Ah, latex masks. Halloween and horror movies simply wouldn't be the same if they didn't exist. In fact, it was once thought that such masks could replace makeup entirely! But although many of us drool over such masks, sometimes the price of one is scarier than the creature it depicts.
So why not make on yourself? If you (or someone you know) can make a good-looking clay sculpture, you're already part of the way there. Although the initial investment in obtaining all the necessary materials might seem expensive now, the end results could potentially save you money normally spent on masks in the long run. To learn more, please visit the mask-making tutorials at the following linked sites:
As noted in yesterday's "How-To" post, Gravedigger's Local 16 is not to be held responsible for the content on or anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any links on those sites (or constructing a project that's detailed on them). Attempt at your own risk.
No, this isn't a review of the classic AIP film of the same name. Instead, this blog entry is intended to point you in the direction of some handy how-tos in case you need something extra special for your Halloween display, haunted attraction or costume party.
Like Haunters Hangout and the Monsterlist, Gravedigger's Local 16 is not to be held responsible for the content on or anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any links on those sites (or constructing a project that's detailed on them). Attempt at your own risk.
Depending on your sense of humor, the following is either the greatest or worst Linda Blair interview ever recorded:
For those of you that would prefer a horror-related Opie and Anthony video with just a bit more substance:
Surprisingly, only the first one is NSFW. And if that "imbalance" bothers you, well, just look through the rest of the videos on the uploader's channel. You won't be disappointed.
Back when I reviewed Pieces for GdL, I wasn't very annoyed with how it was hard to remove the overlapping DVDs from the case since I could just switch them (along with the cover art) over to a new case. Seems kind of odd, right? After all, wouldn't that mean I'd have to spend extra money on an empty DVD case?
Got to give it up for capturing a mood. Right from the start, 'End of the Beginning,' the newest album from Lugosi's Morphine sets the tone. 'The Year Without a Halloween,' a title invoking the Rankin-Bass specials from a different holiday, perfectly expresses a bad case to any spooky/scary aficionado - horror fatigue.
"Not feeling like dressing up/and I don't mean to be rude/ I've got a mountain of eggs and toilet paper/but I'm just not in the mood."
Been there, done that - horror fatigue gets the best of us. Singer D.F Lazarus doesn't try to rationalize it. It just is. A ghoul can't see black everyday without getting the blues. But what follows, the "I Like It Spooky," is an anthem for any spook-show citizen. The pairing of the unenthusiastic in 'Year Without' with the affirmation cry in 'Like It Spooky' indicates the intelligence behind this band. The whole record is fantastic. 'Evil Urge,' 'Bucket of Blood' --hell, 'Graves' might as well be the theme song for us here at the Local. This record has fun and aggression; there's a party in the guitar work and the thud control in the bass and drums keeps things rocking forward.
The music on this album is so good it pisses me off. In the same vein how Lemmy took umbrage at anyone tacking on the qualifier "for a girl band" whenever talking about Girlschool, I'd get pissed if someone said, "You know, this band is good for a horror punk band." I'm not surrounded by anyone who would, but to think that someone might pass up this record without giving it a fair shake--that's a damned shame. Lugosi's Morphine is a good band. The music on could should reward them a greater notice. If it has, good. They've earned it. But damned be the ignorant masses that dismiss any band as a comedy act or a seasonal flavor to be played once on a October broadcast at a college radio station.
It's not like that they decided to not suck one day. Lugosi's Morphine has always been on top of the ball. Their release '5 Shots to the Head' shows they know their shots and allow you to experience both their influences (They cover Roky Erickson's "Bermuda" and "Night of the Vampire") and their live set. If you need evidence why to check this band out, get a hold of that release or sleep with someone who does. Make use of your body's heat while it's still warm. When you're done, introduce yourself to Lugosi's Morphine and be happy.
One of the related YouTube videos to Spook House Dave's channel led to 'Transylvania TV' (or TVTV), a puppet show from Minneapolis. More adult themed in nature (language, content, nothing too graphic) it's not for kids despite being very similar to your Sesame Street/Muppet fare.
They have a DVD of their first season out (as well as t-shirts, which run rather cheap for some designs) but you can view the whole season for free on their You Tube account. Season Two is on their site, though it's a continual process. Subscribe to their newsletter to stay in touch.
