31 Days of Halloween - Finale

For a while it looked like we were going to be rained out, but the weather turned in our favor except for some pretty strong winds which kept me from hanging the candle filled plastic Jack O'Lantern buckets from the trees and eliminated the use of a fog machine. You can see what the winds were like from the picture of the tiki torches below.


























As usual, the kids need to rush off trick or treating kept me from getting many good photos of the yard in all its glory. We have a crescent shaped driveway. Both entrances were flanked by two pairs of tiki-torches with skulls mounted on them. Within the crescent was the bigger than actual size skeletal horse and rider, with the other giant human skeleton off to the side.



















The driveway was outlined by clouded jars containing candles (which were constantly being extinguished by the high winds), then forming a path to the Jack O'Lantern' at the front door. Flanking the door this year was an all new set-up of 16 graves and six ghosts (two ghosts were carry overs from the last two years ) lighted with green and blue lights, with a third, red light coming from the upper floor of the house. A new Nosferatu was meant to stand on the balcony over the front door, but didn't get finished in time. I had to jettison the old Nosferatu when I moved last Spring for lack of space.





















The ghosts (except for the animatronic beheaded bride) are made of plastic wrap and packing tape, with a couple of clothing embellishments made from transparent plastic shower curtain liners. The organ player had an internal skeleton, hair made from fishing line, and arms that could move, powered by the wind (unfortunately the device rigged to catch the wind to do this, broke early on) so that he's appear to be playing the organ. The organ itself was a free find that someone had sitting on their driveway free for anyone willing to take it away. I'd hoped to transform it into a pipe organ but became too busy to do so.




















I don't have any real good pictures of Mark, the scuba diver who swam too close to a shark, but he's a scuba diver ghost with one arm, and part of his torso bitten away, trying to swim away from a ghostly shark emerging from the ground and swallowing his leg. This ghost took the most damage and will most likely need to be rebuilt from scratch next year.















































The grave stones are all made entirely of cardboard, most using Fed Ex boxes as devised by Dave Lowe . I hand cut all of the letter from slightly thinner, compacted cardboard and glued them in place before painting and then aging with a spray on mix of paint I call "moldy grave." It sounds labor intensive, but actually took very little time overall. I did end up with some serious carpal tunnel problems, but they turned out really well, and for 16 graves the total cost was $4.00 which I paid for a can of "mismixed" gray paint at Lowes.















To finish everything off, I had two different sound mixes playing, one was appropriately spooky organ music. The other ghostly sound effects. The whole set up went up over a period of less than four hours and came down last night in about 45 minutes. I spent maybe $60.00 total, and most of that was for packing tape.

31 Days of Halloween - Please Stand By

Due to technical difficulties, photos of my yard display will not be posted until tomorrow, or Monday. Sorry for any inconvenience.

31 Days of Halloween - Happy Halloween!

It's not quite over. I still have one post left which will go up late tonight showing what I concocted for the yard this year. I also have a few things to give away to some randomly drawn people who have left comments here throughout the month, though I probably won't get to that before mid-week at the earliest.

I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by throughout the month, particularly those people who left comments. I'd also like to thank everyone who participated in the extremely successful Countdown to Halloween this year, particularly Shawn Robare and Jon K. for the much needed work on the Countdown to Halloween blog. Stop over there tomorrow for an announcement regarding next year's countdown.

This month turned out to be a particularly busy one for me, and not much of that business was directed at Halloween or the countdown, unfortunately. I'd fortunately prepared all of my posts with the exception of two collages which weren't completed until the past few days, and my daily movies, before October even arrived. Otherwise I would have had pretty sparse offerings this year. I have had few opportunities to even periodically check out the blogs of all the other participants, let alone leave any thoughtful comments. The good thing is that I enjoy Halloween all year long, which gives me plenty of time, and plenty to do in catching up with everything everyone else has offered. I promise to look through everyone's countdown posts as soon as I'm able to.

Have a safe and fun Halloween, everyone, and thanks again for helping make this one so great.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 31 - Riddle

There's no new riddle for today. Thank you everyone for participating in guessing, or trying to guess the riddles.



