Halloween Madness!

Halloween has arrived, we celebrate All Hallow’s Eve – the night when the dead walk the earth and collect commercial confections for their efforts – with a variety of stories, reviews and reminiscences befitting the occasion. Join in the ghoulish fun. Special screaming thanks to Susanna Cornett for conceiving and coordinating, and to all contributors.

There are now over 70 stories here – great job and many thanks!

Plush Halloween
We had a pretty great Halloween this year, here and in real life. Once again I thank all Blogcritics who contributed to our Halloween special, which was an artistic and “commercial” success. Thanks to all our linkers, trackbackers and commenters…
Posted in Blogcritics on November 2, 2003 12:42 PM

The Cherest Halloween Ever
Cher’s final stop on her Farewell Tour was in Toronto on Halloween, and it was AWESOME!!!
Posted in Blogcritics on November 1, 2003 02:19 PM

Never Send a Man
…to do a woman’s job. Yesterday, I asked the BHW husband to purchase our Halloween candy. Big mistake. No self-respecting woman would have returned home with the purchase he made. Every woman knows that Halloween candy is purchased according to…
Posted in Blogcritics on November 1, 2003 11:05 AM

You’ve asked for it
Since Eric has been so persistent and persuasive in his gallant efforts to join us all in yours Halloween merriment, I finally gave in, and here is my contribution. I happen to be merry throughout the year, yet being stubborn,…
Posted in Blogcritics on November 1, 2003 12:51 AM

Scary books for Halloween
After a veritable glut of horror novels in the 80s, the genre pretty much imploded in the early 90s. If you go to a store like Borders, chances are the horror section consists mostly of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:23 PM

Lenore: everyone’s favorite little dead girl
Continuing the Halloween theme, comics-style!
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 09:27 PM

Ed Wood: King of Kitsch
Edward D. Wood Jr. was famous for directing what is considered the worst film ever made: “Plan Nine from Outer Space.”
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 08:14 PM

Halloween: every Fall it Rises!
The anniversary of Antinous’s death (October 30, 130 AD) seems remarkable in its proximity to Halloween, and I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say that even today we are still dealing with the fallout from…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 07:19 PM

Canine Halloween
Is your dog a pimp? Or does he or she just want to dress like one?
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 07:07 PM

OU hosts unmatched Halloween bash ’03
Ohio might not be the Spring Break destination of choice, but we do have the best Halloween party. By Joe Bugbee Pulse Writer They call it the largest block party in the world, and in a sense, it probably is….
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 06:24 PM

Police Poo-poo Pumpkin Roll
They’ve been trying to ban the Pumpkin Roll since I participated in it nearly 30 years ago – just move your stupid cars and stay out of the way: If Chagrin Falls students try to stage their annual Pumpkin Roll…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 05:15 PM

“Help!”: Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez’s The Blair Witch Project
The scariest horror movie I’ve ever seen. Part 13 in a 13-part series.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 05:11 PM

Rockin’ Jack O’ Lantern
Okay, it’s still early. You haven’t carved the jack o’lantern. What to do? Don’t panic, use one of these rock pumpkin patterns. Choose from Jim Morrison, Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia and…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 02:56 PM

“You’ve had your whole f*cking life to think things over”: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
Part 12 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:52 PM

“There is only one”: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist
Part 11 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:47 PM

“There’s some things you just have to do”: Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Part 10 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:39 PM

“Don’t you understand, Rachel?”: Gore Verbinski’s The Ring
Part 9 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:31 PM

“They were screaming”: Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs
Part 8 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:26 PM

Creature Feature: David Skal’s The Monster Show
Is this “Cultural History of Horror” something to scream about?
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:17 PM

Tru Calling
Eliza Dushku talks to dead people. . .
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:16 PM

“People die every day”: Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures
A final supplement to the 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen, featuring another film that just missed the cut.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:09 PM

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”: David Lynch’s Lost Highway
Part 7 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 11:58 AM

Cool Halloween Links
I love Halloween. I think its because I’ve been fascinated by the idea of ghosts ever since I was a child. Halloween is just an excuse to indulge in this fascination. Here are some interesting places that might pique your…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 11:48 AM

Halloween – A night of real horrors
I braved the Pennsylvania turnpike on a Friday night after work to make it back home to Cleveland from Washington, D.C. It was October 30, 1987 and it was my first trip home since I had graduated the previous spring….
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 11:42 AM

A book to die for
Have you ever seen a coffin go by? If you did, you’re the next to die. They wrap you up in a bloody sheet Throw you down ‘bout six feet deep. The bugs crawl in The bugs crawl out The…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 11:33 AM

