If I'd be given a carte blanche to do  a film set in the Halloween universe, I'd take cues from William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration, Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter and Sean Penn's The Pledge. Basically, the premise would be, every autumn, Haddonfield goes berserk as a masked killer enters the neighborhood, wreaking havoc in the spirit of Michael Myers, the little boy who killed his sister way back when and came back as an escaped mental patient, committing multiple homicides before being shot and killed by Dr Loomis (or Laurie, if you want to go with Zombie's theatrical version - I personally prefer the workprint ending).

The concept would wander into the territory of evil as an entity; Michael Myers, as a person, would be long gone, yet every year, someone would don the William Shatner mask and give up any pretensions of sanity and succumb to a killing spree. Every year, Haddonfield would shut down by Halloween. People would skip town to visit faraway relatives. Curfews would be issued. Trick or treating would be banished. The National Guard would patrol the streets for a few years during the holiday, before leaving the now-cold trail. A Michael would be waiting, somewhere...

He'd get a new killer to examine. A blank, nondescript personality, a shell of a (wo)man. A social class and family environment like any other, nothing singularly pointing out towards the atrocities now committed. He'd sought out a handful of aspiring students in criminal psychology, to participate in an experiment to live the Haddonfield life. Each of them would become a sleeper cell, under the pretext of studying under Loomis at the local university, as he lectures on the problem of evil. Could they observe and acknowledge any of their peers express deviant conduct beforehand, thus preventing a new Michael on Halloween?

Ripping a page from Donna Tartt's The Secret History, they would all become Michael on Halloween, donning the iconic mask and swearing an oath not to testify against the others. They'd all take a walk all over Haddonfield on Halloween. They'd all hunt alone, perhaps thinking an animal would be sufficient, or even traditional haunting, examining the public reactions to the mask itself. One would be caught by local townsmen and scolded by Loomis for a "bad joke". The others would still be out there, unbeknownst to each other - and to Loomis.

There would be a real Michael, however, whether he'd be the jock busted (as Loomis initially fears) or one of his unfortunate peers (caught and mangled by an angry mob), or a complete stranger, would be left open. There could be anyone underneath the mask, slowly coming to terms with the fact that you could anything in Haddonfield on Halloween when you are Michael Myers. You could shag the prom queen. You could rob a liquor store. You could take back on the football team member you got pushed by in the hallway during the fortnight. It is, in fact, a superposition.

At dawn, the survivors would return to Loomis, now exhausted from a night of bacchanal. The headlines of Haddonfield newspapers scream of Michael's night of terror. CNN would have camera crews unloading. The problem of evil, Loomis would sigh to a myrid of microphones, is the fact we all struggle in containing it.

Sure,

Nothing wrong in discussing a new album or looking into a speculated track listing. But unless you yourself wrote it, you shouldn't be so touchy about others looking into it and pointing out possible discrepancies. I didn't insult you, I looked into the track listing you posted, found an err, and knowing from the experience of nearly a decade of bogus CD Mk 1 track listings, claimed this one should be taken down with a pinch of salt.

In case you're new here, we've (as a collective fanbase) been through this very same song and dance with Chinese Democracy too many times to mention or even to remember. That makes us a speculative bunch of people, and while we try not step on anyones toes in particular for posting stuff like this, you should realize you're only making yourself look a bit daft when allowing such things get under your skin.

A track listing needs to be readied by mastering, no sooner. CD itself was mastered in October '08. That means while the bulk of the songs might've been in place for a while, the final track listing might've been held back for a good while - not to mention the possibility of last-minute modifications caused by the Skewrl leaks. In short, Axl conveniently dumped all tracks leaked during the past two years and if The General/Checkmate had leaked in full, we would've likely gotten it as well as opposed to an obvious placeholder song like Shackler or Scraped.

Again, nothing wrong in talking about it. Benefit of a doubt is all well and good, but should go both ways. And we'd rather talk about it then just observe in silent reverence.

While we're on the subject (sort of), I must say I'm actually on the soapbox claiming Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a wonderful little film, although it should've never been directly linked to the Myers continuum. It has the ridiculous sex appeal by Tom Atkins (who apparently has had an affair with every other female character in the film), the overblown, Spinal Tapish master plan by the evil toymaker (the pitchperfectly cast Old Man from Robocop), nonsensical kill scenes by the 'evil suits' (you'd think they'd find simpler ways to fend folks off), and gags later ripped off by Evil Dead 2 and Austin Powers.

Dean Cundey's scope photography is sweet, there's still plenty of Carpenter / Alan Howarth score to go around, the plot devices are hilarious and within every five minutes, the film just throws another curveball at you, completely out of the left field. One of the more innocent moments has the characters channelsurfing and seeing the Original Shape, Nick Castle, pace down the stairs during the climax of the 1978 film. The subsequent Myers, stuntman-cum-actor Dick Warlock, actually pulls off a delicious WTF moment early into the film.

You can blame Season of the Witch for a lot of things it's not; all those I can forgive as it's not boring. It's not a Michael Myers film, or even your standard horror film. Hell, it's not even a slasher. Even so, between the campy twists and wooden performances, there are scenes of true menace demonstrating a harrowing view of the world, and I hate to say it, but the era of digital technology doesn't turn it all that obsolete when looking at the iGeneration.

It's a hilarious little mood piece that deserves to be rediscovered without the baggage of The Shape.

Had Slash & Popcorn busted out Shackler's Revenge, that'd been awkward.

Then again, it would've also been absolutely hilarious.

To me, Stephen King has always been a hack. A gifted hack, but a hack regardless. However, in the 70's he had the youthful enthusiasm as opposed to the later-day self-referential house of mirrors, when the protagonist might've been a struggling writer but his writing was always interrupted as chaos ensued. Salem's Lot is a perfectly serviceable gothic vampire story loving transported to Maine, The Shining has an ingeniously simple plot device with the vacant Overlook hotel serving as a method to the madness. The Stand already demonstrated many of his would-be peeves; excessive ensemble of cardboard stock characters, riddled with shallow details guised as depth, the Randall Flagg character and the interest in Western pop mythology archetypes... Still, it was somehow readable and served as a fine exit to a more self-important bestseller existence.

Perhaps IT still shows some signs of that old cunning, but it's still far too long, ultimately falling short from being the darker side of Stand By Me, because King now refuses play out all the innuendos of the youngster group. It was going to a very, very nasty direction, which would've made the man even more hated amongst the Born-again Christians and every other party on the case of unwanted entertainment... Which I fear partly scared him off. Shame,  it would've been good to have another bookend to the Enid Blyton-romps.