Oh the HORROR of Frozen!

As most of the world knows by now....Disney's Frozen has pretty much taken over the world.  And I must admit that I really like it too.  I liked that Elsa was basically.....well, a 'Good Witch' in a way!  I felt as though I could relate to her steely reserve and controlled manor....and her need to finally just "Let It Go"!  And besides, the Snowman's name was OLAF!  This obtuse and strange name (at least by American standards), also happens to be my husband's middle name.  And frankly, over here on this side of the pond, not many had ever heard of it before Frozen unleashed its icy magic on the world.  Now his funky name (that I refused to bestow upon our son), is known by millions of children and parents around the globe. Who would have ever 'thunk' that, ha!   

But anyway, it appears we have another classic case of 'good girl gone bad'!  Yep, as the world at large was being mesmerized and hypnotized by those crafty Disney Sorcerers of the big screen....many of you, including myself, may have failed to notice the  
'Dark Side' of Frozen!  It was right there all along, you just had to be paying close attention.  But just in case you think I jest, or you refuse to believe that everything has a 'dark side', even something as seemingly innocent as Frozen ....then have a look for yourself at the video proof below .  Even Frozen could pass for Horror if only it's 'CUT UP' in just the right way, muhahaha!  :o)
(© Disney / Bobby Burns / The Frozen Horror Trailer / YouTube)
 

Spooky MAY-hem in Florida!

Time for some SPOOKY MAY-HEM!

Well it's almost the end of May, and you know what that means right?  It means it's time for Spooky Empire's MAY-hem Convention in Orlando, Florida.  How dreadfully delightful that the Ghoulies have come to town.  They kicked off the 3-day event last night with a Day of the Dead Poolside Opener Party, complete with eats,drinks, music and make-up!  A most frighteningly festive way to get the party rolling and start getting in the mood for the upcoming Halloween season.  The Convention rolls back into O-town in October, just in time for the Halloween happenings, adding a Zombie Walk and Hearse & Creepy Car Show! 

 

On Saturday and Sunday, there will be a variety of spooky events happening, including horror movie film festivals, live shows and events, costume contest, horror art, and lots of macabre merchandise to procure for this year's Halloween Yard Haunts.  There will also be autograph signings and photo ops with some of your horror movie favorites, such as "Halloween" Director John Carpenter, Robert Englund aka Freddy Kreuger, Lana Parrilla the Evil 'Snow White' Queen from TV's "Once Upon a Time", Pat Carroll, the voice of Ursula in Disney's "Little Mermaid", and Nick Castle aka Michael Meyers from "Halloween"....just to name a few. You can check out the full list of attendees here!

The event looks to be a virtual Spook Fest full of all things Creepy and Cool.  For any of you Halloween-Heads living in Florida, or just visiting here on vacation.....be sure to check it out this weekend Friday-Sunday, tickets available at the door.  And be sure to catch the video below of Pat Carroll (aka Ursula) doing a reading of the famous intro dialogue from Disney's Haunted Mansion ride...you know, the one you hear when you are in the elevator waiting to go inside and the walls start stretching!!  She has one of the the best 'evil laughs' in the business!  Love her!
(All images © Spooky Empire, Halloween Extreme image © Ricky Brigante)

Ghost Story - Island of Deadly Dolls

“He is the intermediary between us, his audience, the living, and they, the dolls, the undead, who cannot live at all and yet who mimic the living in every detail since, though they cannot speak or weep, still they project those signals of signification we instantly recognize as language.” 

~ Angela Carter "Wayward Girls and Wicked Women

Halloween is all about being spooked right?  And let's face it, there are a LOT of SPOOKY people, places and things in this world.  One such spooky place that I just learned of may be old news to some of you, but it was all new to me, so I thought the Halloween Countdown was a great place to share it.  I saw it on my homepage yesterday, and the image was so creepy that I had to investigate it further...

 

This is one of the creepiest Tourist Attractions in Mexico and it's called "The Island of the Dolls", or in Spanish, “La Isla de la Munecas”!  Creepy Dolls rank right up there with Creepy Clowns in my book.  I think there is something disconcerting about seemingly innocent, childlike things having a dark and sinister side to them, that really taps a nerve in our collective psyche!  So here is the bizarre tale....