Answer to yesterday's riddle: Drac racing.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 31

Today's collage portrait is Lon Chaney as the man in the beaver hat in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927). Lon Chaney created his own make-up for this role.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30 - Movie

After an amazing, highly promising trailer, two years of waiting, and nearly a month of having the DVD in my possession but holding off until the end of the month, I finally got to watch "Trick R Treat" (2007). This highly anticipated anthology movie weaves together four stories and a prologue all set in the same town on the same Halloween night. The stories involve a killer school teacher, a prank gone wrong, a young woman looking for a date to a Halloween party, and a cranky old hermit's encounter with Halloween incarnated in the form of a creepy trick-or-treater.

I can't think of a movie that embraces all of the trappings of Halloween to the level that this one does. It's like an R-Rated "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Practically every frame is filled with jack o'lanterns, trick or treaters, costumes, masks, candy, orange, black, and Autumn leaves. You can practically feel the chill in the air and smell the smoke of fireplaces being lit for the first time since the previous winter. Anyone who loves the holiday will wish their town celebrated Halloween like the town in this movie does.

The movie itself though is pretty uneven. The prologue is not really much of a story and it's incredibly predictable. The story of the teacher has it's moments, but is too scattershot a narrative and not overall a satisfying tale. The one involving the prank is probably the most satisfying story in the movie. The one about the girl looking for a date is also pretty weak and has a predictable ending. The final story with the goblin trick-or-treater is probably the second best story and ties into the prank story as well. I think that going the traditional anthology route and separating the narratives, rather than intertwining them would have made for a more satisfying movie. The narratives don't line up very well intercut together and jump all over time, something not helped by the comic book captions which either read "earlier" or "later." It feels like way too much is going on at once, and stretches the credibility of the movie by having all of these various ill-fated Halloween stories happening all in the same town on the same night, (and of course with no consequences on the following day). There's also periodic flashes of comic book imagery, like Creepshow, but with no point whatsoever, since comic books have no relevance to the movie itself, even as a wrap around element.

I could nitpick other things, such as the tale about a school bus within the prank story, which defies logic. There's no way anyone could have known what happened on that day, since no one lived to talk about it. I was also distracted by how much the pumpkin goblin character looked like Michael Jackson. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie. I just don't think this is the be all, end all of Halloween movies. I also liked the trailer better, which surprisingly is not included on this incredibly bare bones DVD release.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30 - Riddle

What is Transylvania's national sport?



Answer to yesterday's riddle: Electri-city.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 30

Today's collage portrait is Elsa Lanchester as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935). The make-up was created by Jack Pierce.

This is one of the very first collages I did, around 2001. For what it is it's not too bad, but it doesn't really look like Elsa Lanchester. I was hoping to create a new version of this image this year, but ran out of time.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 29 - Movie

An incredibly stunning visual treat, "Haxan" (1922) is a multi-part silent documentary on the history of witchcraft through the time of the film's making. Beginning with an exploration of devils and pagan gods, and ending with a a segment equating hysteria and mental illness with similarities to alleged symptoms indicative of witchcraft, the long middle segments follow a narrative thread depicting traditional stories of witches as wise healers as well as flying, devil associating, black arts practicing hags which leads into the mania of the Inquisition and its obviously one-sided witchcraft accusations and tortures which could not be defended against by anyone accused of being a witch, or aiding a witch. The two end segments are the weakest portions of this film, with the middle section being visually arresting and emotionally engaging. Everything from the art direction, costumes, and mise en scene is gorgeous and lends the movie an air of realism, as if someone went back a few centuries to document these events on film. The scenes depicting the witches interacting with devils and flying over the countryside in particular are just gorgeous and strange to behold.

This movie is well worth seeing, especially this time of year. There's also a shorter version of the movie which replaces the title cards with voice over narration by William Burroughs. I've seen this movie three times now, but haven't tried that version of it yet. I can see how an audible narrator would be preferable in certain portions of the movie, particularly the beginning, but could also see how it would be a distraction and could take away from the strength of the visuals on their own terms.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 29 - Riddle

Which city is the Frankenstein monster's favorite?




