The Confluence

Under the sub-heading of “Hooray for Horregon!” Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim descends into the historical depths of the genre and unearths H.P. Lovecraftian tales featuring the haunting and often horrific Oregon Coast where none-other-than Tori Spelling emerges as a seductress from the sea to summon the all-powerful Cthulhu to River Mouth (nee Astoria) shores.

Diminutive armies of rotting zombies, blood-thirsty vampires, Wonder Women, Harley Quinns, Pikachus, and fairy princess are preparing to storm the sidewalks, assault our homes, and demand we relinquish our candy corn and Swedish Fish or suffer the consequences.

This week’s trek into Oregon’s dark and eclectic cinematic woods marks a (literal) transition from “Back to School” to a month of horror themed posts leading up to Halloween. Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim is calling this slashy little sub-series “Horregon.” In this installment, we find ourselves with not only a pre-Star Wars (post-American Graffiti) Harrison Ford but also a pre-Stripes (post-Carrie) PJ Soles skulking around a dimly lit (and therefore mostly unidentified) Reed College campus trying to soak up some of the devil’s blood left behind in the boffo box office red wake of The Exorcist.

We’re headed Back to School again this week and tackling that most interesting and uncomfortable of classroom topics: Sex Ed. Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim takes a look at the late 40’s and early 60’s in-classroom, let’s-watch-a-film-on-that approach to this topic from the University of Oregon and it is quite curious (frustrating? enlightening? stereotype-izing?) to see the differences between the two and, even more so, between then and now. On top of that, in a state with such a (forgive us) well developed animation industry, it’s also great to see such early roots for that particular art form even if it is at the expense of poor Aunt Sarah (who might have have a few questions to answer about her hateful niece’s origins).

Raiders continues its Back to School theme this week with some much needed Music Appreciation. Whether you launched your appreciation of a certain genre of Energy Music through Heavy Metal Parking Lot, or just hours of stereo volumes pegged to 11 followed by blurry road trips to see Ozzy or Mötley Crüe, or maybe you just liked the wardrobe and appreciate Mark Wahlberg in “Rock Star” – we all have been touched in some way by our own rock n’ roll journey and Raider Contributor Phil Oppenheim takes us down one particular path that starts at Oregon City High School (and, coincidentally or ironically enough, the shooting location for Netflix’s “Everything Sucks” this past summer).