Cellar Dwelling

Now Playing: Cathedral

The music on Cathedral retains all the eerie atmosphere and sinister propulsion of the epochal scores Carpenter created for his films Halloween, The Fog, and Assault on Precinct 13, but this is a much heavier, riff-driven enterprise. Carpenter is a firm believer that music plays a major role in what really makes something scary. That’s first and foremost,” the director says. “It’s all about making the music work.” “This is somewhat different sounding stuff that we've done, but it's done with the same desire in mind,” he adds. “In other words, put this thing on and imagine you're watching a movie. That’s what we want you to do.”

Daniel Davies’ soaring, snaky guitars take center stage on opener “Primeval,” “Elevator,” and the metal masterpiece “Lord of the Underground” while John Carpenter and Cody Carpenter’s synths take the lead on the ominous “Desolation in the Underworld,” the plaintive “Death of the Mapmaker,” and even converge with strings on “Abandoned Cathedral.”

Whereas the Lost Themes albums were written as scores to movies of the mind, Cathedral scores the first original graphic novel written by Carpenter, his wife and long-time creative partner, producer and editor Sandy King, and writer Sean Sobczak, published by Storm King Comics. 

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At Home Halloween 2026

Some fun stuff here.

Haze And Thorn

Michael's Halloween 2026

Checked out some Halloween stuff at Michael's today.

Now Playing: Slowing And Spinning

By Vactrol Park.

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Happy (Belated) Summerween

I was surprised that I had never posted about Summerween before.  I felt like it had been around relatively long, as it's come up a bunch of times during my blog-material searches over the years, but I never gave it much more thought than that.  I think I was of the school of thought that celebrating Halloween outside of the traditional time frame was just not something I'd want to do.  That it somehow seemed irreverent (I'm extremely uptight).

Then a good friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do a Summerween cookout.  My first instinct was that she was putting me on.  She informed me of the origins of the odd informal cultural holiday.  Back in 2012, an animated series called Gravity Falls once had an episode that dealt with a town that loved Halloween so much it celebrated it twice a year.  The summer varietal of the holiday took place on June 22, and it was celebrated with jack-o'-melons, costumes, trick or treating, and loads of candy.

I agreed to a low-key version (no carved watermelons), but plenty of cocktails, mummy hotdogs, Halloween tunes, and a visit from a Witch.  As the haze from the Canadian forest fires began to clear in this region, we (uncomfortably) added our own smokey fog with a fire pit and way too many smoke bombs.  We were a month late, but it was a nice little party and a cool reminder that the real Halloween is getting ridiculously close.

Click here to watch the episode that started it all.

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