A Halloween Thing A Day: ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – Live

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Is it a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? I know several people who struggle with that distinction, but for me it’s easy: The Nightmare Before Christmas is a straight-up Halloween move, and a very good one at that.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: ‘Three Skeleton Key’ with Vincent Price

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Three men in an isolated lighthouse…a derelict ship swarming with rats…a desperate struggle for survival…all narrated by the late, great Vincent Price.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: ‘Witches Brew’

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While the Internet has given us many things we could probably have lived without, it delivers plenty of good as well—this site being one of them, of course. But what I’m talking about today is the proliferation of short horror films you can easily find online.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Bad Michael Myers Masks

Halloween Thing A Day

Seriously...look at this thing.
Seriously…look at this thing.

One of the hardest things for those who followed John Carpenter in adding to the Halloween movie franchise to get right has been the mask worn by Michael Myers. Nothing has matched (or even come close to matching) the soul-chilling look of that first mask, the now-famously-modified William Shatner hood that Carpenter used to such great effect.

But, man, if you thought the filmmakers have had a tough time nailing down that iconic look, wait ’till you see some of the misguided attempts from merchandisers.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Blockhead’s Revenge

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It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a bona fide Halloween classic. But what if it was a horror movie?

Back in 2011, the folks at Funny or Die created a trailer that re-imagined the gentle Charles Schultz masterpiece as a gritty horror flick called Blockhead’s Revenge. Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: The Fine Art of Halloween

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Art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s trash….you get the idea. Different people see things differently, and few things have as big a dividing line as art…except maybe Halloween. Combine the two and you’re likely to draw some severely conflicting opinions about your work.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: “Treehouse of Horror” Classics

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There are many things that are integral to Halloween: jack o’ lanterns, ghost stories, Michael Myers and the Great Pumpkin all come to mind. Also, the annual celebration/parodying/lampooning of horror that is the “Treehouse of Horror” episodes of “The Simpsons.”Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: The ‘Trick or Treat’ Trailer

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Ah, the ’80s, when heavy metal music was rotting our brains, and Satanic messages were buried in records, just waiting for some poor schmuck to play the album backwards and succumb to its demonic temptations.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: A Halloween S.O.S.

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Halloween is mostly concerned with made-up horrors—a time to celebrate “safe” scares. However, a CNN article I stumbled across served as a stark reminder that, sometimes, real-life horror intrudes on even the most innocent of occasions.

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A Halloween Thing A Day: Irwin Yablans on the ‘Halloween’ Franchise

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When I’m writing about Halloween, eventually I’m going to get around to writing about Halloween. While I have a lot of affection for the franchise as a whole—and yes, that includes Rob Zombie’s two entries—my absolute favorite is the original John Carpenter classic.Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Hellboy Wine

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If you read any Hellboy comics, you know he is no stranger to spirits—both the ghostly kind and the alcoholic kind. His tequila-fueled adventures in Mexico alone are the stuff of legend. In fact, it’s mostly hard liquor that I recall Hellboy imbibing…but to be honest, I can’t remember ever seeing him turn down a bottle of wine…Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree

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From Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree:

ray-bradbury-halloween-tree-wide-night-mThey rounded the far side of the house and stopped. For there was the Tree. And it was such a tree as they had never seen in all their lives.

It stood in the middle of the vast yard behind the terribly strange house. And this tree rose up some one hundred feet in the air, taller than the high roofs and full and round and well branched and covered all over with rich assortments of red and brown and yellow autumn leaves.

“But,” whispered Tom, “oh look. What’s up in that tree?” For the Tree was hung with a variety of pumpkins of every shape and size and a number of tints of hues of smoky yellow or bright orange.

“A pumpkin tree,” someone said. “No,” said Tom. The wind blew among the high branches and tossed their bright burdens, softly. “A Halloween Tree,” said Tom.

And he was right.

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A Halloween Thing A Day: Halloween Urban Legends

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What better time for urban legends—those unproveable, often unbelievable tales that get passed from generation to generation, surviving despite their inherent absurdity—than Halloween? Continue Reading

A Halloween Thing A Day: 18 Haunting Costumes of the Past

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People spend a lot of money these days to put together scary Halloween costumes. From deluxe masks to professional-grade makeup to screen-ready clothing, it’s easy to drop a bundle if you really want to impress the people at your office costume contest or neighborhood block party.

Back in the day, though, costumes were usually homemade, often assembled with little know-how and not much in the way of supplies. And the effect, in many instances, was far scarier than anything you can buy off the rack today.Continue Reading