A hermit by the name of  Don Julian Santana, moved to the island.  Now he was married, but is rumored to have lived the last 50 years of his life alone on the island.  When he moved there he discovered a small girl drowning in the canal and was unable to save her.  He was understandably quite distraught by the events.  Later, Don Julian found a doll floating in the water, and he believed it had belonged to the drowned child.  So he fished it out of the water and hung it up in a nearby tree.  He did this to honor the young girl's spirit and to help protect the island from any further tragedy.

This marked the beginning of his obsession with collecting old, broken dolls and placing them all around the island and the waterways.  He was also said to have fished other old dolls from the waters believing them to be drowning children.  But other stories recount the man as being tormented by the spirits of the dolls, and his collection and placement of the creepy dollies was as a shrine to appease the spirit that was tormenting him.  He believed he could hear the dolls whispering and that the spirit was beckoning him to come into the water.

Now you may or may not think the man was just slowly succumbing to his own madness, and perhaps he was.  But there is one last chilling twist to this terrifying tale.   Apparently, in 2001, old Don Julian was discovered by his nephew, drowned in the very same canal, at the same place where he'd found the young girl.  Coincidence?  Or are there more malevolent forces at work on that island?

The island is now being operated by Santana's family, as one of the world's weirdest and creepiest tourist attractions.  But there have been many a visitor who has felt the unnerving sense that the dolls are watching them.  They've claimed to have witnessed the dolls moving their broken limbs, blinking their eyes, and whispering through the trees.  As such, it is now recommended that visitors offer the spirits a gift of appeasement upon first stepping foot on the island.

I've included a video below that has some good images of the very creepy mutilated dolls, along with a recounting of the tale.  So what do you think?  Do creepy dollies make your skin crawl?  Do you think there could really be discontented spirits on the island that drove Don Julian slowly mad, and eventually beckoned him to his own watery grave?  And would you dare go there for a visit?

Halloween Candy from Hell

Evil Image © Ramon Dirge (I think....it's too small to read)

Okay....consider this post a public service announcement from me to you! By YOU....I mean anyone who consumes candy or plans to give candy out this Hallowe'en!

You may recall that I blogged about going to see 3 movies last weekend. Well, since we were planning to see so many movies, and movies are SO stinking expensive nowadays, and we have to multiply that expense x 4.......I thought we should try to save some money on food and drinks while there. So I, in all my infinite wisdom or lack thereof....thought we should buy some candy at the Dollar Store and take our drinks in a cooler in the car. Then when it was time to go into the movie, my daughter and I would sneak our stash into the movie theater in big purses.

So far, so good....the plan worked beautifully up until the third and final movie of the weekend. That is when things went drastically wrong. However the scope of the wrongness would not be fully realized until several days later. So here's where things took a wrong turn....
For my choice of candy for the last movie I selected 'Sour Skittles'. I love Skittles, but I had only tasted a couple of the 'Sour' variety out of my kids bag in the past. But I liked them, so I figured they were a good choice in lieu of the fact that there were no regular Skittles to be had in the dollar bin. So the movie begins and I embark on my life altering consumption of said 'Sour Skittles'.
Now I am of the 'suck and savor' variety myself....that means that I like to suck the outside of the candy first, be it candy coating, chocolate coating, or sour powder....then I commence to eating the innards. So that is exactly how I consumed each and every 'sour skittle' that I ate....one at a time....slow....methodically....with patience and exact precision. The 'sour' would make my mouth water and pucker, then I would eat the gooey sweet inside as a reward for making it through the 'sour' part.

However, I did notice after a while, that the skittles always seemed to land in the same spot in my mouth when I was sucking the sour coating off. They would tuck up into the top left side of the roof of my mouth. This routine continued for awhile, interrupted only by the occasional swallow of my drink. But then something started happening...I noticed my mouth was starting to feel a little sore. Not sure exactly what the sensation was, I noted it, yet kept on eating my Skittles.

It was almost like I couldn't stop, even though something was telling me I should stop....yet I ate on. Eventually, I discovered a need to actually suck on the ice cubes from my drink in order to soothe my irritated mouth. And FINALLY, I did quit eating them although I had only finished about 3/4 of the bag. So the movie ends, mouth stills feels a little funny and slightly sore, but other than that all seems well.

