Graphic Novelty²

Well-known fact about me: Halloween is my favorite holiday. Little-known fact about me: I love musicals. Whether they are movies with songs or written for the theater, I love them all. I hum show tunes under my breath while doing every day tasks. I love to dress up, do my makeup, and go to the theater with my fiancé to see them on stage. The experience of live theater is simply unmatched. However, most of the time, tickets are too expensive, or we’re too busy – luckily for me, many musicals have been recorded or remade into movies 😉 I have an annual viewing of these musicals every Halloween:

• Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas/Corpse Bride

I mean, come on! You can’t have a spooky musical marathon without a little Tim Burton animation 😉 Of the two, I personally favor Corpse Bride, in which Victor accidentally marries himself to a corpse named Emily while practicing his vows for his arranged marriage to a girl named Victoria. The muted color palette of the land of the living versus the color of the land of the dead challenges your expectations; you’d probably assume it would be the other way around! The three main characters’ struggle to reconcile their misunderstanding and make the most of a bad situation is inspiring to me. While Nightmare is a classic, it just doesn’t do too much for me. I find the Nightmare-inspired levels in Kingdom Hearts more fun than the actual movie… however, Zero is just the cutest lil ghost puppy and I love him.

• Jim Henson’s Labyrinth

This cult classic starring the late David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly is a new addition to this year’s rotation. In a moment of frustration, the imaginative Sarah wishes the Goblin King would take her baby stepbrother, Toby, away. To her astonishment, the Goblin King shows up and abducts Toby. Sarah must navigate his realm, where nothing is as it seems, and outwit the master trickster himself to save her baby brother. The world building is whimsical and dark. All of Jim Henson’s creatures are crafted beautifully. And, of course, who doesn’t enjoy Bowie’s music?

• The Phantom of the Opera

This classic Beauty and the Beast type story takes place in Paris in 1881, where we see the titular Phantom’s obsession with chorus girl Christine Daaé unfold. For her part, Christine is caught between her fascination with, physical attraction to, and desire to save the Phantom, but also her love of her childhood friend and betrothed, Raoul. Joel Schumacher’s rendition is beautifully rendered in a gothic style. While not particularly “scary” in the traditional sense, it’s frightening to see the lengths that an obsessed man will go to win the heart of a woman, and frightening how the Phantom is cast as a tragic figure more often than a creepy one… But if it’s Gerard Butler, it’s okay, right??? /sarcasm

• Repo! The Genetic Opera

I was introduced to this movie by a high school friend, and was instantly fascinated. In a not-so-distant future, a corporation called GeneCo offers transplants to the population of a world that’s suffered from an epidemic of organ failure. There is a price to their services, however. If a patient fails to pay, the Repo Man will hunt them down and take the organ back by any means necessary. Science fiction, horror, black humor, drama, and tragedy are blended here in a catchy rock opera format. You are drawn into the world and not let go until the end, when you sit back and ruminate upon it some more.

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

This Stephen Sondheim production based on London’s urban legend is my favorite musical. I’ve seen the Tim Burton movie, and a YouTube upload of the original 1982 run with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, dozens of times. I’ve seen two different live productions: one with a boy not worth mentioning during my college years, and one with my fiancé just a few years ago. That last production was easily the best I’ve ever seen.

Now, you might be thinking. Why the heck is THIS your favorite musical, Kathleen? It’s about a couple of crazy cats who kill people and bake them into pies! Well, yes, but also no. It’s the allegory that really makes it my favorite. The entire story is a metaphor for the way society “eats,” or takes advantage of, the lowly, the disadvantaged, and the castoffs. It’s why the climax of the story is so satisfying, when one of those castoffs finally gets his comeuppance against the high society person who wronged him.

… Or something =P

Any of these musicals your favorites, too? Any more spooky ones to add to the list for next Halloween? ;D

– Kathleen