Disembodied Halloween
So you’re an antisocial type who would rather confer with the disembodied for Halloween – the NY Times has some cool links: For the members of www.masquerade.org, for example, every day is Halloween. In this so-called MUSH – “multi-user shared…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 11:02 AM

Halloween in blogdom
Blogcritics has a Halloween post round-up for your reading pleasure. There is a Halloween short story collection over at William’s blog. Dave has pointed me to Allah’s blog where Allah commented thusly: Confidential to the decadent and more than slightly…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:46 AM

The Friday Morning Listen – Halloween Edition
Happy Halloween Kiddies!
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:42 AM

Not Halloween, Reformation Day!
I don’t have any special religious distaste for Halloween. I’ve pontificated at length that churches who have “Fall Harvest” events on October 31 in which kids dress in costumes and collect candy ought to be forced at gunpoint to call their Halloween parties “Halloween Parties.”
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:36 AM

The Eyes Have It
A lot of weird things happened to me in the ’70s: It’s hard to believe I matriculated to sweet little Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio – “America’s Quiet Surprise” – 28 years ago. I had just turned 17 and in…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:25 AM

My Mom and Darth Vader
My mom was part of the rebel alliance and a traitor — NOT!
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 10:04 AM

Halloween: Drama In Real Life
Spring, 1973 – suburban Cleveland, Ohio. The first rock band I was in practiced at our drummer’s house because his drums won’t fit through the door: their rhythm was nontransferable. I had learned my guitarmanship from books and folk guitar…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 09:55 AM

Happy Halloween
I just want to tell you about something that happened to me. I have never told this to anyone before, because it has so strange and I didn’t think anyone would believe me. Also, it was just so special and…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 09:37 AM

Retrocrush gets scary
Ruminations on Retrocrush’s top 100 scary film moments list.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 04:11 AM

Carnacki the Ghost Finder
William Hope Hodgson’s career as a writer of supernatural horror ended in the mundane horror of the Great War. In the preceding eleven years he had produced an oeuvre about which H. P. Lovecraft commented, in his essay Supernatural Horror…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 03:16 AM

Blessed Samhain
For all our Pagan and Wiccan friends, wishes for a wondrous Samhain. For the rest, a look into the inspiration for Halloween.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2003 12:53 AM

Scary Movie 3 – Save The Best For Last
I’ve never really liked the Scary Movies, but at least I can say for myself – this is the best one of them. After all I don’t understand the success of this movie. It’s mostly just about lame jokes. The…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 11:48 PM

Jack-o-Photo
Note the festive Halloween pic up in the spotlight box above and here: Lily, Dawn and I designed and carved it (Lily didn’t actually wield any cutlery, being newly 4 and all) and then Dawn took the cool digital…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 09:29 PM

House Of The Dead
Oh God, I really couldn’t watch more than half of this piece of sh…pshhh, I’d really seen enough. I wonder why House Of The Dead even made it to the cinemas. I fear it’s because of Jürgen Prochnow, but sorry,…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 06:24 PM

“What can we do? What can we do?”: John Carpenter’s The Thing and Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers
Another supplement to the series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen, this time featuring two films.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 04:11 PM

Halloween… Ren Style
Just a little bit I wrote last year.. In hopes that it won’t happen again THIS year.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 04:01 PM

“You know how things are–life goes on”: Michele Soavi’s Cemetery Man
In a supplement to the series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen, here’s one that didn’t quite make the cut.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 03:50 PM

“Don’t look at me”: Clive Barker’s Hellraiser
Part 6 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 03:21 PM

“F*ck”: Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut
Part 5 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 02:22 PM

“We’re all expecting great things”: The Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink
Part 4 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 01:36 PM

“Seeking human victims”: George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead
Part 3 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 12:52 PM

“You’ll simply never understand the true meaning of sacrifice”: Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man
Part 2 in a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 12:23 PM

“No… No…”: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
Part 1 of a 13-part series on the scariest horror movies I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 11:40 AM

Halloween and Great Southern Tradition
Mommabear links to a Halloween special series of postings on Possumblog. In a cheeky move MB has used one of my fiction pieces for her entry. To be fair, the poor bear has to edit this feral writer’s posts and…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 30, 2003 10:43 AM

Halloween Music Must Haves
Are you throwing a Halloween Party? Do you want something cool for the ghouls who will be in attendence? The best collection of spooky modern rock songs that any DJ worth his dead ass can have, should include the following…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 29, 2003 07:26 PM

High Times In The Witch City: A Month of Halloweens in Salem, MA
My wife and I moved to Salem Massachusetts about three years ago as a matter of convenience. She was going to graduate school in Boston, and I was laundering money for a small pharmaceuticals concern operated off a swordboat in…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 29, 2003 02:46 PM

