How I Spent My Halloween Celebration

Okay, so I didn’t get around to updating the blog this month as much as I’ve wanted to this month. Chalk it up to just plain laziness and working lame hours at work. BUT… Despite this state’s best attempts to deter me with heat and humidity, I have been celebrating Halloween in my own special ways. I’ll add pictures because pictures are always fun.

Of course, at the core of any good Halloween celebration there are the movies. I’ve been working my through my Universal Horror collection once again and taking in the odd Hammer film here and there on Turner Classic Movies when time permitted. I’ve also done some catching up on horror films with Netflix. In fact, today The Company of Wolves and Dead and Buried just arrived and I’ll be working my way through them (along with finishing off the Universal movies) sometime between now and late tomorrow night.

Oh and I also worked my way through the first two seasons of True Blood starting back in September. The show didn’t wow me with the first few episodes but it became great after that (though Bill & Sookie are extremely annoying as are some of the accents). Can’t wait for Season 3 to hit DVD!

While neglecting this blog, I’ve been steadily posting reviews over at Metal Excess on some of rock & metal’s more evil bands and albums. That’s if you count Ozzy or Lordi or Lizzy Borden as evil. None of that death or black metal garbage.

I also bought Dead Rising 2 for Playstation 3. What better way to ring in Halloween than smashing zombies around? I think think it sucks you’re timed. I wish they would just make it like GTA. Have a larger story and side missions but let it all progress as you please. Sometimes I just wanna run around, pick up weapons and kill zombies but I feel like I don’t have the time to do what I bought the game to do! Can I PLEASE shot a zombie with a drill gun and for once not have to worry about giving my daughter her medicine at 7AM so she won’t turn into a zombie ?!

Candles. I love them. Yes, I am a single heterosexual male that is addicted to candles. Call me for a good time. I got hooked on them years ago and haven’t looked back. I love the fall/winter scents that Yankee Candle and PartyLite put out. In addition to a pumpkin jar candle I bought a few weeks ago, I dropped over $40 with PartyLite ordering all kinds of seasonal votives. My choices for fall scents were Leaves of Fun and Spiced Cider and they are delicious! I’m stock piling for Christmas too. I also picked up Holiday Spices, Peppermint Bark, Cinnamon Eggnog and Spruce in the Snow.

Oh and for the first time in probably… 15 years or so I’ll be dressing up for Halloween. As a ’80s hair metal guy. Just going out with the fam, no cool party or anything to go to but I’m trying to come out of my shell a bit and let loose after a rough year and I think wearing zebra print tights in public is a good step in the right direction.

The FLASH cupcakes! Just in time for… Halloween?

I know the comic book community was buzzing over the Green Lantern cupcakes that popped up a few months back. They were pretty cool looking and despite the Justice League branding, it was just DC laying the groundwork to help get the character some more recognition for the movie comes out next year. But then I saw these…

Sorry it's blurry. I just didn't feel like taking another picture, okay?

Flash cupcakes!

Not that I’m complaining. I love seeing someone from DC besides Superman and Batman get a piece of the licensing pie. So it’s nice that they’re really going for it by pushing the Justice League brand (if you consider Flash and Green Lantern cupcakes as “pushing it”, I know I do). Could Martian Manhunter cupcakes be too far off?

Now, as cool as this is, I’m puzzled by one of the selling points.

8 Individually Wrapped Scary Cakes. “Scary Cakes”? What’s so scary about the Flash? Is that just what they call this particular cupcake all year round? How does this connect to Halloween? The Flash isn’t some type of creepy or supernatural comic book character. The cupcakes have no obvious Halloween look either. The red frosting and yellow sprinkles as based off of Flash’s color scheme.

C’mon, if they had Solomon Grundy or a Black Lantern or any villain I could buy this as being “scary” and related to Halloween but the Flash? You’re really stretching it, Hostess…

The Ghoul

The Ghoul (1933)

The Ghoul is one of Boris Karloff’s lesser known movies but still pretty good. I caught it on Turner Classic Movies a few years back and liked it. It’s not a great movie but it’s still good fun. It is a British film, released by Gaumont, but they were obviously aiming squarely at fans of Universal’s horror output. This film has the same eerie silence and moody lighting of those early Universal classics and even reunites Karloff with Ernest Thesiger. Both had played in the 1932 Universal movie The Old Dark House and of course would go on to even greater success when they shared screen time again in 1934′s Bride of Frankenstein.

