Editorials
Best Halloween Hip Hop Songs from mc chris
mc chris is a nerdcore rapper based out of Los Angeles. He voiced the character of MC Pee Pants in Adult Swim’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” as well as writing for “The Brak Show” and “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast”. His new album ‘mc chris is dreaming’ comes out September 30th.
Before I begin I should make it clear that I am by no means a Horrorcore expert. Horrorcore is a huge and often times disgusting genre that takes a lot of time/cocaine to sort through. So, please don’t get mad at me as I attempt to assemble my humble list of Hip Hop’s most hellish Halloween Hits.
“Why should I let some cartoon voiced rapper from the 9/11 days tell me what’s what when I already know everything?”, you might be asking yourself. Well, I didn’t just make rhymes back then. I’ve actually been recording and touring ever since and I have a brand new album out that actually falls under the Horrorcore category. It’s called mc chris is dreaming and it’s all about Freddy Krueger, nightmares, dreams and, more specifically, the brain. There are three tracks inspired by Mr. Krueger as well as a series of skits where Freddy and I face off. (Freddy is played by the very hilarious John Gemberling, who you might’ve seen as Bevers on “Broad City”) The new album comes out on 9/30 so in the mean time let’s dive into the SCARIEST SONGS EVERRRR!
10. “Halloween Night” by Slim Thug (2011)
Slim Thug, out of Houston, made a mixtape appropriately albeit unimaginatively titled, “Houston” and it featured this song which actually doesn’t have a lot to do with Halloween but is creepy all the same. Masks are ski masks and trick or treat means we’ve scoped out your house and now we’re robbing you. It’s a pretty great song to play on your way to a Halloween Party. It gets extra points for references to both Freddy and Jason.
9. “Monster” by Meek Mill. (2015)
There are A LOT of songs called Monster in the Hip Hop pantheon and I listened to a good deal of them, but for some reason I liked this one best. “Monster” didn’t make the final cut and was used as a promotional track to support his first studio album, “Dreams and Nightmares.” Hey, looks like great minds think alike! Extra points for the Freddy reference, and for somehow referencing my new album in the past.
8. “Zombieland” by L.E.P Bogus Boys. (2012)
Off the “Now or Neva” mixtape, this is a song by some real life Chicago gangsters. This group has been through it; the death of its own members, incarcerations, you name it. Coming out of one of the deadliest places in America, L.E.P. Bogus Boys spin tales of street life in a way that brings me back to those first few times my horizons were broadened by Public Enemy. They never were signed or went mainstream, which gives all of their music an even greater level of authenticity. They were just too real for pop music. With a guest appearance by Lupe Fiasco, this is one of my favorite songs on the list. Extra points for references to Dracula, Mummies, Zombies, Jason Vorhees, Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King and last but not least The Candyman. So many great references on an awesome track.
7. “Transylvania” by Tyler the Creator. (2011)
Say what you will about Odd Future or Tyler the Creator; they reinvented Hip Hop like Cubists reinvented Modern Art. It scared a lot of people off. Rhymes weren’t happening, hooks were thrown out the window. The patterns we came to know and love went bye bye. But it was good. Everything needs to get deconstructed and rebuilt over time. You gotta rotate the crops. And let us not forget, dude worked at Starbucks for two years. I see what those people go through. He gets a pass from me. Extra points for being a great song about being a Dracula.
6. “Ready for Freddy” by The Fat Boys (1988)
This is one of those songs that has to be on the list even though it’s not great. That being said Freddy played by Robert Englund actually raps on the song so that’s pretty cool. That being said Freddy is not a good rapper. Just being honest. They did this song one year after releasing the comedy classic “Disorderlies.” Maybe they were creatively spent. Unlike its Fresh Prince counterpart, this song was actually sanctioned by New Line Cinema and was featured on the “Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master” soundtrack. The end of the video has the best freeze frame you can imagine.
5. “Demons Inside” by Eminem. (199_?)