But I am here to tell you that all was NOT well! When I got home and was brushing my teeth before bed, I opened my mouth because my tongue hurt, and lo and behold, the whole center of my tongue was swollen and red, almost as if it were scalded. I didn't think much about it, and by the next day it seemed to have gone away.But then about 2 days later, I noticed that the roof of my mouth was getting really sore in one spot....the same spot where I'd tucked those skittles into, to strip them of their sour coating. I tried to look at the roof of my mouth in the mirror, but it was impossible to see the spot. So I pressed on it with my finger and it literally felt like it was bruised. So I asked my husband to look at it and he said yes, there was a dark red/purple area that looked like it was bruised and peeling.

By Wednesday of this week, the spot was getting even more sore, and when I went to drink some coffee, the pain was excruciating. This pain got continually worse and made eating pretty much anything; a miserable experience. The spot felt like it had been burned badly. Then the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it was some sort of chemical burn from the acidic coating on the 'sour skittles'. Because the pain originated while I was eating them, I just didn't really heed the warning signs at the time because I'd never eaten a bag of the sour ones before.So I go on-line and search for the term 'chemical burn in mouth from sour skittles', and go figure....there were MANY entries about that very thing?!!! You've got to be kidding me! There they were, account after account of people suffering burns, peeling skin, bleeding tongues, loss of taste....you name it! REALLY?!!! These things happen and yet they continue to produce a candy that mutilates the inside of your mouth?!

Well this is Saturday....tomorrow will be one full week since I ate just 3/4 of a bag of 'sour skittles' and I can still hardly eat anything, even soft stuff and drinks, without being in total pain. My daughter took my iPhone and took a picture of it so that I could see what it looks like, and it was UGLY! No wonder it friggin' hurts so bad! It's chemically burnt and bruised from where I held those tiny 'pellets from hell' in the same exact place each time.

What evil is this that has been unleashed upon me from the Candy Gods? Why do 'Sour Skittles from Hell' have NO warnings of physical damage, or at least a 'Eat At Your Own Risk' with a skull and crossbones symbol? And if this can happen to me from just eating 3/4 of an individual size bag....what atrocities could befall young unsuspecting Trick-or-Treaters from the consumption of these 'toxic poison pellets'?

So I am sharing my nightmarish story here as a public service announcement to those who may be thinking of consuming or gifting this particular candy. As I contemplated my ability to sue the Skittle company for damages incurred, I decided it would likewise be prudent to consider that the same thing could be done to us, should some parent's kid come down with chemical burns from the candy we gave them on Hallowe'en! So tis' probably best that you leave this one off your grocery list this coming season.
Alas, always being one to try and find the positive aspects of even the worse situations....I can happily relay the news that I have lost several pounds from being unable to eat or drink for a week. But chemically burning the roof of your mouth with 'Sour Skittles' should not be considered a safe and effective diet plan, so please don't try this at home! I'm curious if anyone else has ever had this experience? Or if you know of any other deadly candies that I should avoid?

Serial Killer Alert (Grapic Content Warning)

Warning: Graphic Content Ahead
(if you are squeamish...DON'T LOOK!)

Well, I suppose it was inevitable....even the most perfect among us is bound to snap under pressure. Police photographed this graphic crime scene as they apprehended an eerily calm and happy 'Serial Killer Barbie' smiling mercilessly amid the horrific carnage at her Barbie Dream Home.

However, this was no 'dream'....nightmare is more like it! Among the dismembered bodies, was that of Barbie's best friend Skipper and her estranged ex-boyfriend Ken, who had both filed for restraining orders just last month against the mentally unstable, yet still famously buxom blonde. Court documents indicate that upon learning of Ken's infidelity with her best friend Skipper, Barbie seemed to experience a mental break with reality and began stalking the new couple relentlessly. The filing claimed that both individuals feared for their safety, as well as for the fragility of Barbie's mental state. Sadly, the restraining order failed to provide adequate protection in the days and weeks that followed.

