I would have liked to have gone trick-or-treating with Megan and Josh, but since our relationship is so new and Josh has only met me once, I didn't want to push into his world before he's ready to deal with me. It's okay though; there will be several more Halloweens to take him door-to-door for candy.
When I was at The Command Post the night before Halloween for Boardgaming, I asked Kevin (the owner) if he minded if I ran a game of Arkham Horror the next day. I like to ask and not assume he has room because Fridays are normally pretty busy there and AH takes up a *lot* of space. He was down with the idea, so I posted it on the usual boards and had a few people show interest. Since it was less than 24 hours before Halloween, most people had other plans. I ended up with Sandy, Tom, Chase, and Jon in addition to myself. I get along with all of them fine, but I find Chase and Jon to be pretty annoying. Fortunately, I have a high tolerance level for annoying people so it didn't get in the way of me enjoying the game. The game took roughly three hours, and it ended with Nyarlothotep rising from his slumber to eat the town of Arkham, but we were able to fight him off after a long battle. Here is my review of Arkham Horror in case you're not familiar with the game.
After that it was time to meet the ladies at the theater for RHPS. Jon and Sandy went along as well as they both live in Pickens county and it was on the way home. As expected, the crowd that showed up for RHPS was loud and costumed, almost like a small slice of a con.
For those of you not familiar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is probably the biggest cult movie of all time. It has become popular to not only show the movie, but to have a group of people dress up as the principal cast and act out the scenes above. Also people memorize various lines to yell at the screen in response to lines or action onscreen. Kind of like MST3K if you replaced the witty banter of MST3K with middle-school level bathroom and sex jokes. There were a few clever canned responses, but most of them were pretty bad. Throughout various points in the movie, people throw rice, shoot water toward the ceiling to simulate rain, and throw toast(!) and toilet paper around the theater. Also, at the beginning before the show started there was a ceremony to induct all of the Rocky "virgins" into the family through public humiliation, followed by a costume contest for everyone there. Some of the costumes were pretty good, but being a Dragon*Con veteran I've seen thousands of great costumes.
I can see the merit of a bunch of repressed kids and former kids wanting to get together and revel in this harmlessly odd tale of being strange and having sexual tastes outside of the norm. There are a lot of kids who want to explore options outside of what their parents offer to them and most of those are repressed severely, so situations to gather with other people who can understand them, sing with them, and scream obscenities at the screen together is a very ritualistic way for them to express solidarity in their individuality. Kind of like a erotic goth church service, but not nearly as interesting as you would think that would be. The movie itself contains no nudity or curses that can't be shown on television, but the fact that half the cast(on screen and in person) are in their underwear through half the movie seemed to give the room a bit of energy as the scenes themselves often revolved around sexual tension.
All-in-all it's pretty harmless fun for the people involved, who walk out hyped up by the energy of the group dynamic. They've had their sacraments, and they're fulfilled until the next service, er showing. I get it, but I really didn't enjoy it. But the geeks and the outcasts are my people, so I felt it was important to experience one of the major geek events, which I've now checked off my bucket list.
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