A+E

Poems for Friday the 13th

This eerie volume should become the talk of our morticians. In The Anatomy Theater (Harper Perennial, $13.95), Nadine Sabra Meyer draws inspiration from anatomy artists of the 16th century to sketch a series of grim still lives of cadavers and corpses. Her delicate language is oddly beautiful: "You can open her like a locket," she writes in "Flap Anatomy," "spring the clasp at her side, spread/her tiny silver hinge." What is the more macabre, these poems ask, our bodies or our fascination with them? "Driving between doctors I carry my ovary in my purse," she writes in "The Paper House," a poem about a sonogram. "I carry my photographs like a prize,/taking it out at stop lights." Remarkably, for a poet writing about corpses, Meyer manages to make the body's ephemeral nature anything but a foregone conclusion.

Should I go to the Clark County Renaissance Fair?

Yes: Renaissance fair, you had us at "Celtic bands." Who wouldn't want to spend hours among "lavishly costumed knights, knaves, fine ladies and wenches"? Think of the historical re-enactments! Craft demonstrations! And this: jousting! An afternoon of medieval pageantry is the perfect way to forget that you live in a world of school shootings, North Korean nuclear tests and A Boy Named It.

No: What is it about Renaissance fairs that makes them seem lacking in the dignity enjoyed by, oh, Civil War re-enactors? Oh, right—there were no minstrels in the Civil War. Also, any event that encourages the recreational wearing of codpieces is the be shunned by grown-ups. Also, Celtic music is boring.

Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (4 stars) $39.98

Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Complete Movie Collection (3 stars) $29.98

The Boris Karloff Collection (3 stars) $29.98

The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology (4 stars) $42.98

The Complete Omen Collection (3 stars) $49.98

Much to the delight of party planners, beer distributors and costume designers, Halloween has grown from an amusing diversion for preteens into an excuse for spending second only to Christmas. Few businesses have benefited as much from the de-paganization of Halloween than Hollywood studios with vast libraries of movies about monsters, serial killers, possessed children, ghouls, irradiated lizards and other spawn of Satan.

Boxed sets of titles in the Exorcist and Omen series are noteworthy primarily in that they include the most recent attempts to extend the franchises. John Moore's updating of the original 1976 The Omen offered a few thrills but was faithful to the point of redundancy. The most interesting thing about The Exorcist anthology is the inclusion of both versions of the ill-fated prequel, Paul Schrader's Dominion and Renny Harlin's vivisection of it. Both are sad monuments to the dunderheaded decision-making in Hollywood.

Not so with collections of vintage horror thrillers from the vaults of Universal, MGM and Warner Bros. Legends of Horror includes such little-seen spine-tinglers as Mark of the Vampire, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Doctor X, The Return of Doctor X, Mad Love and The Devil-Doll. Universal's box of Boris Karloff's midcareer work includes Night Key, Tower of London, The Climax, The Strange Door and The Black Castle. Universal also has resurrected its Inner Sanctum Mysteries series, which gave Lon Chaney Jr. a vehicle in the '40s. Trick or treat, indeed.