What Halloween Means To Me '13 Day 20: Brian Williams

It’s really weird how you meet some people.  Sometime last year, as I sat outside smoking a bowl with some friends, Renee (aka Lyla Sawyer: Chainsaw Chick) told me that she had been talking to some guy on a music app called Turntable who was making a movie and that she had told him about SOC.  Fast forward about six months, and Brian Williams messaged me about his upcoming flick Time To Kill.  Turns out he was that guy.  Small world.  Time To Kill is currently still shooting, but I got to see what Brian and his partner in crime, Ellie Church, are capable of when I saw their short Play Me on The Collective Volume 6.  Have I ever mentioned just how many killer filmmakers I’ve discovered that way?  Play Me is intense, gory, and fun.  Mark Schemanske, who you heard from earlier in the countdown, told me tales of people fleeing a convention screening in disgust.  That’s a good sign.  It also turns out that he’s yet another preacher’s kid.  What can I say? We get out crazy honest.  Go hit up the Mostly Harmless Pictures page to find out where you can see Play Me and the Time To Kill page to keep up with the production.  So, Brian, what does Halloween mean to you?

“I remember feverishly stuffing one of my dad's old button up flannel shirts with that morning news papers, and taping a mask to the top of it, and shoving it into the cardboard coffin I made out of the box my Nintendo came in. I carefully pulled the vial of fake blood I had gotten from an older friend from my pocket, and held it up, watching the way it looked in the light of the sun sneaking through the window in the living room. I remember watching my father drinking the blood of Christ in the church he preached at. I remember the way that blood looked in that glass. I remember the glass being passed from one member to another, and seeing the somber look in each persons eyes as they accepted that cup, and put it to their lips, taking in the blood, holding it in their mouth, and slowly swallowing before they passed it to the next person. I remember spending weeks working on, contemplating, changing, abandoning, and then starting all over again, grand schemes of costumes, props, plays, pieces of art, of music, all for the celebration of a single day. I remember the vhs tape of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead being pulled from the vcr by my father, demanding to know what I was watching. The tape being handed to my mother, and her being told to return it, and to never watch that sort of filth again. I remember designing and printing up tickets to a concert my band was putting on in middle school, writing and recording audio skits, building larger than life models of demons, all to be acted out behind a sheet in between songs at a concert we scheduled for the weekend of Halloween, and feeling the rush of excitement as the days passed getting closer and closer to the day of the show. I remember being chased by the police, as I ran through alleyways, and yards, still wearing my mask, feeling my breath hot, bouncing against the mask, and back into my face as I sweat with fear and excitement, seeing the reflection of the lights on top of the car bouncing against the walls surrounding me.
I remember quitting a job, because they wouldn't let me off for a very special day, and then leaving, wondering if it was one of the dumbest things I had ever done, and then the smile that crept across my face as I saw that special girl in her costume, and saw her beauty, and reached out to hold her hand as we ran all across the town filling our bags with candy, and sneaking kisses every chance we got.
I remember putting my 365 day old son into a costume, and inviting everyone I knew into my home to celebrate, I remember the cake, the trophy we constructed out of bleached bones from various animals, nails, blood, burnt wood, and spiderwebs for best costume, and the looks on the peoples faces as they all admired one another’s work.
I remember all of these things, and I always will. This is what Halloween means to me.”


 11 more days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.  11 more days ‘til Halloween, Silver Shamrock.