What is really interesting about this movie is that it was considered to be a lost film for 31 years and then in 1969 a worn out, subtitled, and edited copy of the film was found in Czechoslovakia. Finally in the early ’80s a perfectly stored copy was discovered in a British movie studio vault. Fast forward to 2003 and MGM released that version on DVD to the masses.

DVD cover

It has been said this film combines elements of Universal’s The Mummy and The Old Dark House. Having not seen The Old Dark House yet, I can’t comment on that but The Mummy element is certainly there. Karloff’s character believes if he dies with an amulet on his person as an offering to Anubis, he will be granted eternal life. The amulet is stolen before he is entombed and of course Karloff comes back from being “dead” to wreck havoc and get revenge. Is it essential horror? No but I still recommend it for fans of classic horror. It might as well have been made by Universal.

Oh, I forgot one thing! Here’s an exchange between two characters that I really loved the first time I saw this movie:

Broughton: I advise you to be very careful, Laing.
Laing: I’ve a careful nature.
Broughton: You may be putting yourself perilously near dishonesty.
Laing: I’ve seen men nearer.

I don’t know why but I’ve always thought that was a really cool exchange.

If you would like the see the Czech print of this film, it can be downloaded for free at the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/TheGhoul but as far as I know, only MGM holds the rights to the cleaned up full version so you’ll have to get your hands on the DVD for that. It’s also available for streaming from Netflix.

Let Me Tell You Something About Halloween

Let me tell you something about Halloween. Halloween was, is and always will OCTOBER THIRTY-FIRST.

So what’s all this talk about holding Halloween on October 30th? Just because the 31st falls on a Sunday? Screw that! Now, don’t worry, this isn’t a national movement but I know there’s a few places around the country that will be holding trick-or-treating on Saturday night and one town in my area which will be doing it. Saturday night is NOT HALLOWEEN. How does that make sense? Do we bump Christmas if it doesn’t suit our schedule? Valentine’s Day? New Year’s Eve? NO! Why is anyone even considering “moving” Halloween? It’s ridiculous.

This smacks of pure arrogance on the part of out-of-touch local politicians and over-bearing parents. Let the kids have some fun! That is so lame to trick-or-treat the day before Halloween. We never had to do that when I was a kid. Whatever day October 31st fell on, that was Halloween. It wasn’t even up for discussion to move trick-or-treating to another night.

And another thing — guess what? We went trick-or-treating AT NIGHT. That’s right! Who wants to dress up as a vampire and roam the street at 4:45PM in broad daylight? Trick-or-treating is supposed to start at dusk and you stop when you’ve ransacked all your local neighborhoods and no more lights are on (usually 9ish). There was none of this “start when it’s daylight and stop by 6PM” garbage. We went out just as it was getting dark, running and jumping up and down the streets, high on the idea of getting free candy, and screaming our heads off. We were little terrors and that’s what Halloween is all about.

So, to clarify:

 

NO

 

 

YES

 

Masters of the Universe: The Evil Horde Fright Zone

Certainly a topic worthy of Halloweentime discussion is the Evil Horde Fright Zone play set from the Masters of the Universe line of toys. It’s a trap-filled stronghold of terror, you know. This was an extremely cool play set. Everybody wanted it but I was one of the kids that never got it. As usual, the neighbors down the street had it (along with the U.S.S. Flag Aircraft Carrier!). They seemed to get all the cool vehicles and play sets while I was left with about a fourth of the figures they had and my own imagination. I swear, every year I flipped through that phone book thick Sears holiday catalog, circled all the toys I wanted, show it off to my parents and was lucky to get one or two of those items! And it was never the “big stuff”!

Just look at this thing! I mean, it’s called the Fright Zone for crying out loud, so yeah, it’s pretty creepy and awesome. The Horde always kinda creeped me out anyway. Skeletor and his troops were bad yet goofballs but Hordak and the rest of the Horde came off as just pure evil. Hordak is an absolutely sinister looking toy. The Evil Horde was way weirder, freakier and scarier than any of the Evil Warriors.

I love the creepy, dying tree with the vultures sitting on the branches. The giant snake is just great too. Such an awesome idea that they basically made it a hand puppet for you or one of your friends to operate. Notice in the promo art below and the box art about that Skeletor is being made Hordak’s bitch. First he’s having to fight off a wicked tree and then he’s locked away in a cave! Poor Skeletor.