This is an early, unfinished “free style” some call Mr. Mather’s take on Horrorcore, a genre that definitely hung its hat in Detroit in the mid 90’s, right when he was coming up. I know there’s some kind of thing with him and ICP (even I got asked to be on Psychopathic Records, I think it’s just a rite of passage.) Maybe this is a little bit of him trying that style out. Horror would always be a big part of his palette. He liked putting on that Jason mask and revving up a chainsaw (Did Jason ever use a chainsaw? Did he wear overalls? Where are the overalls coming from?) You might think “Stan” would be a much better fit, but have you heard that Dido hook? WTF is that? It’s like one half of the song is a Sleepytime Tea commercial and the other half is “A Serbian Film.”
4. “Kill My Nightmare” by Yelawolf. (2011)
Alabama rapper of Native American descent from Eminem’s label wins me over with this track. It’s off of a mixtape of the same name and it’s one of my favorite songs on this list. There’s nothing scarier than a piano. I took lessons once when I was a kid, scared the crap out of me. Never again.
3. “Haunted House of Rock” by Whodini (1983)
This is the grand daddy of Halloween jams. It was the first single on the first album from this pioneering trio out of Brooklyn. A monster mash-esque throw down takes place at “the last house on your left on a dead end street” and pretty much EVERYBODY is there: Wolfman Jack, The Grateful Dead, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Addams Family, The Invisible Man, a Wolfwoman bartender, Dracula, Witches, Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, Igor, and finally, The Monster Five (which I assume is like the Jackson Five but they’re all Thrillered out.) Extra points for eventually being on a Freddy soundtrack. “Anyway I Gotta Swing It” was featured in “Nightmare On Elm Street Five: Dream Child.”
2. “Nightmare on My Street” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. (1988)
Yo, they got straight up SUED by New Line for making this song. The music video had to be destroyed. Have you ever heard of that happening? Where something getting destroyed is part of the agreement? Pretty cool. And New Line made them put a sticker on the record that said “This has nothing to do with Nightmare on Elm Street.” Brilliant. That’ll stop Fresh Prince fans right in their tracks. This was the third single off the second studio album by this duo out of (as I’m sure you know) West Philadelphia. It was originally supposed to be part of the “Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master” soundtrack, but it didn’t pan out. And New Line wanted to put the kibosh on the whole thing, but those Philly scrappers knew they had gold on their hands. It goes without saying that this song influenced my new album if not my whole life. I remember it scaring the crap out of me when I was kid one summer. You don’t ever want to ever hear Freddy’s voice come out of your radio and you definitely don’t want to hear him kill Jazzy Jeff. Like Jazzy doesn’t have it bad enough. Well, he’s got it better than Ready Rock C, the mysterious third member of the group that for some strange reason DISAPPEARED!
1. “Halloween” by Froggy Fresh. (2012)
Speaking of being sued. This guy got sued too or at least they threatened to sue him. He used to be called Krispy Kreme until Krispy Kreme found out about it. He considered the name Jelly Bean Jack before ultimately deciding the call himself Froggy Fresh, an upgrade to be sure. You might remember his series of viral videos coming out of Michigan in the early 2010’s. Very little is known about Tyler Cassidy, like why he has a Southern accent if the music is out of Michigan, but his first song “The Baddest” scored 11 million views on YouTube when it premiered. So, you got to give it up. This song thankfully has a sequel that features lightsabers and there’s even a Nightmare version. I love all three and hope there is many more years of Froggy Fresh in store. How can I pick this over The Fat Boys or Will “The Wild Wild West instead of the Matrix” Smith? Halloween was all about running around your neighborhood raising hell in crappy costumes. And I think these vids capture that vibe so well and they’re funny af. And honestly, I think the beats are pretty great for parody rap. Peddle Mike. Peddle Mike. Peddle Mike with all your might.
Hope you all enjoyed my list! Please give “mc chris is dreaming” a spin when it drops September 30th and catch me on tour this Fall with MC Lars and Mega Ran. www.mcchris.com for info. Happy Halloween! Now pleeeeease, do tell me what I missed.
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Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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