Authorities were first alerted when Ken failed to show up for his Mattel photo shoot. An APB was put out, but police were able to quickly and calmly apprehend Barbie at her Dream Home with no resistance. 'Serial Killer Barbie' is currently being held without bail, while she awaits her arraignment. Her name will undoubtedly go down in the history books as one of the most notorious Serial Killers of all time. :o)
(Image © Mariel Clayton) View more of her work on her website

State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers - A Haunting

“The consequences of our crimes long survive their commission,

and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt

the steps of the malefactor”

~ Sir Walter Raleigh

While in Salem and the surrounding area this October, I made my husband drive me to a location that I've been reading about and eager to visit for the last 6 years. Every time we went to Salem previously, we just ran out of time to make it over to Danvers. It's actually not that far from Salem. In fact, Danvers, Massachusetts is said to be the actual place where the Witch Trial hysteria began, because back in that time....Danvers was known as Salem Village. In fact, it was there that the notoriously fanatical, Witch Trial judge Johnathan Hawthorne resided. He lived high atop Hawthorne Hill in a home his father had built. But it's what was built on that hill later that I was interested in.
On that very same, scenic hill top, in 1878, a mammoth Gothic mansion was built for the care and keeping of the mentally ill. Not being restricted by the PC world in which we now live, this architectural masterpiece was aptly named The State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers. Guess they just came right out and called 'em what they were back in those days...ha! The building itself is called the Kirkbride building, named after Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. And it is built in the shape of a bat, with two wings extending out to each side where the males and females were housed respectively. The farthest ends of each of those wings were called the 'wing tips' or A and J wards, and they were reserved for the worst of the 'criminally insane'! (I would NOT have wanted to work on those wards.) The facility was built to accommodate about 600 patients and was likened to a small city because it was almost completely self-contained. And in the beginning, it had a great reputation. The Asylum even had its own morgue and burial grounds on site.
But in the 40's - 50's, state budget cuts ensued and overcrowding began to plague the beleaguered hospital whose population had swelled to over 1200. The condition of the building and the patients began to deteriorate rapidly. Reportedly, as a desperate means to control the burgeoning population, the doctors began employing horrific treatments that were used in that era such as Full Frontal Lobotomies, Experimental Drugs, Hydrotherapy and Shock Treatment. This allowed them to keep their mentally insane patients subdued, but with sometimes adverse and even fatal consequences. "Poorly clothed and sometimes naked, these legions of lost souls were shown pacing aimlessly on the wards, lying on the filthy cement floors, or sitting head in hand against the pock-marked walls." (Deutsch 1948)
Eventually in 1992, Danvers State Mental Hospital shut its deteriorating doors for good, and the building itself sat silent for 14 years. The building was considered extremely dangerous with rotting floors falling through in certain wards, so full time security was placed on site to apprehend would-be ghost hunters, urban explorers and thrill seeking teenagers. But the general consensus of psychics and paranormal investigators who've been fortunate enough to visit during that time....is that the place was extremely haunted with lots of residual negative energy from those tortured souls who'd been housed there and experimented on over all those years. There have been many reports of apparitions and orbs and cold spots by those who were able to get inside its rotting walls. And the decaying institution was also the perfectly haunting location in which to film the horror movie, Session 9, in 2001. It was also believed to be the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham Sanatorium in "The Thing on the Doorstep".

I longed to go there and photograph the beautifully creepy Gothic architecture. But alas, I had no idea that the site was literally minutes from our hotel in Peabody all these years. Thank you GPS and iPhone for finding this place for me this Autumn! So we searched it out on our last day in New England this month. Unfortunately, the eerie, haunted, dilapidated structure had been purchased in 2005 and turned into an apartment building (Avalon Danvers) up on Hawthorne Hill! This haunted hill with so much history, albeit somewhat negative....was now a nice clean apartment complex. Luckily, they did keep the main center part of the building in tact and refurbished it to its former grandeur on the outside, but the long bat wing wards were demolished to make way for progress.
I would have preferred to see it in its dilapidated state, as it makes for far spookier photographs. However, the day we went, the skies were very overcast and cloudy as a cold front was making its way in. And those clouds and bare branches on the trees in front of the Gothic facade still allowed me to work a little photo magic to recreate the Haunted Insane Asylum on the hill, as I had read about it and envisioned it in my spooky lil' mind! It does beg the question....does a building retain the horrors and negative energy of its former dwellers? And does bulldozing this place down to create new apartments somehow cleanse the space of said negative energy....or do those lost souls still dwell there? Photos 1,2,6 © 2011 Wendy A. (All Rights Reserved) Could not find copyright info on the other photos.

