Deck the Walls With Halloween

Looking to dress up your walls this Halloween? Check out the following quintet of incredible images (for more Halloween eye candy, try browsing through the poster store in the left sidebar).

1.The pumpkin equivalent of a totem pole:




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2.Michael searches for something to carve:




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3.Ghouls on parade:




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4.Jack o'lanterns aplenty:




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5.Trick-or-treating on a carpet of leaves:




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Angry Villager Anthology--"Retribution"

[The fifth installment of the month-long poetry sequence that began on October 1st.]


"Retribution"

Tyrus Thompson

My great-to-the-nth-degree grandfather Ben
Was hung from a thick branch for allegedly plotting insurrection.
My handful-of-times-grand aunt Hester
Was beaten to death with a fireplace poker by her seducer,
The master's son, when she informed him of her pregnancy.
My uncle Eldon was left lying crippled in the parking lot
After he tried to sit in at the Woodstove back in the uncivil Sixties.
(The acting sheriff simply deemed non-locals the culprits.)
So when we yoke this monster to the statue of Grantwood's Founder,
I'll be stabbing deep as I can into the darksome brute's chest and
Staring into the stone-blind eyes of Jeremiah Healey all the while.

Angry Villager Anthology--"Gone"

[The fourth installment of the month-long poetry sequence that began on October 1st.]


"Gone"

Daniel and Diane Pantier

How could we not hate this hideous creature for what it's done?
No one else in Grantwood has suffered a greater loss.
We're not talking strangled pets or stomped gourds--
This...this thing cost us our only son.
Our Danny, dearly loved for nearly twenty years.
We always prided ourselves on raising him the right way,
Tried to give him a good life, replete with happy memories.
But that emotional investment's been wiped out overnight,
And here we are left behind, equally bereft.
No parent ever wants to think about something like this happening,
So imagine our dismay when we woke up one mid-October morning
To find Danny's closet and dresser bureau both emptied
And a scribbled note stuck the fridge: I'm outta here.
This goddamned podunk town breeds nothing but misery.

Haunted Jaunts--"The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze"

Last October I was lucky enough to attend the Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze held annually at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.  This incredible display is formed from over 4,000 hand-carved jack o'lanterns arranged individually and mosaically (creating elaborate designs like dinosaurs and gigantic spiderwebs).  The self-guided nighttime tour starts at the eerily-lit, pumpkin-bedecked manor itself, then proceeds through a seemingly labyrinthine landscape.  A gift shop brimming with Blaze-related treats and souvenirs is strategically situated before the exit (I couldn't pass through without purchasing a couple of pouches of pumpkin pancake mix).

The sheer proliferation of gourds at the Blaze can be overwhelming, and admittedly it is hard to appreciate the craftsmanship of some of the more remotely located jack o'lanterns.  Still, atmosphere is everything here, and as you wander through the orange-illumed grounds of the rustic estate, you'll feel like you've left the real world behind and crossed over into the very heart of the October Country.

The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze is an unforgettable experience, and an absolute must-see for any Halloween aficionado living in the greater New York metropolitan area.  Just be sure to plan your trip early: tickets sell out quickly every year for this hugely popular attraction.  (My suggestion: make an entire day trip out of your excursion, stopping off in nearby Sleepy Hollow en route.  The cemetery where author Washington Irving is buried--and which forms the basis for some of the events in his classic story--is an amazing piece of scenery.)

For more information about the Blaze, check out the official website.  Also, I've embedded below a YouTube video (excerpted from The Martha Stewart Show) that offers a behind-the-scenes look at
the autumnal festivities at Van Cortlandt Manor.

DVD Review: Dark House

October is the month for haunted attractions, and this DVD release from Fangoria Frightfest comes just in time for the Halloween season.  Dark House (shades of Richard Laymon's Beast House novels) involves a state-of-the-art attraction set up inside a Gothic manse that was once the site of gruesome murder: fourteen years earlier, the psychotic Janet Cooper Darrode stabbed to death all the young wards living in her foster home, and then dispatched herself by sticking her blood-stained hands into the garbage disposal.  The film's protagonist, Claire, witnessed that massacre as a child and has been traumatized ever since (in one of the best lines of the film, a detective opines that Claire has developed "more bugs than Windows Vista").  Now a drama-major college student in the same town, Claire is going to try to finally exorcise her personal demons by agreeing to work as a tour guide at Dark House.  Turns out, of course, that this haunted attraction is actually haunted: Miss Darrode is the ghost in the machine who transforms the computer-generated holographs into truly deadly stalkers of Dark House's employees.

Such synopsis makes the film sound like straightforward scare fare, but Dark House does offer a couple of interesting plot twists at the very end.  Also, throughout its runtime, the film deftly shifts between technological, psychological, and supernatural explanations for the horrors transpiring inside the former foster home.

Dark House is no cinematic masterpiece: the acting is amateurish, and the characters portrayed are oftentimes annoying (veteran horror actor Jeffrey Combs gives the over-the-top performance of the year as the entrepreneur who sets up the haunted house).  On the other hand, the holographic bogeys (the axe-wielding clown was my favorite) are wonderfully envisioned.  And the demonic, disheveled Miss Darrode (looking like a cross between Zelda from Pet Sematary and Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons) is genuinely creepy as the film's arch-villainess.  Overall, Dark House proves as frightfully fun as a real-life haunted attraction, and is well worth exploring this October.