Sonic Youth’s Halloween
“Halloween,” from Sonic Youth’s 1985 Flower EP (later appended to the Bad Moon Rising LP) is music for a scene from a low-budget, 1970’s cult horror film. In the scene, a Super 8 camera reveals the grainy image of a dilapidated, two-story Victorian home in a clearing of dense forest. Shutters hang by one hinge and smack against the siding. The wood on the porch is rotten, warped and cracked. The little glass that remains in the windows is just jagged bits. Suddenly, a man rushes out into the night. His clothes are in blood-drenched tatters, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets with terror. He stops in the tall grass and falls to his knees. For a moment all is still. Then, out in the distance, something begins to move. The music starts up.