A "TOADally" Terrifying Tale

I have a horrifying tale to tell....this is NOT for the faint of heart. If you scare easily or have any tendencies towards Ranidaphobia (aka you are a Frog-a-Phobe)....then turn back now. I am providing this disclaimer for your own protection. Should you choose not to heed the warning...then proceed at your own risk. And my sincere apologies to the Frog Queen for what I'm about to disclose.

Okay...so the set up first. We have 3 full bathrooms in our house and one of those is the 'back bathroom' or the 'pool bathroom'. It is named that because it is the bathroom that opens out onto the back patio/pool and is the one people use when we have parties or the kids are wet from swimming. It is also now affectionately referred to as 'Coventina's bathroom' because that is where we put my black kitty Coventina for the night and it has her litter box and bed in there. The kids and I never really utilize this bathroom for showers or anything else, but the hubby has been known to go back there on occasion.

So last night, I go in there with the cat sometime after midnight, to feed her and put her to bed for the night. And as I reach for her food bowl, my eye catches sight of something in the toilet, whose lid is left open much to my chagrin. When I turn to see what it is, I am greeted by a gigantic average sized green frog sitting there staring up at me with a grin. Naturally, it scares me and I run screaming out of the bathroom. I head straight to my bedroom, wake up the hubby and insist that he come remove the frog from the back toilet. My kids, come out of their rooms to see what the commotion is and quickly run to see the frog in the toilet, thereby scaring the frog causing him to jump down into the hole where he could not be seen....this according to my daughter. So the hubby, all bleary-eyed, looks around and can't see the frog, to which I tell him he must look in the hole. He explains that he is not going to be able to remove him from the hole since he can't see anything and decides the only thing to do is flush him down.

I am not keen on this approach for several reasons, first I think it's cruel to the poor frog, secondly the frog was in fact a very cute frog as frogs go....he was the perfect shade of light green like a tree frog with cute little spots. Although he did sit upright like a regular frog, not flat like the typical small tree frogs. And lastly, because I reason that flushing might not even solve the problem. To which the tired and irritable husband says it WILL solve it, the frog can't hold on, and he can go back to bed. So I relent, he flushes, and there is no sign of poor lil' froggie anywhere. But a thought occurs to me that maybe the frog has suction cups and can hang onto the side while the water rushes past him. Hmmmm....

Flash forward to this morning. The housekeeper is here, she has already cleaned the back bathroom with bleach etc. I have to use the bathroom and she is in mine, so I go to the back one. I get in there and shut the door and stare down at the toilet. It is completely empty, has been cleaned and I figure the frog is indeed long gone. Then I think about sitting down, but I decide I will just flush the toilet once for good measure first, and then I will feel safe. But just when I do so, that damn frog jumps out from the hole and scares me to death. I run out of the bathroom screaming. The kids are laughing and Cindy the housekeeper comes running. I tell her quickly of last night's frog story and we walk back to the bathroom together. We get there and the frog is no where in sight. We look around, but there are not too many places for him to hide. I tell her that he had hopped under the lip of the bowl, but he was so big I could see him, so he couldn't possibly be hiding there.

She reasons that although the space is very narrow under the lip...frogs can flatten themselves out. I say, "yeah, but that space is only about 1/2 in., there's no way." I ask her if the area under the lip is open or solid underneath and she isn't sure, neither am I. So I decide to find something like a stick that I can fish up under the lip and see if it's open or not. I find a floral stem laying nearby and decide it to be the perfect tool for such work. I hit the lip, smack it around making a bunch of noise, and no movement, no frog. But unable to get it up under the lip, I bend part of the stem up, and reach my hand down farther into the bowl to push that end up underneath...(which FYI is indeed open....narrow but open.) And just then, I apparently scared the frog, who exposed a creepy leg, which scared Cindy, who screamed and ran out the bathroom, thereby scaring me. However, I was holding onto the floral stem which was stuck under the lip and I was panicking because I didn't want to let go of the flower, but I really wanted to run in self preservation. So I dropped the flower where it was and fled out the door screaming as well.

The kids are in hysterics and Cindy and I are about to go into cardiac arrest. I decide to go back in and grab my flower and of course the frog cannot be seen. I snatch it out and sit in my office to collect my thoughts. I decide that it would be completely fair and just, to refrain from telling my husband that his lame, half-ass attempt last night to flush the frog did NOT work, just as I said it wouldn't. And then let him go back there to use that toilet in hopes the frog would jump up on his bare bum and scare the crap out of him. ( Well that sounds bad, but I don't mean literally.) Then I decide that maybe that is too harsh a punishment and the fear of reprisals overrides my vendetta plans.

