What Halloween Means To Me Day 5: Eric Martin

As Horror Blogger All Stars week continues, we’re joined by my boy Groggy, aka Eric Martin, aka Tromeric.  Eric writes the blog Guts and Grog.  It’s all about two things at G&G, the horror flicks and the booze.  Now that’s my kinda party.  Eric’s drunken diatribes are indispensable guides to the best and worst of horror.  He shares my love for Asylum flicks, Sharktopus, and other cheesy goodness.  He also has, hands down, the best giveaways in all of blogdom.  Right now he’s giving away an unbelievable stack of out of print awesomeness.  There’s still time to get in on that one, so go enter HERE.  In his last giveaway, he gave away a killer one of a kind Dear God No “Nixon Vixen” figure.  Speaking of Dear God No (how’s that for a forced segueway?), our fates seem to be tied over that flick, as we’re the only 2 on this countdown to have our reviews quoted in the Easy Rider ad AND the DVD cover.  So, from one member of both the Hall of Horror Freaks and The Nation of Intoxication to another, take it away Groggy…

Why Halloween gave me a boner, before I knew what a boner was.

"I was initially going to try and come up with a theme, or just focus on a particular year when SOC asked me to write about my favorite Holiday. After much thought I decided I just couldn't do that. There are way too many aspects of the day that I love. I decided instead I was just going to open up my brain butt-hole and shit out some knowledge. So here I am, sitting at my computer, stretching wide. Let's see what falls out. It is just as much a mystery to me.

The farthest back I remember Halloween would have to be when I was five or six. My mom took me around the hood to get some candy. I was stoked because, well, candy is awesome. We went back home and turned on the TV and watched some old horror films and I ate till I puked. One kid can handle only so many peanut butter cups I guess. Well, the next year I was more than ready to go knock on stranger’s doors and ask for some mother f**king candy. Same deal.  Horror and candy. This went on for a few years until I was old enough to go out on my own. This is when the real shenanigans started. I was in middle school, and a friend and I planned on going all over the place. We wanted candy, and we wanted to raise hell. We packed are bags with multiple costumes so we could change and hit up the same people again. I was Jason, Freddy, Leatherface and a "normal" kid. We also filled our bags with eggs, toilet paper, fake blood and plenty of other hijinks. I had seen "Over the Edge" and "The Outsiders" too many times, and thought I was a little bad ass. We rode our BMX bikes around like we were mother f**king Cru Jones. I think we even slow danced to "Send me an Angel." Well, after we caused much chaos and filled our bags with more candy that two boys could eat in a year, we went back to my place, shoved our faces, watched the newest entry in the Puppet Master series. It was part three if you were wondering. It was then that I realized that while the chaos was fun, my favorite part of the night was sitting around with friends watching horror films, something that would stick with me for the rest of my life.

Over the years I would have at minimum a day long Halloween marathon full of horror films and snacks. As I got older it did change from snacks to grog but the general idea was the same. Like most things in my life, I kept upping the limit. What started as five films and some drinks quickly turned into marathons of epic proportions. I would say the last reasonable one I had was when Jacob VonKlingle and I owned our video store and had an all day marathon with everything from Eraserhead to A Nightmare on Elm Street. We added in a costume contest and refreshments. It was a good time and people really put some effort in. We had Asami from "Audition" and Gabe Nye showed up as Snake. It was a lot of fun, but it was just the beginning of our insanity.

The horror marathon became such a huge part of Halloween for me. I was living in a basement in Yakima, WA with Jeremy Gaulkenstein when, along with Gabe Nye and a few others, we decided to do a huge month long marathon. Well, like my penis during Marisa Tomei's stripping scenes in "The Wrestler" it got way bigger. We ended up going from Friday, September thirteenth to Halloween. We had theme nights and series marathons. Every day we would wake up, walk to the mini mart, grab some forties and smokes, and horror it up (spelled differently then the way grog contributor Steph Infection spells it when explaining her plans).

 We went crazy. So many movies and so much fun. We kept notes on all of them with the intention of putting out a ‘zine full of drunken reviews afterwards.  In fact, this is basically where Guts and Grog began. We never did put out that ‘zine, but the next year we figured we would give it another go. It wasn't going to be as epic. Maybe just a week or two. That is what we thought, but as the list was written, it kept growing and ended up being an extra day. September Twelfth (The day Cabin Fever was released) until Halloween. While the marathons have never quite reached the epicness of those two years, they are still an important tradition around the House of Grog.

 

Horror movies are my first love and, of course, an integral part of Halloween for me. There are so many other things that add to the all around awesome of my favorite holiday. Going to every store in town just to see if I can find a roll of paper towels with bats on them, buying a hundred dollars worth of monster cereals, making playlists of theme songs and Elvira raps, carving pumpkins and having drinks. The weather is changing for the better. I know the sun is retracting and the rain is about to piss its happiness all over me.

Since I have been a horror nerd pretty much since I took that crazy water slide known as my dad's penis into existence, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. It always will be. The funny thing is, I live Halloween everyday. Horror is my life and I have marathons all the time, I eat monster cereals in June, and I buy extra paper towels that have bats so I can use them year round. Halloween is a lifestyle. The day itself is just one of three hundred sixty five reasons to live. "

 21 days 'til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.  21 days 'til Halloween, Silver Shamrock.