in the process.  Ooh, I love it!

I have to give credit for this to my mother.  She's passed on to me a love of old scary movies like House on Haunted Hill, The Bat and Hound of the Baskervilles.  Basically, if Vincent Price was in it, she watched it.  And when I watch them now, I wish I were home, curled up in a blanket watching them with her while the fire in the stove blazes.  But, alas, I'm 2,000 miles away, so I must do my Halloween movie viewing without her.

Every October, I'm in search of more entertainment that fits the bill.  My most recent finds were Rebecca and Kristen Ashley's Lacybourne Manor.  Both of these provided mystery and suspense with spine-tingling atmosphere. 

Rebecca, especially, with its foggy beach and rough sea made me think of home in northern California.  It too, along with the devilish visage of Vincent Price, gave me pangs of homesickness while still filling my need for quality macabre. 

I have fantasies of winning the lottery, buying a home on the Mendocino coast and watching the crashing sea from a large bay window.  I'd see the fog rolling in (because it never stays away long), make a cup of tea, settle myself at my keyboard and write an epic Gothic romance.  The wind, waves, fog and forest all inspire artistic creativity.  Smell the salt in the air, hear the deafening roar of the sea, peer down from a craggy cliff to the rocks below and it's easy to imagine murder and intrigue or star-crossed lovers in a suicide pact.  Man, do I miss home.

I remembered recently that there was a haunted house movie filmed (at least in part) in my hometown.  It's a made-for-TV film starring Ally Sheedy called The Haunting of Seacliff Inn.  I've got that sucker queued up and ready to go, though I'm afraid it's going to be too cheesy to endure.  I'll keep you posted. 

Homesickness and maternal longing aside, I'd absolutely love any and all recommendations of your favorite atmospheric, creepy books and movies.  Hit me with 'em!  'Tis the season for chills and thrills!

-Stella