Answer to yesterday's riddle: They both make people shiver.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 29

Today's collage portrait is Vincent Price as THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (1971). Trevor Crole-Rees was the make-up artist on this film.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 28 - Movie

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974) is one of those movies that's been discussed to death, and I don't really have much to add to the discussion. For anyone who doesn't know the movie is about five young friends who venture out to the abandoned home of a relative. On the way, they pick up the wrong hitchiker. Once they reach the house they discover the hard way that the neighbors are a family of psychotic, cannibalistic, grave robbers.

I'm always surprised when I see references to how violent and gory this movie is. There's actually very little blood in the movie. The mentally off kilter hitchiker slices the palm of his own hand, and the arm of one of the friends with a pocket knife, and later one of the friends has her finger tip cut with another knife. For all the revved up chainsaw wielding in this movie, that's mostly all you see. There's plenty of violence, but almost all of it is of the emotional kind, which even makes one of the cannibals uneasy.

The movie succeeds primarily because of its almost documentary like nature, which delivers a sense of realism to the scenario which has no real plot to it. It is definitely an influence on movies like "The Blair Witch Project" in this regard, and influential on just about every power tool or machete wielding masked maniac movie for purely superficial reasons.

In Comic Book Stores Now

The second regular "The Hangman" story appears as the co-feature in "The Web" #2. Written by myself with art by Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkiewicz, this story expands what we know about Dr. Robert Dickering, the man who at night transforms into the supernatural agent of justice, the Hangman. "The Web" #2 is available in comic book stores today.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 28 - Riddle

Why is a ghost like a cold breeze?



Answer to yesterday's riddle: One bites necks, the other bites next.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 28

Today's collage portrait is of Godzilla as he appeared in GODZILLA 2000 (1999). This new design for Japan's most famous monster was constructed by Kakusei Fujiwara and Shisishi Wakasa and brought to life by actor Tsutomu Kitagawa.

This collage was done a few years ago, and was a departure from the more realistic monster portraits I've been doing. It's based on the Polish poster for the original GODZILLA (1954) (see poster IX here).

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27- Movie 2

Two converging plots about foreheads are at the center of "Trail of the Screaming Forehead" (2007). In one, two scientists out to prove that the forehead is the center of human intelligence experiment with foreheadezyne with disastrous consequences. In the other, alien foreheads attach themselves to the foreheads of earth's human population in order to take over the planet, and only two sailors and a librarian stand between them and world conquest.

Starring and made by many of the same people who made the fantastic "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" (2001), including the writer/director/star, Larry Blamire. "Trail of the Screaming Forehead" is highly enjoyable, but not nearly as successful as "Skeleton." "Skeleton" embraced all of the negative trappings of second and third rate science fiction movies of the late 1950s to great success, including stilted dialogue and awkward acting. "Forehead" employs a different, almost straight, acting style which works fine, but still embraces awkward sentence structure in it's dialogue to no purpose, other than to distract from the story and bring attention to itself. This isn't to say that all the lines fall flat. There are some really memorable and some very humorous lines of dialogue, but most of it is simply convoluted repetitions or malapropisms that don't improve the movie.

The movie has many great moments from the pill boxes with the veils, and the sheet of paper with the alien's goal mapped out on it, to the bells and pay phones, and especially the foreheads themselves, which actually have some pretty creepy sound effects, and a lead forehead with voice actor Michael McConnohie lending it a perfect Paul Frees voice. The movie also sports some great guest actors including Betty Garrett, Kevin McCarthy, James Karen, and my personal favorite, Dick Miller.

