A new addiction

Great. Just Great. I find something really cool and addicting, but I find it right before school starts. Ah, well, better late than never. I've finally decided to check the HauntCast podcast, and now I'm hooked! This podcast is designed for Home Haunters and Halloween enthusiasts. The show has many features, including horror movie reviews, interviews with Haunters like Stolloween (maker of some the best paper-mache props), coverage of conventions like HAuNTcon or Transworld, letters to the propmasters of the GARAGE OF EVIL, and much more. Plus, the show comes equiped with a truly bizzare sense of humor, that's still funny. Overall, great show, lots of fun. Go check it out, it's free!

www.HauntCast.net

OK, I'm panicking!!!!!

Oh, no. Less than 80 days until Halloween. And not one prop built yet! One thing is certain: I feel so doomed. :(

I was planning on building three scarecrows back in July, but with my mom's wedding, and getting ready for School, I've been busy. My stepdad, Ben, says not to worry, but I still feel doomed. But enough moaning and groaning. On to other news.

I am seriously awaiting the debut of two horror films: Midnight Syndicate's The Dead Matter, and Warner Bros.'s Trick 'r Treat!

I have always been a fan of Midnight Syndicate's music espically Gates of Delirium and The 13th Hour. The make the classiest Halloween music. So, I figure, if anyone can make a great scary movie, it would be them.

Midnight Syndicate

The Dead Matter

Trick 'r Treat justs looks like great bloody good Halloween fun. It looks like the film makers were trying to capture the spirit of the season with this film. Its coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 6th. Can't wait!

Trick 'r Treat at IMDB

And finally, I've decided a theme for next year's haunt. I'm really excited about this theme, and I think I may keep this theme for several seasons! Maybe I'll make a teaser video. :) Well, talk to all you ghoulies later.

Deadly Duo

As you might now know, one of my intentions with this blog is to give praise to yard haunts who deserve it, particularly little known ones. Today, I'll be covering TWO haunts: The Haunting of Ivy Hall, and the Dead's End Yard Haunt.

The Haunting of Ivy Hall is one of the classiest haunts around. The scarecrows, tombstones, jack-o-lanterns, and even the fog simply REEK of Halloween! The theme seems to be a haunted country estate, and they do a really good job of staying on theme. The website and the photography are simply amazing. See for yourself:

The Haunting of Ivy Hall

The second haunt I'm covering today is the Dead's End. Unlike Ivy Hall, which focuses on elegance, Dead's End has an earthy, even rotten texture and look. It has no real theme or story, but simply has different areas, each with its own theme. I noticed that most of their character's heads were masks from Death Studios, not surprising since their very popular among haunters. Unfortunetly, the haunt will not be around for 2009, due to a landslide. Hopefully, they will reappear in the future. Just take a look, you'll enjoy it.

Dead's End Yard Haunt

Brains! BRAINS!!!!!!!

Hello, ghoulies, ghosties, and long-legged beasties.
I actually stumbled across this site almost by accident. One of my favorite sites, Season of Shadows had often mentioned the work of one Victor "the Undertaker" Ives and his company HauntedHotSauce.com. After awhile, I decided to check it out. I was pleasently surprised. I find the idea of Haunted Hot Sauce to be incredibly funny and clever. All the flavors are suposed to be very tasty and, of course, VERY SPICY!!! All the hot sauce is zombie themed; they have names like Ghoul Drool, Mortician's Mold, and Fleashfeast. All the hot sauces come in a cedar coffin filled with a mixture of spanish moss and and rubber maggots. Heck, the bottles even come with a toe-tage around the top! Since the prices are so good, I ordered a double pack for my dad. It should arive anytime this week. I say all fans of Halloween and spicy food should check out the site!

HauntedHotSauce.com

Pennsylvania, here I come!

Well, I've made a decision about the location of my 2009 haunt, Scarecrow Hill. Since most of my family has moved to Pennsylvania, save for my dad and I, I've been considering temporarily moving my haunt to my mom's new address in PA. Well, I've finally decided that I'll be haunting my mom's driveway this year. I'm sorry to those in Ohio who won't get to see it, but I've got a plan to make a video of Scarecrow Hill. Also, I'm thinking about getting a second fog machine to make sure the air is really full of fog.

There's something about PA that really puts me in the Halloween mood. Perhaps its all the acres of cornfields in PA. My stepdad, Ben, and I, were talking about how cool it would be if someone who owned one of those cornfields would build just a field of creepy old scarecrows. I would love to see something like that. Well, that's all for now.

PS: The scarecrow pictured above is Johnny Appleseed by Pumpkinrot, and is one of my favorite works by Pumpkinrot.

Halloween Nightmares!

Something about Halloween always captured my imagination. Perhaps its the strangeness of it all. And what better place to find the strangeness of Halloween than the printed page! Sure, anyone can write a "scary" book. Heck, some of them are in fact scary! But not often do you find a true bit of Halloween fiction. Well, I've found some; I'm sure you'll love it. By now I'm sure your wondering, "What is this book of Halloween fiction, O HalloweeNut?" Well, it's called October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween. And its some of the best fiction I've read yet!

October Dreams is an anthology of stories, essays, non-fiction, all of them related to Halloween. One of the coolest things about this book is that some of the writers in the book share their favorite Halloween memories. One of my favorite stories in the book is the first one, The Black Pumpkin, by Dean Koontz. Mostly he writes suspense novels, but this story showed a far nastier side. And I loved it! :) Any Halloween fan should get their bloody claws on this book. You won't regret it!

Order it Here: