Although the streets have cleared of Jedi, ghouls, princesses, and zombies, as darkened jack-o'-lanterns rot through the season chill, the memories still linger.
Cinema Fromage tells us about a Halloween night spent with Batgirl!
Well here we are, sitting at November 1st and Halloween is already starting to fade into the past. While it could be considered a sad time for those of us that look at this holiday as the most anticipated of the year, I can be happy in saying that in looking back, it was the best in recent years! Cinema Fromage
Love Train For the Tenebrous Empire relives "Dead Snow!"
It's November 1st, which means that I've slept till post-noon after another truly epic Halloween debauch. Baron XIII and I have been troopers for the past several nights, cramming a year's worth of partying and fancy dress into a few days. We've learned a lot of things...Love Train For the Tenebrous Empire
Uranium Cafe doesn't stand a ghost of a Halloween in China!
The concept of Halloween is not a part of the Chinese culture and why would it be. The day was half over before I even realized it was Halloween, my favorite holiday for most of my life. There was nothing here to remind me of the fact. No card board ghosts or skeletons hanging from neighbors doors. No posters announcing costume parties. No horror movie marathons on the state run CCTV. I think the whole idea of kids here knocking on stranger’s doors and wanting candy is as alien as a two party political system.
In fact the candy here is not what I would want for Trick-or-Treat anyway. No mini sized Baby Ruths or Mars bars, or even candy corn. The candy is often some nearly sugarless jelly like substance you suck out of a little cup or a flavored rice cake. I can tell you a flavored rice cake will still taste only like a rice cake. I did a quick lesson over the history of Halloween for my classes and realized as I stood at the board, chalk in hand, that my actual knowledge of the holiday was not enough to do an unprepared lesson on. Realizing my students typically either do not listen to me or understand me anyway, I made some facts and drew some drawings of haunted houses and goblins on the blackboard and quickly shifted the topic to questions to keep them talking (and me to shut up).
The topic got to my area of expertise, horror movies. I suggested that we could see John Carpenter’s The Thing for a Halloween class movie but it was almost unanimously shot down as it sounded too freaky for them. I subjected a class to the newer film Orphan and figured it was as close as it was going to get for a Halloween movie. For Halloween night my wife nixed the idea of seeing The Thing again because she had seen it once before, like three years ago. I just saw it a few months ago for the millionth time and was up to it but she simply hates to see a film twice in the same decade so I found 28 Weeks Later, which she hadn’t seen. We enjoyed it and for the 2nd feature all I could find was The Strangers which is a film I really did not like. She didn’t either, and as the night drew late I popped in the Friday the 13th reboot and she liked it but complained the action was too fast and dark. I agreed actually. There were no knocks at the door and no dark chocolate for me to nimble on the next morning. I did enjoy my Halloween vicariously through many horror movie blogs and am still looking over the party pictures that are being posted in these days following the holiday. I now prepare myself for the next couple unobserved western holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, as the year winds to a close. Uranium Cafe
Vault of Horror becomes one of the stalking dead for the season!
OK, so lots of other people seem to be doing the whole "Here's what I did for Halloween" post--so why not me? I apologize for the lateness, but here goes. As you can see above, I went the whole zombie route this year. Unimaginative, I know. But I hadn't done it in many years, and there have really been noticeable improvements in drug store Halloween makeup since the mid 1990s! Vault of Horror
Cinema Suicide goes all hectic for Halloween!
Here we are. The final post in the blog-a-thon and I’m actually a day late on this. October has been an unreasonably busy month. Such is life when you run a blog where the bulk of the writing is dedicated to horror. The last four days, however, have been particularly busy. I don’t know what it’s like out there wherever you are, but our families live out here in New Hampshire, spread across a couple of different communities, each of which stage their Halloween nights on different nights. This weekend, we’ve done trick or treating with Delilah in Brentwood and then over to Hampton. Cinema Suicide
Evil On Two Legs captures the terror in pictures!
Lost Highway has an unhealthy Halloween!
Ahh the anticipation of a Halloween night. I had been fighting a head cold Friday that I had for nearly 2 weeks but the large overdose on Advil Cold and Sinus had clouded my judgement into thinking I was actually a potentially healthy Halloween goer. So I headed out to my boss's pumpkin carving party with kids in tow Friday night. All was well until the medication wore off...light headiness, hallucination of Jimmy Hendrix carving a clown faced jack-o'-lantern, rum cake swirling about. I should have recognized the signs. A bit much for this old man as I woke up the next day feeling like I had been stuffed in a gym locker for the night. I could barely get off the couch to get the remote. While scrounging the fridge my wife was suddenly pointing at me in abject horror "oh no you've got pink eye!!" I looked into the mirror and saw some bloodshot-eyed undead monster looking back at me.
My youngest daughter had just gotten over it...so it must have been my turn. No worries I thought..it'll be a rough night of trick 'r treatin' with the kids but I could still pull through as long as I take it easy during the day. Well the wife left on errands and I was alone to try to recuperate a bit and sleep it off. I let the dogs out to do their duty and when they came back in they were covered in mud. Bending over to wipe them off I suddenly felt a unholy pain like somebody took a sledge hammer and dropped it from a 4th story window onto my back. I fell down on the floor and couldn't even get onto my hands and knees for a good 20 minutes. I crawled my way back to the couch eventually in complete pain and lay there until my wife got back. No trick or treatin' for me. Sick, pink-eyed, and back pulled, I spent the evening watching horror films while the kids went hunting down candy with the wife. I was home alone and it was quiet and I was watching horror movies...guess that's not such a bad night after all. Lost Highway
Zombos Closet of Horror meets the spooky neighbors!
I usually hand out the trick-or-treat bags while my wife and son go around the neighborhood. But not this year. This time my son and me dressed up as characters from Naruto (he loves the series) and we made the candy-grubbing rounds with one of his friends. I was shocked! Who knew I had such devilishly inventive neighbors? From extreme pumpkin carvings to lawns festering with undead corpses popping up from around their tombstones, illuminated by strobe lights, I would never have thought it possible had I not seen it with my own eyes.
One neighbor, dressed in fine witchery black dress and hat even called to us from across the street to make sure we didn't miss her. Her window was filled with ghoulishly-carved pumpkins flickering in the darkness. Wonderful!
Another neighbor drenched his lawn in red light as sound effects, tombstones, ghosts, and one of the most elaborate Gemmy air-blown decorations available--the Grim Reaper driving a pumpkin hearse with glowing lanterns and creepy vocals--set the scene for terror. I mean fun.
My hat is off to the neighbor who sat patiently with a bowl of candy in his lap, staying motionless, wearing a devil's head mask. All around him were grave-busting corpses. My son and his friend suddenly decided they were sick of candy and were not going to HIS house. He beckoned them onward, and I am glad to say my son gathered his courage and went for the candy.
The horror of it all aside, Halloween is all about the candy; whether the sweet kind for the kids, or the eye-popping shivers and costume-dressing adventures for the adults, it is all delectable.
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