Tis the season to be witchy

2019 seems to be the year of so-so horror films with better-than-average spooky song remakes on their soundtracks. In addition to the reimagining of "Pet Sematary" by Starcrawler that we heard yesterday, Lana Del Rey did an excellent spooky/sexy cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. 

We heard a song from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books back in 2014, long before there was word of a movie version in the works. Those books are sacred ground for me, since they both terrified and fascinated me as a kid. I can't say the new film flew over the bar I had set for it in my mind, but it didn't crash and burn, either. It's actually a fairly decent gateway horror film for tweens/teens, as well as a nifty nostalgia trip for people like myself who want to see Stephen Gammell's hideous artistic creations rise from the page. To my delight (and probably to the credit of producer Guillermo del Toro), the movie doesn't hold back on breathing putrid, rotten life into Gammell's monsters. See for yourself in these side-by-side comparisons of The Pale Lady and Harold the Scarecrow!

No need to fear a shoddy rendering of a perennial Halloween playlist tune, either. However you feel about Lana Del Rey, her ethereal melancholia is perfectly suited for "Season of the Witch."