Since we covered food and nonalcoholic punches last time, I thought it would be a good idea to devote today's entry to "hard" drinks not suitable for minors.
Getting back to Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations from yesterday's entry:
What to serve at your Halloween party? It's an age-old question. Although some take the easy way out by stocking up on pizza and chips, a true Halloween lover takes the time and effort to make some specially-made creepy cuisine. Just as we offered up printableHalloween decorations last year, here are some free recipes:
For those serving very young guests, Baby & Toddler Meals for Dummies by Dawn & Curt Simmons (along with Sallie Warren) might be a worth a look. Recipes like Frightful Brownies and Green Witch Punch await you.
Donata Maggipinto and Richard Jung offer up a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds in Halloween Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family.
Halloween: Customs, Recipes, Spells by Silver RavenWolf has material that's...how should I put this...a bit metaphysical. Still, one can easily ignore all the "new age" parts of the recipes to make old fashioned Samhain goodies like All Souls' Day Bread and Divination Doughnuts, or modern goodies like Witches' Brew and Sugar Snakes in Graveyard Dust.
Finally, Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations provides a wealth of recipes. So much so, that I've decided to just link you to the first page of the recipes chapter and let readers scroll through by themselves to find stuff that interests them (but I will give a few suggestions). Although this is true for many of the other links in this entry, A Halloween How-To went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to recipe ideas. It's got everything from variations on pumpkin seedrecipes to Halloween Jell-o and Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls.
Be sure to stop by tomorrow for some Halloween cocktail recipes...
My Japanese language skills are slim to nonexistent, but the title of today's entry should roughly translate as "(The) Science of Giant Monsters."
Anyone who's drooled over imported official guides devoted to Godzilla, Gamera and co. should be familiar with pictures of Japanese movie monsters showing the internal structures of said beasts. Although I can't tell you what those diagrams actually say, I can link you to someonline scans of those pictures.
As if that wasn't enough, here's an article written by an honest-to-goodness scientist which discusses how Godzilla would function if he actually existed. How cool is that?
Anyone who haunted the horror section of their local video store will no doubt be familiar with Full Moon and their low-budget (but often high fun) films. The following video was posted last year to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary and includes clips from various movies by Full Moon and Full Moon’s predecessor, Empire Pictures.
What makes this video particularly interesting is that it comes from Full Moon's official Youtube channel, which also hosts movie trailers, classic "VideoZone" behind-the-scenes segments and full movie uploads!
Confession time: I like pro-wrestling. There. It's off my chest. I like the spectacle, the goofy convoluted story-lines and mainly the acrobatics. Lucha Libre like CMLL. Indy wrestling in particular, like Chikara, PWG, ISW or DDT and Triple6 from Japan.
Also, video games. Used to like them, not terribly alot but enough to head over to a local blockbuster rent a game. Back in 2004, I made a poor choice, renting a poorly, poorly designed wrestling game from Japan called 'Rumble Roses.'
Women wrestling video game from Japan. Chances are, if the game has nothing but women in it and it's from Japan, it's not going to be very progressive in female roles. Chances are there's going to be some degradation and that game didn't disappoint (actually, yes. I was very disappointed, not just with Japan but myself.) If you want sincere, authentic women's wrestling that doesn't make them out to be strippers sans poles (which, in their own right, is quite the athletic achievement) then you'd want to check out SHIMMER.
So, in the game, there was this character named Candy Cane (ugh) who came out to a song by The Killer Barbies. Did a search and found that they were this punk band from Spain. And that was it until recently, when I was able to get a listen.
Despite there being a gap with a band singing in English as a Second Language, they're not bad. Nothing you absolutely need to get first off but good supplemental material for your library. Can't really go wrong with a band who wrote a song called 'I Wanna live in Tromaville.'
They have a spooky punk element to them, with songs like 'Chainsaw,' 'Love Killer.'Plus, they pulled a 'Rock n' Roll High School' and starred in two movies - 'The Killer Barbys' and 'The Killer Barbys vs. Dracula,' both directed by Jesus Franco.
