Is every movie dedicated to somebody?

This isn't necessarily the post I imagined writing on Halloween, but at least it involves a scary movie -- a movie that is legitimately scary at times, unlike all the Halloween movies I watched this month. (Plus, I've been writing about Halloween and Halloween all month, so I've done as much themed programming as you could possible want.)

Those Halloween movies do factor into this post, though, as that's where I first started noticing this phenomenon.

After Donald Pleasance died in the Halloween movie timeline, I noticed that at least the next movie was dedicated to him, as it obviously would be. There may have been more than one.

Then later it was producer Moustapha Akkad who died, and he may have been remembered in the credits of more than one movie, as the time I noticed it was in 2018's Halloween, 13 years after he died.

But as I've been sticking around for the entire credits in these movies -- which always yields interesting insights -- I saw that near the very end, there was usually an additional dedication, one that is more likely to disappear into the larger flow of credits. For example, the second David Gordon Green movie, Halloween Kills, was decided to a Halloween superfan named Anthony Woodle, whose wedding ceremony Jamie Lee Curtis performed an hour before he died of esophagael cancer.

When I noticed another dedication at the end of Oddity, one of two Halloween-themed movies I watched on October 30th, I got the idea that it might make sense to dedicate any and every movie to some person connected in some way to the production. (I can almost be bothered to go back into the movie and note who it was, but it was not someone famous -- possibly a family member of one of the cast or crew.)

When you think about the sheer hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved with the making of most movies, there is a good chance someone connected to the film will have lost a father or sister or close friend at some point during the 2+ years from pre- to post-production, especially for larger films. It's almost as though if you are not including a dedication -- or an "in memory of," if those are not exactly the same thing -- you are just wasting an opportunity. 

Does this weaken the gesture?

It's hard to say. The last few examples I mentioned were sort of buried in the credits, close to the end, so you'd only see it at all if you'd stayed to watch, like I usually do. I think if every film had a prominent dedication, on the screen by itself very soon after the final shot, then we'd notice it and maybe call it out. When it's buried, it's really more for the crew, and the reality of the situation is, it will make those most affected by the loss of that person very grateful for the thought.

We most often see this, of course, when a major creative talent involved with the film -- like one of its stars, or maybe a producer -- has passed after shooting was finished but before the film was released. The "For Brandon" in The Crow seems like an obvious example.

But what if you are fortunate enough not to have any prominent losses like that? How deep to you dig to make sure someone is filling the requisite dedication slot, even if it is the cousin of one of the gaffers?

This does give me a reason to continue paying the attention I pay to credits most of the time, to get a sense of just how common this is. I may report back on my findings at an unspecified future date.

As for Oddity, I chose it as the option to start way too late (about 10:25) after we had finished the movie we were watching with my ten-year-old, Nightbooks on Netflix, which was actually more intense than we would have originally expected and therefore just about the perfect thing for every kid's desire for slightly aspirational viewing. (I now see it was directed by Brightburn director David Yarovesky, which explains some of the intensity.) I considered All Hallows' Eve, the 2013 film that introduced Art the Clown, now the star of the Terrifier series, the second of which I watched just before October started. It was 14 minutes shorter too. But then I thought, I've been watching movies about a serial killer all month. Let's switch it up a bit. How about a good ghost story?

And Oddity was that. It's shot very well, it's got a good story, and it does have some moments that made the hairs on my arms stand up -- something they did not do once over the course of 11 previous Halloween movies.