Halloween and Ghoul Pools
Only two days until Halloween – why do the holiday, movies, attractions, stories, etc., that trade in fright find such resonance with us? I looked into this and the bizarre rise of Internet “ghoul pools” on MSNBC.com: “It’s a dead…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 29, 2003 11:55 AM

Killer Reading
D.H. Lawrence once wrote that “one loses one’s sickness in books.” I don’t know if that’s quite right. I read like a champ, yet I’m a fairly boring guy with few kinks that I’m willing to admit to. I have…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 29, 2003 09:26 AM

Halloween Candy Reveals Dark Shadows actor Jonathan Frid’s True-Life Fear!
Actor Jonathan Frid, who played vampire Barnabas Collins on TV’s Dark Shadows, has a real-life fear: people who lie. During an extensive interview published in Halloween Candy, a collection of horror fact & fiction, Frid said: “To me, horror is…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 28, 2003 08:45 AM

Access Hollywood’s Top Ten Scariest Movies on DVD
Access Hollywood, that celebrity rumor tv show, recently aired an episode where they gave their picks for the top ten scary movies availible on DVD. So, for discussion’s sake, here it is. 10: The Others 09: Blair Witch Project 08:…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 27, 2003 08:32 PM

Oh Good, Another Scary Movie Poll
This one from UK’s Channel 4: The 100 Scariest Moments on TV and film. The BBC lists the top 10: The show’s producer Mark Murray said: “The top 10 is full of images which have now entered pop culture history….
Posted in Blogcritics on October 27, 2003 08:19 PM

Scary movies kids!
I have a number of movies to watch on Halloween. You get to decide. Lucky you. So is it: 1) Young Frankenstein 2) Rocky Horror Picture Show 3) Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Halloween & Fear Itself 4) Halloween Your…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 27, 2003 04:39 PM

New Wave Halloween
Rhino’s anthology of punk and new wave spookery.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 27, 2003 02:11 PM

Synthesized Putrefaction
Just in time for Halloween – the sound of synthesized putrefaction, metaphorically speaking anyway. What is the most successful technopop song of all time? Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” from their ’81 Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret album. Originally an obscure soul single…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 24, 2003 07:05 PM

The season for suicide: A Halloween CD mix to DIE for!
For your Halloween listening pleasure, then, hunt you down these two dozen songs for a lovely CD mix to share with people you love. Maybe they’ll take a frickin’ hint…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 24, 2003 06:18 PM

Ten Halloween Songs That Aren’t As Lame As “The Monster Mash”
Devils, Witches and the Supernatural, Grisly Death, Evil Laughter and Sinister Chord Structures
Posted in Blogcritics on October 24, 2003 06:12 PM

Halloween: an exercise in torture
As I head into this weekend with my plan of going to the Halloween party at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday night, I am going to make this personal and try and explain to everyone why…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 24, 2003 10:46 AM

My Bad – Chill Out Scary Movie Fans
The poll you see at the right asking for you to vote for the scariest movie of all time is merely an exercise in fairness. I posted a list last Halloween – JUST LIKE I WILL THIS HALLOWEEN – that…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 24, 2003 09:46 AM

Blogcritics Scary Movie Poll is — cute
Only a short post to say the poll selection of scariest movie of all time at Blogcritics is LAME. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre was abso-fucking-lutely brick-dropping-in-the-underpants scary. The Blair Witch Project, if you can remember your first viewing of…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 23, 2003 11:38 PM

The Cult of Horror
Augustine is bewildered by the worship of horror and violence.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 17, 2003 07:31 PM

Countdown to Halloween
Only a couple more weeks until Halloween, my second-favorite holiday. We are planning a Halloween Special here at Blogcritics and I’m revved about that. In the meantime, check out this calendar countdown to the big day, called Gothtober – there’s…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 14, 2003 02:24 PM

Night Of The Living Dead: The Remake
this is a worthy re-make.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 7, 2003 08:07 AM

“I Will Be”: The Horror of Harry Chapin’s “Sniper”
As part of an ongoing investigation of horror, a writer takes a listen to a very disturbing song by the singer of “Cat’s in the Cradle.” No, really.
Posted in Blogcritics on October 6, 2003 03:56 PM

“I Turned Around And My Eyes Bugged Out!”
Two creature feature oldies collections from Buffalo Bop: Horror Hop and Monster Bop!
Posted in Blogcritics on October 2, 2003 04:39 PM

TOP TEN SCARIEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME
Let’s move this party to the family room and list SCARIEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. I am the gore champ. I was seeing scary movies at age ten with my dad. Sure it looked a little odd taking your ten…
Posted in Blogcritics on October 31, 2002 09:41 PM