They've broken up and it looks like their lead singer Silva Superstar is parlaying herself into a solo career as an edgier Gwen Stefani (hot girl from an underground band going a bit mainstream) but here's hoping there's success for her and all the other bandmates.
Along with the Misfits 'Skulls,' 'Then He Kissed Me' by the Crystals, the band does a cover of 'Candy' by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson. An odd choice, seems it seems like one of those uncoverable songs. Listen for yourself.
Note: you can tell there are some dedicated fans on Wikipedia when the entry on Iggy Pop's 'Candy' is amended to include a detailed account of the KB version.
After finding the material for yesterday's entry, I decided to mess around with Google Books some more. I was hoping to find material on haunted hayrides (especially if there were any books devoted to creating and running one), but what I found was so much more bloggable.
You see, I found a page from Guy Gets Girl, Girl Gets Guy: Where to Find Romance and What to Say When You Find It by Larry Glanz and Robert H. Phillips. Not only does it more or less suggest that you sit near someone you're attracted to in the hopes that they'll get scared and grab onto you, but it actually offers up some sample pick-up lines. Said pick-up lines range from painfully bland to some of the most awful, cringe-inducing attempts at humor I've ever encountered. I even skimmed through some of the other sample pages and found that the lines only get worse. I'm honestly shocked they didn't suggest doing the old "hole in the popcorn tub" trick during the section on trying to pick up someone at the movies.
The book itself seems to be a 2003 reprint of their 1994 book,How to start a romantic encounter: where to go to find love and what to say when you find it. To me, this makes description of a haunted hayride as a "...new type of hay ride" to be particularly bizarre. The last time I checked, haunted hayrides have been around since at least the 1980s. There is simply no excuse for a 1994/2003 book to refer to them as being a "new" type of attraction.
Would Gravedigger's Local 16 be setting itself up for potential legal trouble if I recommended that the proper response to someone using any of the lines from this book would be a shift kick to the nethers? Probably? Well, then I didn't just type that.
Have you been listening to Ghouls Night Out? I hope you discovered this band on your own from my post about Gein and the Graverobbers and The Crimson Ghosts. I know you would have checked out Necro-Tone Records and saw that Myra from Gein and the Graverobbers has a band called Ghoul’s Night Out.
Hopefully, dear reader, you have a copy of ‘The Mourning After,’ the record GNO put out. On that release was Amy Von, who would leave to pursue her own career. And proving that being a possible undead psychopath that could flay the skin off your body and feed it to her cat (allegedly) doesn’t mean being without principles, Myra decided to work on some new songs.
I saw GNO back in May and they played the new songs. I tell you, they’re fucking. fantastic. I hyperbole you not, reader. The arrangements are incredible and the new songs showcase the range of Myra’s vocal talents. They describe themselves as ‘if the Misfits ‘spent the night’ with The Trashwomen,’ but I think GNO has taken the best elements of their influences to produce something better.
Lucky for us, GNO will be recording their second album this fall. But we shouldn’t rest, oh no. Reader, if perchance you haven’t, go over to their website. Listen to the ‘The Mourning After,’ as they have a free stream of it. If you like it, buy a copy. Send an email and say ‘This is fantastic, and we look forward to the new album.’ Go to their Myspace page and listen to ‘The Rage,’ one of those new songs. If you’re in the area, make the trek to Worcester, Massachusetts on the 30th to see them play with Creepin’ Cadavers and the Cretins. If you like rock, if you like spooky, if you are either dead or alive or both and in that plane of existance there is a modicum of good taste inhabiting your physical or corporeal presence, then show some support and spirit for GNO.
Growing up, the vampire was the fall-back costume when it was too expensive to be anything else. Both me and my next-door neighbor/best friend would sport the costume two or three times in a row. Ninety-nine cents for a pair of plastic fangs, some leftover white grease paint, the old black plastic cape and a small tube of fake blood was the extent of the costume. All else I needed could be found in my closet – white shirt, black dress pants. After fifteen minutes, bam! Instant vampire. Just add water.
That might explain why I don’t think vampires are anything special. Yeah, it's fashionable now to be all anti-vampire to be cool but anyone who knows me can say that even before the teenage fever gripping the world thanks to Twilight and other YA novels/movies, vampires have inspired that ‘blah’ feeling in me. Somewhere along the way of growing up, sucking blood and fearing the sunlight never stopped being lame.
