Well, it's All Hallows' Eve and if you've come to today's crossword expecting an appropriate theme, I trust you were not disappointed: six scary, season-appropriate movies appear in the grid, including the eponymous HALLOWEEN, the film I think cemented Jamie Lee Curtis' early-career reign as Scream Queen. I remember seeing it (the original) as a teenager when it came out. It was super creepy. Enumerating the others - I realize I'm not that well rounded in the genre, though I do love a good scary flick:
- HESOUTTHERE (2018 slasher film set at a lake house) - never saw it!
- SCREAM (horror franchise with Ghostface) - saw one, maybe two of these. "Ghostface" was the theme of my son's pumpkin carving efforts this evening!
- GETOUT (2019 horror film, Best Original Screenplay Oscar) - saw it, liked it
- DONTLOOKNOW (1973 horror film with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland) - never saw it
- YOURENEXT (2011 slasher/comedy set at a family reunion) - never saw it
Clearly I've got some catching up to do! Also in the grid is OMENS ("Warning signs"). I did see "The Omen" and its sequel "Damien: Omen II" back in the day and they were excellent. Wonder how (or if) they've stood the test of time, though.
I smiled at the intersecting BALMS ("Soothing applications") and ALOE ("Hand sanitizer ingredient"), largely because I entered ALOES first, which cost me some time ... Oh hello, AMAH ("Asian nursemaid"), you old chestnut! Where've you been? ... It has always been intriguing to me that a MINORTHIRD conveys sadness. Why would that be, physiologically? I know the intervals on a diatonic scale lend themselves to nice simple fractional pitch ratios, or nearabouts. But why would the minor third interval (6:5) be interpreted as sad, but a major third interval (5:4) be not-sad? It's not a cultural thing, is it? Can any among you multitudinous readers weigh in on this?
Anyway. Happy Hallowe'en everybody - hope your kids have a fun safe time, and nobody TP's your house 😃
-philbo
I haven't seen a single one of these films, and I think that might have been part of the reason this took me almost twice as long as last Tuesday's puzzle took me. And yes, I entered "aloes" in the wrong place, just like you did, Philbo. heh.
ReplyDeleteAs for the minor third, I think we might have to wait for the music major to weigh in... maybe it's cultural, sure, but still, doesn't it just sound sadder to you, too? (Also, it made me sad that it wasn't "MINORchoRD"... sigh. So many mistakes to correct today...
Who can say why a minor third, or a minor chord for that matter, sounds sad? I suspect it's mostly cultural. After all, Mozart's symphony in g minor (no. 40) has never sounded sad to me, only spirited. But Schubert's string quintet has one of the saddest second themes in a major key I've ever heard (first movement, with the two cellos playing together. simply lovely!).
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