OCTOBERFEAST – Vigo the Carpathian

[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]

Mythology is a facet of human existence that is simply unfettered by the constraints of space and time. With its archetypal structures firmly embedded within the collective unconscious, mythology is both prehistoric and ever-persistent. Heroes and villains. Tragedies and triumphs. Narratives will always be around, adapting accordingly and continuing to provide guidelines for livin’.

The messiah is Jesus is Neo. The sage is Virgil is Ben Kenobi. The bildungsroman is Holden’s excursion into NYC.

You get the point.

Operating under the presumption of narrative omnipresence, it becomes clear who can be credited as the most dastardly of villains. While dark forces work against every era, there are also those especially evil forces that’re willing to plague innocent folk across the epochs. These overachievers traverse space and time, doing their best to snub out the dwindling flicker that is human benevolence at every vulnerable moment.

Of all the malignant space-pirates floating around the universal ether, and there’s no shortage of `em, one is a notch above. This is a man whose powers allow him not only to travel through time, but to stave off death in a manner impossible for mere mortals. Yes, this is a man who upon being killed (which required he be shot, stabbed, hung, stretched, disemboweled, and then drawn and quartered) remarked, “Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I’ll be back.”

So, if you would, all of the OCTOBERFEAST celebrants are asked to please give a warm welcome to a magician who needs no introduction but will get one anyways. A man who almost ruined NYC’s 1989 New Year’s Eve festivities. A fellow who almost killed Bill Murray.

The one. The only. Vigo the Carpathian.

Dying in 1610 after a lifetime of maniacal tyranny, Vigo the Carpathian concocted what seemed like a foolproof plan: his soul would possess a portrait of himself, he’d use his skills of persuasion to convince a kooky museum curator to be his lackey, he would then reinforce his powers by harnessing negative energy from an underground river of slime, and then he’d inhabit the corporeal form of a baby on New Year’s Eve.

Again, foolproof. What could go wrong?

But then Vigo soon learned, as did many of the spooks and spectres of 1980s NYC, that the Ghostbusters are also a force to be reckoned with. Assisted by Louis Tully, the Ghostbusters proved that they weren’t `fraid of no ghosts by thwarting Vigo’s plans at the zero hour. However, Vigo certainly went down swingin’. The fact is, the Ghostbusters were only successful after summoning every good vibe available and enlisting the help of Lady Liberty herself.

To reiterate – this dude is so evil that it took millions of New Yorkers singing, the avatar of freedom, and Rick Moranis to take him down.

So alas, Vigo was banished back into the nether-realm. But that was over two decades ago, and the spirit of Carpathia’s dictator never rests in peace. So perhaps – if we all eat enough candy and listen to enough metal and watch enough horror flicks – then just maybe we can bring him back for the OCTOBERFEAST.

Let’s open the door and smash through the window – time for a new season of evil!