pumpktoberfest #16 - horror in the heartland.
film: halloween
beer: heartland brewery smiling pumpkin ale



for me, the scariest films have always been the ones whose plot make me think "damn, that could actually happen." i'm talking about films sans killer leprechauns or murderous dudes from other dimensions. of these realistic horror films, the pinnacle is john carpenter's 1978 classic, halloween. the film, which centers on a masked, escaped mental patient & non-snl dude named michael myers who terrorizes the midwestern town of haddonfield, IL on halloween night, was the first in what has since become an iconic ten film franchise. over time, the pale white michael myers mask has become synonymous with horror & carpenter's direction, which was occasionally first person & showed little to no gore but was still scary, has been copied by many directors.

the film stars a twenty-year old jamie lee curtis (in her first film role) as a babysitting teenager stalked by michael myers & donald pleasance as myers' doctor. on halloween night, myers escapes from a mental institution & returns to his childhood home to reunite with his baby sister (curtis) & murder people. with the doctor hot on his trail, myers slashes the heck out of haddonfield's horny teenagers & continues to do so until his doctor (who has been with him since myers was a child & has labeled him as "pure evil") shoots him six times in the chest, sending him over the side of a balcony. the kicker? when the doctor looks down over the side of the balcony to check on myers, he's gone. from there, the realistic aspect of halloween goes away, as myers returns for seven more films & two remakes (directed by rob zombie). regardless, the first film left me with significant, psychotically horrific chills.

my final pumpktoberfest beer is the heartland brewery smiling pumpkin ale. for years, i've been seeing heartland brewery's ads for the smiling pumpkin ale, with that slightly psychotic dude holding a pumpkin, but i never got around to trying it because it meant that i had to go to one of the city's heartland breweries, which are essentially tourist traps with good beer. case in point...tonight, i ventured into the city to finally try the smiling pumpkin ale. when i got there, i grabbed myself a seat at the bar & ordered up a pint of the smiling pumpkin ale. to the left of me was a guy whose costume was a shirt that read "mike hunt's diving school" & one of those lifeguard floatation devices on his back with the words "muff diver" written on it. he struck up a conversation with me & i learned what should have been obvious. he was from new jersey.

as for the smiling pumpkin ale, it's the only pumpktoberfest beer i've had from a tap & i'm not sure if that made much of a difference, but as far as pumpkin beers go, it's pretty damn good. in addition to the "honey roasted pumpkin," it's made with ginger, cloves, cinnamon & nutmeg, but those spices don't dominate the flavor or smell. the pumpkin flavor is definitely noticeable & it's a smooth beer that went down nicely despite the dude from jersey sitting next to me. while i'm 100% sure that i won't find myself back at heartland brewery any time soon, i'm happy that my final beer of the pumpktoberfest season ended up being a winner.