JCC [Its Spoopy Season] Welcome to the Halloween Countdown

The family has done nothing Halloween-ish yet. Need to hit a pumpkin patch and watch one of the classics this weekend.

 

Such a great cover, although some might think the original disco version might be scarier lol

 

I asked my wife if she wanted to go as Gomez and Morticia and she said 'that's us everyday it can't be our costume'

 

I'm a Youth Services Librarian in a mid-sized public library in Upstate New York, and we did Halloween programs every year until 2020, including two successful "haunted houses" in our Children's Room. Last year, of course, we couldn't do anything indoors, and the same is true this year. However, we are doing some outdoor activities that people can try out. I thought I'd share them so other folks can try them too, if interested.

One is a Pumpkin Rock Scavenger Hunt; we have 13 rocks painted like jack-o-lanterns that we will place around the library grounds. Each has a letter on the back. Once participants have found all 13, they can unscramble the letters to form a two-word phrase.




I have some extra rocks painted, in case some of these "wander off" on us. We'll put them out next week, and pick them up November 1st.

We're also doing an "obstacle course" on the sidewalk: we've made and laminated a bunch of Halloween-theme obstacles and people can Walk the Witches' Brooms Balance Beams, Dodge the Zombies, Do the Monster Mash, Do the Pumpkin Hop, and Walk the Spiders' Web. The original idea is here; however, we are in an area with very uncertain weather, and I would rather not have to re-chalk all this several times in the next two weeks, so we're using laminated paper. This way we can also pack the objects up and re-use them next year.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

 

Not sure if I've ever shared these before but here are my last three Halloween costumes for our contest at work. They're from 2017, 2018, and 2019. Didn't do one last year and I have put zero effort into making one this year...also can't think of anything clever.

2017 "Amazon Prime"


2018 "Xenomorph"


2019 "Wendigo"

 

Now that's cute

 

I don't get it

 

Additional viewings since my last update:

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Halloween (1978)
Halloween (2018)
Halloween Kills (2021) - first viewing
Dracula (1958) - first viewing
Evil Dead (2013)

I also watched the first episode of SyFy/Universal's new Chucky series, which I quite liked. It's great that original writer Don Mancini has been allowed to stay and shepherd the franchise all these years, and that bleeds into the show as well.

I think I actually like Terence Fisher's Hammer Dracula even more than the original Universal version (I prefer James Whale's first two Universal Frankenstein films to the Hammer iterations there, however).

As for the Evil Dead remake, I'd say that it easily qualifies as the best (from what I've seen) of the late 2000s/early 2010s cycle of horror remakes; having Raimi and Campbell on board as producers certainly helped, and I like that the film wasn't afraid to get a bit darkly comedic with its gratuitous violence (the bit with the guy slipping on the cut off piece of his girlfriend's cheek and smacking into the toilet comes to mind), a la Raimi's original films.

 

This (and last) year, Halloween Horror Nights has had a wonderful homage to The Bride of Frankenstein - it starts with footage of the end of the movie (the laboratory exploding), and the first room has the Bride trying to lift a fallen beam off the Monster, who is a mess. After that, she goes full mad scientist, and the 'plot' of the house is that she's kidnapped Dracula's brides to use their blood to help revive the Monster, ending in a battle royale in the final room as she brings the Monster back to life.

 

So some spooky history for you: Jack the Ripper. At a location at one of the escape rooms at home, their hardest room deals with Jack the Ripper.

Watching this video, I got a bit queezy I must say. It makes me think of when I was looking into being an EMT a few years back, and how even though I'd like to have done something medical, I think this confirms I don't have the stomach for it.

The "sounds" are too much for me to hear that sliminess... this is why it's odd I've written a couple horror films and I hate horror. I even thought of an old idea today in giving it new perspective in thinking about writing it. But I can't sit through all that blood and gore in movies. No thanks.

So, if you like Jack the Ripper stuff, here ya go

 

Not really "spooky" but a great song and video. Who doesn't want to see Vlad the Impaler fight nuns?