So I call him instead, and berate him about the goings on at our house and insist he tell me what he plans to do now, or else I'm calling some Critter Control people. I tell him that he is extremely lucky that I did not sit down on that seat, because if that frog had jumped on me....I would have had the locks changed and served him with divorce papers. Of course just the visual of that event actually happening...proceeds to send him into fits of laughter, which he will pay for, mark my words. But anyway, we collectively decide that we must put a plunger in the hole and then use the stick to scare the frog out, at which point HE will have to grab him and evict him from his humble commode abode!

As I hang up the phone, I think how horrible it is that the frog as taken up residence in the toilet and that even if we do get him out of there, I will NEVER ever use that bathroom again as long as I live. This frog, he sits in my toilet and mocks me, he makes a fool of me by hiding when I try to show him to others. I think I heard him croak and he has now become the Menacing Toilet Toad from Hell. And then my paranoia really kicks into high gear, and I start wondering what other creepy crawlies might be hiding up there under the lips of the other toilets in the house. What if my most feared phobia of all, the dreaded SPIDER, is hiding up there in the dark. I actually begin to feel ill at this thought. And I wonder how long a human can survive without going to the bathroom and how a catheter might resolve this dilemma. I also think to myself how horrible it would have been if we hadn't discovered him, and some guest was at our house using the restroom and the frog jumped on them....Eeegads! There could have been a heart attack and a law suit.

And then it happened...my evil alter ego, 'Wendy the 'Warped and occasionally Wicked' Witch has a thought. She thinks the frog in the toilet could be a REALLY CREEPTASTIC special effect to have in place for this year's Halloween Party. Some poor unsuspecting soul would be getting the scare of their life....ha! ;o)
* * (The photos enclosed are not actual images of MY frog, I'm too afraid I will drop my camera if the frog jumps out of hiding, so I found these on the Internet. And I will update on the Frog debacle as the events unfold, but as of this writing....he is still in their cackling and making 'muwahahaha' sounds.) :o(

Haunted House for Sale

For those of you who have been searching long and hard for that perfect 'Haunted House' to buy and inhabit....I have great news! Yes, one of the premier Haunted Houses in America is now up for sale. The "Amityville Horror House" in NY, is now on the market for a mere $1.15 million. By my accounts, that makes the selling price far more terrifying than the house itself. But then again, how can you truly put a price tag on a bonafide, real life Haunted House like the Amityville Horror House? Not only does it have an authentic 'bloody' background story, but it's also been made famous by Hollywood in an original 1979 horror movie (and some bad remakes). The background is that the DeFeo family who lived in the house, met their untimely demise at the hand of the disturbed eldest son Ronald DeFeo Jr., who shot and killed both of his parents, two brothers and two sisters execution style while they slept in their beds.

The house was later bought and inhabited by George and Kathy Lutz who lived there for a month, reportedly experiencing assorted psychic phenomena and an onslaught of terror at the hands of demonic spirits. They eventually fled the house. A book was written, the now famous movie "The Amityville Horror" was made, and the rest is not only history, but is apparently widely debated and often disputed. But the fact remains that this was indeed a true house of horrors in it's past, and is thereby considered to be a 'Haunted House' by many. And although its appearance has been altered to try and conceal its identity and slow the progression of curious on-lookers (especially at Halloween)....it is now up for sale, with all ghosts included! Muwahaha!

Halloween Horror Nights

Okay...I am a life long Florida resident, and ultimate lover of Hallowe'en. So one would naturally assume that I wait anxiously each year for Florida's premier Haunted Attraction, HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS, at Universal Studios. The annual scream-fest is touted as "The Country's Best Halloween Event", by Amusement Today, and "the greatest exhibition of pure terror ever unleashed anywhere". In fact, Tony Timpone, Editor of Fangoria Magazine, said, "After visiting scream parks all across the US for the last 20 years, I can easily say that Universal's is the best in the business… Halloween Horror Nights is the ultimate Halloween experience." That sounds like some fiendishly good fun does it not?