Could also be something geographically inclined. I came from Arizona and moved to Upstate New York at a young age. I left a state that’s 4/5th sunshine to a place that is cold and damp for nine to ten out of the twelve months. I was living away from sunshine (or the intensity I had come to know). Outside of going chupacabra on the plenty of dairy cows you can find in the area, I pretty much had the vampire schtick down and it wasn’t making me feel any better.
Now there is this revisionist history going on to make Vampires totally down with the ultraviolet. Oh, they just sparkle. They’re weakened but the sunlight doesn’t destroy them. I do not buy that one bit, man. That’s a bunch of BS from brats who want to be able to have tans but walk around with fangs. It’s a case of a kid wanting to have all the superpowers so he or she always wins – s/he’s the fastest, strongest and toughest. Forget that, man. Either you get straddled with the equalizing weakness of the mythological creature or you don’t play. Overcoming those weaknesses make for the better character.
And this nonsense - if vampirism is a disease, then I want it to be a STD. I want it on the same levels of syphilis. Get some action from some hot goth on a Saturday night – wake up on Sunday and find that holy symbols and sunlight give you the heebie-jeebies. Go to the doctor on Monday, get a shot, EAT SOME GARLIC. Fantastic. This whole trope of having zombism, vampirism and lycanthropy as some disease like AIDS is a ridiculous fad in fiction when someone can’t come up with a farfetched idea of how to get the creatures to walk. 245 Trioxin did that nearly twenty five years ago, people. Don’t pull this ‘some mysterious disease’ crap. Who needs realism when you have goddamn vampires, zombies and werewolves running around? How about a disease that causes mummification? The layers of skin thickening to human wrapping? Man, I should be pitching these to Hollywood – anyone know an agent?
You want to know the only vampire I ever liked? Bunnicula. Suck on that.
Before I begin, I want to give some credit where it's due. This post (and several of my other recent entries) would not have been possible if I hadn't learned the joys of Google Books from Atomic Mystery Monster's link-filled JREF posts.
Long-time readers will likely remember an entry from the first GdL Halloween countdown where I linked to dangerous Halloween ideas from an old issue of Modern Mechanix. After discovering that Google Books offered complete scans of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, I decided to see if I could find any other oddball Halloween tips similar to the ones from 2008.
At first, it seemed liked the old dangerous and lawsuit-baiting ideas I discussed last year were a one-time only thing. Thisthreepage article on mask-masking from 1931 seems fine, as does this article about making a Halloween-themed rocking chair. Although many of the tricks noted here are quaint, they're pretty safe for the most part.
But things got really crazy in the November 1935 issue, both in terms of the layout and suggestions. If you think tricking people into biting cakes of soap and electrically-charged nails sticking out of a chair are bad, wait until you hear this: The article actually suggests making "secret messages" appear using a hidden curling iron and sulfuric acid! I don't care that they told people to use caution when handling it or that the acid should be diluted, why the hell did they think telling people to use sulfuric acid at a party would be a good idea? Did they forget that children and alcohol consumption tend to appear at parties, Halloween or otherwise? Did they forget that writing messages on paper with lemon juice and holding them over a lamp provides the same basic effect with much less effort and much greater safety? Then again, these are the people that recommend wiring up a Ford coil to a tin strip over a light bulb or creating a burning alcohol mixture in order to produce strange lighting effects, rather than simply using colored bulbs (or fireproof colored coverings placed over bulbs). Unsurprisingly, the simplest and safest ideas are saved for the end of the article. It's amazing that people managed to survive Halloween in the thirties.
Now that I think about it, why on earth are they giving Halloween advice in their November issues? My first guess was that the magazine was bi-monthly, but the existence of October issues from that period prove that theory incorrect. Did Halloween used to occur in November back then? It would certainly explain why the protagonist of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklynwent trick-or-treating around Thanksgiving. Does anyone out there in readerland have an answer for me?
Thanks to years of documentaries and TV specials, many people are at least vaguely aware that The Exorcist is was based on a true story. But, just as how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is only loosely based on Ed Gein, the truth about The Exorcist is stranger (and far less exotic) than fiction.