It's clear that everyone involved had a great time making this movie, and I had a lot of fun watching it, though I was nowhere near as elated as I was watching "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra." This movie did not seen to take the extra step needed to make it a great movie. With so much intelligence increasing foreheadezyne on hand, I only wish the movie had been more smart in the thoughts that went into creating it.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27 - Movie 1

A flying saucer lands in a remote area. The aliens that emerge all look like human teenage males in flight suits, except the expedition leader who appears as a middle aged adult human male. After disintegrating a small dog, the group tests the atmosphere to find out if the earth is suitable for growing large herds of gargons, their major food staple, a dangerous creature that looks like an ordinary lobster but which can grow to be a million times larger in a single day. One of the teens, Derek (David Love) protests when he finds a dog tag on the killed dog's skeleton. Only a civilized people could have engraved that tag. He's seized for being rebellious, but escapes. Thor (Bryan Grant) the alien teen with some hostility and anti-social issues is sent to retrieve him as well as to kill any earth people Derek comes into contact with. Derek returns the dog tag to the dead dog's owner, and takes a room in their house, trying to be come an earth teenage boy. Thor pursues him, disintegrating almost everyone he meets along the way. As Derek and Betty (Dawn Anderson), the teenage girl with bangs who owned the now dead dog, keep trying to escape Thor, another problem emerges which must be overcome. The gargon left by the aliens has grown to gigantic superimposed proportions.

Ed Wood's got nothing on "Teenagers From Outer Space" (1959). The "acting", especially at the beginning, before you get used to it, is so stilted and odd that I was convinced that this movie was the biggest inspiration on the acting in "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra," particularly the characters of Krobar and Lattis ("Lost Skeleton" director Larry Blamire, told me otherwise). It's a really odd movie. The script is amateurishly written, but the movie is a pretty ambitious undertaking. The disintegrations are really cool, and a bit horrid (especially that dog) and the screw-like forcefield beneath the saucer as it lands is a nice effect, but the giant lobster--I mean gargon is ridiculously transparent -- not just that it's a lobster, but because you can see through the superimposition of it on any scene it is in. The prop flying saucer is also not much bigger than a jacuzzi, but fits 5-6 people inside it, plus all their equipment. There are scenes which run far longer than they need to, unintentionally funny characters (and dialogue) and Derek must be one of the most earnest characters ever set to film. In fact, the entire movie is very earnest, which elevates its enjoyability above the train wreck "so bad it's good" type of movie it almost is. This is the third time I've watched this movie. I would definitely call this one a guilty pleasure, though I'm not so sure that pleasure is the right word. I'd love to see this on the big screen with a packed audience. I'm really looking forward to "The Boy From Out of This World" (2009) a documentary about the making of this camp classic.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27 - Riddle

What's the difference between Dracula and a mosquito waiting behind him?



Answer to yesterday's riddle: Wintertime.


Image source

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27

Today's collage portrait is Ed Wolff as the Fly in RETURN OF THE FLY (1959). Hal Lierley is credited as the make-up artist for this film.

This is an older collage from around 2001.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 26 - Movie

It's been at least twenty years since I last saw "The Wicker Man" (1973) so I decided it was time to revisit. Edward Woodward is a policeman who travels to the Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate a missing girl report. It's obvious the minute he reaches the island that something isn't right here. Even though everyone here claims to know everyone else, no one recognizes the girl in the photo, and everyone claims she doesn't exist, including the girl's mother. It soon becomes clear that everyone on the island is a pagan, an idea that revolts the Christian policeman. As he continues his investigation he uncovers fertility rituals, folk singing, cavorting naked girls, animism, parthenogenesis, and a harvest ritual that might include human sacrifice.

This movie still holds up really well, though the, at the time, surprise ending is no surprise now, and the early 70s hippy element seems a little dated. The latter element, with its plethora of musical numbers adds some authenticity to the movie. I'm sure at the time this was originally released, the pagan elements in this movie seemed weird and unsettling, and maybe even unnerving, much as they do to Woodward's Christian policeman. His appalled reaction to an island without Jesus feels very relevant now with such a large number of intolerant, extreme "Christians" having so much political authority in our own country now. Everything about this movies is well done, with the exception early on to drop in short bits of one song about apple groves over an moment where no conversation was happening. The actors are all excellent, particularly Woodward, and Christopher Lee, as Lord Summerisle, the owner, and leader of the island. I really wanted more of his character in the movie. The setting for this movie is perfect, and the direction and cinematography really bring the place to life while evoking an alienness to the place which resides, not simply below the surface, but on the surface, over the normalcy.

I'm glad I went back to this movie. I have no doubt it will be a lot less than twenty years before I get around to watching it again.