Yet sadly, I have to admit to having never gone before....can you believe it? Mostly because my children have been too young to go and getting a sitter was more hassle than it was worth. And partly because I am not exactly keen on being scared as I explained in my previous Hook Man post. But I'm thinking that this might be the year to give it a go! Everyone whose ever been, really loves it. And they say that the ghouls and freaks aren't allowed to chase or touch you. So I'm thinking this might be the year to partake in this pulse pounding showcase of horror.

This year's theme is "Ripped From the Silver Screen"......"The unforgettable horror movies that made you scream were hours of pulse-pounding fear broken up by moments of sheer heart-stopping terror. Bone-chilling nightmares played out onscreen. Now those terrifying scenes, incredible creatures and blood-curdling moments have now been ripped from the silver screen and brought to life at Halloween Horror Nights." Also new this year will be the Rocky Horror Picture show tribute which I'd love to see. Haven't had a good excuse to do the Time Warp in awhile. Not to mention that there will be 4 mazes and a "Terror Tram" too! Yep...this sounds like a ghastly good time indeed! If any of you live here, or are planning a visit to Florida, be sure to catch "Halloween Horror Nights" before it vanishes! Event runs select nights, September 25th - October 31st!

The Hook-Man

Have you ever heard the story of 'The Hook-Man'? Some say it's an urban legend that made it's first appearance in pop culture in 1960 in a Dear Abby column. The general story is about lovers parking on lover's lane and a radio announcement comes on about an escaped patient from a state asylum who has a hook in place of his right hand and is considered very dangerous. The girl gets spooked and wants to go home. The boy is frustrated and undaunted by the reports, but finally relents and drives her home in a huff. When he gets to her house to drop her off and goes to open her door, he finds a bloody hook hanging from the handle. Moral of the story...don't be naughty teenagers and go necking in a secluded area, lest you come face to face with the Hook-Man. Other versions have the boy getting out of the car to check things out and not returning, thereby prompting the girl to go looking for him where she discovers him hung over the car by a hook, sliced and bleeding. Does this story scare you?

Well it used to scare the dickens out of me. And it's no secret that I am easily spooked. I have a really over-active imagination, especially when it comes to scary things. But I can squarely lay all blame for that on my older brother of 6 years, for constantly seizing on that quality of mine as a child, and taking every opportunity he could find to scare the living daylights out of me. But it wasn't usually done in the physical, 'jump out of a closet' kind of way....although he did plenty of that too. But he rather preferred a psychological form of torment, telling me they were true stories, playing on my mind and unleashing all those hidden fears that lay inside a young girl. He'd spin terrifying tales of the Hook-Man, and other oddities like Cannibalistic Pygmy Indians. Once he even diligently made a tape recording of the Hook-Man's voice and put it on the window sill outside my bedroom, and cracked the window just a tad so I wouldn't notice. And while I was in my room alone...I began to hear the voice. When I became still to listen more closely, it was the 'Hook-Man' whispering that he was standing outside my window and had come to get me. At the same time, my brother was hiding out there in the bushes shaking the branches and clawing on the window screen with something that convincingly sounded like a HOOK to me. Needless to say, I ran screaming down the hall to my parents room, certain of my impending doom. In comes my brother, laughing in complete hysterics at his sinister accomplishment. I hate him!

And what's so bad is that my Mother in all of her un-infinite wisdom, would let my tormentor babysit me. So he had a captive audience for every demented story he could come up with. My dear older brother would cut off the electricity in the garage and bang on the windows outside, while we screamed in the dark. He would chase me around the house with his huge pet tarantula spider, threatening to put it on me as I ran and screamed at the top of my lungs. (To this day, I have arachnophobia.) Once he even boiled spaghetti noodles, peeled the skins off the grapes and made bowls of ketchup and put them all in boxes with holes for your hand. And he made my cousin and I stick our hands in there to feel what we were told was brains, eye of newt and blood! I guess it does seem a bit funny now in retrospect. But he is the reason my mind begins to imagine all sorts of scary things when I hear a noise outside my window. And why I have never really enjoyed the sensation of being scared. I'm curious if anyone else remembers any Urban Legends or tales of horror inflicted on them by their siblings. Below is a short video I found on the 'Hook-Man'....enjoy!

Urban Legend - The Hook

The First Frankenstein

Here's a trivia question for you....what do Frankenstein and Thomas Edison have in common? I would not have known the answer to that question if I had not stumbled upon this little piece of history while web surfing for something completely unrelated. It appears that before there was 'Frankenstein' the movie, there was....well, 'Frankenstein' the movie! Who knew?