It's both sad and strangely comic just how obviously non-supernatural the whole incident was in retrospect. The boy in question had been a troublesome, nasty youth prior to his "possession." The "moving bed" had wheels on it and strange marks only appeared on the boy's wrists after his hands were near them. Instead of projectile vomiting pea soup, the boy just spat without opening his mouth. Oddly enough, that's actually one of Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" jokes!
Rob Zombie once had a record label and it was AWESOME. Along with the first Ghastly Ones record and a release from The Bomboras, Zombie A-Go-Go records put out one of the best Halloween compilations ever to grace this land – Halloween Hootenany.
It’s amazing who’s on this and amazing to think that I heard most of them for the first time because I happened to swipe this copy from my college’s radio library (you don’t have to be so underhandedly as many copies are going for cheap on Amazon. I need to pick up a spare myself, since I’m afraid I’m going to wear mine out.) Incredible to think that I first heard the pure massive sonic bodyslam that is was Rocket From The Crypt on this album. Their song, ‘I Drink Blood’ is one of their best and highlight why the band, gone from this earth four years this Halloween, is missed.
The album is bookend by narration from famed horror host Zacherle, who even joins Southern Culture On The Skids for a wonderful cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Sinister Purpose.’ Other covers include Los Straitjackets doing their version of ‘The Munsters’ theme song and The Amazing (royal) Crowns rocking out to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s, ‘Little Demon.’
The real standout of the comp is up front, where Rob Zombie joins The Ghastly Ones for ‘Halloween (She Gets So Mean).’ It’s a roadhouse circus with a burlesque side-show of a song, with Zombie’s trademark whirling voice against the Ghastly One’s garage-surf sound.
The Ghastly Ones are all over this album, offering their first version of ‘Banshee Beach’ (later found on ‘All-Plastic Assembly Kit,’ then on their ‘Unearthed’ release.) In addition, The Born Losers play ‘Werewolf on Wheels,’ a song written (and I suspect secretly performed by) The Ghastly Ones. Surf and fuzz are well represented on this comp, with even the legendary Davie Allan playing with The Phantom Surfers on ‘Extrasensory Deception.’
Deadbolt, Frency, Satan’s Pilgrims, the Swingin’ Neckbreakers, Dead Elvi and The Legendary Invisible Men are also found on the record, giving a wide candy bag of treats for your Halloween pleasure. It kind of bridges the gap between the ‘This Is Horrorpunk’ comps and all the other rocka/psychbilly comps out there.
Add it to your library this year.
(Note, thanks to R. Zombie’s loveable incoherence, the lyrics in the video below are PROBABLY not accurate. Take it with a grain of salt.)
This is one of my favorite Whitest Kids U Know comedy sketches, pulled straight from their official Youtube channel. I don't have much to say about this one, only that it's a both a hoot and the weirdest use of lightsaber sound effects I've ever encountered. Enjoy!
For those not in the know, "giallo" is a term that (for English-speaking horror fans) usually refers to an Italian genre of violent mysteries and thrillers. The word itself is translates as "yellow," which refers to the yellow covers of the books that spawned the genre. You see, a company called Arnoldo Mondadori Editore published a line of pulp mystery novels called "I libri gialli" in 1929, which was eventually renamed as "Il Giallo Mondadori" in 1946. The name itself came from the distinctive yellow background used on each book cover. The line sold very well and prompted other companies to start putting out similar novels with such covers. Naturally, film companies wanted to make adaptations of such best-sellers and the giallo film genre was born.
When many horror fans think of gialli, several genre conventions come to mind:
1. Explicit violence and nudity
2. A mysterious killer wearing black gloves (and sometimes a mask)
3. Murders often being investigated by someone who isn't in law enforcement
4. The films often (but not always) having a bizarre title. Here are some examples:
Four Flies on Grey Velvet Five Dolls for an August Moon The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
You might be surprised to learn this, but you can make your own giallo, complete with strange title, without a film crew or budget of any kind! Just head on over to Braineater.com's Do-It-Yourself Giallo Generator, follow the easy-to-read instructions and you're all set. Feel free to post your favorite creation in the comments section!
To learn more about giallo, please use the giallo Wikipedia entry as a starting point. Trust me, my brief summary only scratched the surface of the information that link contains.
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