Apparently, way before the classic version of Frankenstein that we all know and love came out, there was an original Frankenstein film made in 1910 by Edison Studios. Yep, THAT Edison...Sir Thomas Edison of light bulb fame. This is one of those old 'Silent' films, before the "Talkies" became all the rage. And it was the first motion picture adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The film was shot in 3 days at the Edison Studios in the Bronx, New York City. And although Thomas Edison is sometimes credited with producing the movie, he actually was not directly involved with the activities of the motion picture company that bore his name.

As always, there were moral crusaders in that time who were not at all thrilled with the dangerous new medium of motion pictures that they felt encouraged immorality. Some communities even went so far as to ban theatres all together. To appease these objections, Edison responded in kind by improving the moral tone and production quality of his company's films. Eeegads....if those folks thought the first silent 'Frankenstein' was bad, they'd be rolling in their graves at what you can see at the movies today! On an ending note, I have posted the 12 minute film below for your viewing pleasure. (The quality in the beginning is somewhat poor, but it gets better quickly.) However, this super old version of 'Frankenstein' is now in the Public Domain and can be downloaded here: http://www.archive.org/details/Frankenstein

Mysterious Mansion

As luck would have it while we were in Gatlinburg on vacation last week....our hotel just so happened to be located a few doors down from a most spooktacular attraction. Arriving around 11:30 pm....we saw an eerie purple glow up ahead on the road leading to the hotel. As we got closer, we were delighted to find an old Victorian mansion with Gothic gates and a hearse out front. We soon learned that Gatlinburg's infamous 'Mysterious Mansion' was just a stone's throw away from our sleeping quarters. Of course it was the very first thing we went to check out the next day. And it was really cool looking during the daytime. The old hearse out front was fantastic, complete with a skeleton in a coffin in the back. The mansion truly looked old and Victorian and the outward appearance beckons you inside for a scare. But at night...it looks even spookier as they light up the entire house with a blacklight purplish glow. And the lamps are flickering while creepy music wafts out of the house into the streets below. You could even hear it and see the glow while riding the chair lift at night which was great.

The Mysterious Mansion is in fact, Gatlinburg's oldest and scariest Haunted House. Within, you will find your way through secret passages, endless dark corridors, winding staircases and a dark dungeon, all filled with spine tingling creatures. And although the house does look old...It was actually just built in 1995. I read lots of reviews on this attraction and it received mostly good ratings. Apparently it houses a mix of electronic scares, and actors dressed up who jump out at you or chase you for good measure. Unfortunately, I cannot give a first hand report, because my 6 year was old not about to go in there....the music alone gave him the creeps....ha! And I think it's the mansion's outside street appeal that makes it so fiendishly fabulous. The scene is set to scare you before you ever make it in the door. And I am a firm believer that presentation and ambiance is everything! If you're ever in Gatlinburg, TN, check it out and give us an inside account. The daytime shot I pulled from a review site, but the night time shot is mine. I just LOVED this house! You can look them up on-line, but it doesn't appear to have it's own website strangely enough. Night photo © 2009 Wendy A.

Spooktacular Artist, Belle Dee

Today's post is in admiration of the Spooktacular art of Belle Dee. She has quickly become one of my favorite artists who rock the Horror/Hallowe'en category. Whether she is doing character sketches of Classic Horror Movies or getting her Vintage Hallowe'en groove on....she does it with style, color and precision. It's no easy task to get the facial features right when drawing (especially the eyes), but Belle Dee always nails it perfectly.

Belle's style is unique, creative and fun. She shares some of what inspires her fiendishly fabulous art...."Two things I love: One, Any cartoon from the 1920's-1940's that has dancing skeletons, ghosts, graveyards, haunted houses, etc. Two, Any spooky novelty song from 1900's-1940's that has crazy whistles and wot-not. Usually sounds like it came from a cartoon with dancing skeletons, ghosts, graveyards, haunted houses, etc. "

I especially I love it when she uses monochromatic and analogous color schemes...as they remind me of another favorite artist of mine, Shag. There is no doubt that Belle Dee is a super talented artist who is also a big Hallowe'en Lover, and her work is top notch. Be sure to check out more of Belle Dee's amazing talent at www.doowackadoodles.blogspot.com.