Scariest Mask I've Seen

Let's just hope he doesn't show up at YOUR door....

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South Burying Ground

A Halloween treat from RubDMC. I'm working again tomorrow (tonight?), and since death is a very real possibility for many of our patients we kind of downplay the whole thing. But anywho here's a quick snap of one of our charming town burying grounds, know as the 'South Burying Ground.' It's only a couple hundred yards (and clearly within view) from the 'North Burying Ground,' but the explanation's an interesting one. Each lies on its own side of a stream called 'The Milldam.' In early colonial times dead bodies could not be transported across moving water - so anyone who died south of the Milldam was buried in one graveyard, while anyone who died north of the Milldam was buried in the other. The South Burying Ground is small, and bounded by Main Street. North is on a hillside, and was later expanded into Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which includes Authors' Ridge where Emerson, Thoreau, and others are buried.

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Ghost hunting goes high tech

Ghost hunters spend lots of time investigating The Winchester House in San Jose. From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Before there were Ghostbusters there was Thomas Alva Edison. The father of sound recording technology wanted to make a device that could record the voices of the dead, according to his diary. Since then, just about every recording and measuring technology invented has eventually fallen into the hands of ghost hunters, who stake out haunted houses, graveyards and other spooky locales to try to capture empirical evidence of restless spirits. To this end, they utilize the latest in sound, video and still-image recording, as well as sensors that detect changes in temperature, electromagnetic fields and radiation. "We're looking for a ghost or spirit's influence on the environment," said Vince Wilson, author of "Ghost Tech, the Essential Guide to Paranormal Investigation Equipment."

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Wyoming ghost stories

From the Jackson Hole (Wy.) Star Tribune:

SHERIDAN -- At first glance, Wyoming might not seem to be a breeding ground for ghost stories and haunted houses. These are often associated with medieval castles or Victorian mansions, but in reality, the state's vast, wind-swept plains and the rugged mountains -- both often shrouded in mist and mystery -- support an array of eerie tales.

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Real-life monsters

A Cincinnati-area pedophile got busted for trying to set up a neighborhood haunted house. 'nuff said.

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DIY Monday: The "read 'em and weep" edition

Or perhaps, the "better luck next year" edition. Given that today is Halloween, if you're still thinking about how you're going to decorate your house, let's face it: you're screwed. (unless you have an army of robot zombies or flying monkies at your disposal to do your bidding - in which case, you probably don't need to do anything special to make your house scary for Halloween - but I digress) So, in the spirit of continual self-improvement, I offer you this meta-site: The Monster Page of Halloween Project Links. Totally non-commercial, this site has an A-Z listing of haunted house-related projects. Poke around, get some ideas, follow some basic safety precautions, and I'm sure you'll have your own scratch-built horrors to share with us next year ;-)

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Because a Halloween without bat skulls is like...

...well, y'all finish that one for me - I'd love to see what you come up with.

Happy Halloween, all!

[And thanks to PZ @ Pharyngula for sharing...]

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"Six vampire movies with bite"

I must salute MSNBC's movie editor, Paige Newman, for her bravery - or foolishness. Late last week, she wrote a column on 6 non-traditional-should-see vampire movies; that had to have been a daunting task, knowing that it would bring out the partisan in vampire and horror buffs. Still, it's not a bad point of departure (even if she seems to miss some of the deliberate Southern Gothic-ness of Near Dark). Her list?

Near Dark (1987)

Innocent Blood (1992)

Nadja (1994)

The Hunger (1983)

Ultraviolet (1998)

Martin (1977)

Of the list, I haven't seen either of the last two - Ultraviolet sounds like a lot of fun, a BBC Channel 4 miniseries she describes as "X-Files meets Dracula". So - there's the list. Anyone got anything they'd like to add? Remove? Second? Terminate with extreme prejudice? [updated 1 Nov 2005 1:21PM PST to correct the producers of Ultraviolet - thanks, Cav, for reminding us how willfully dense Yanks are ;-)]

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Touring Dracula's lands

I've always wanted to take a trip to Dracula country and to travel Central and Eastern Europe, from Prague to Budapest to Bucharest. The travel guides line the bookcase behind me. Life always got in the way of the dream, however. Some day, though, I will travel in the land of Count Dracula. Freelance writer Eric Lindburg did and recounts his trip to Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire in The Kansas City Star:

BRAN, ROMANIA — The old Gypsy woman at Dracula’s castle looks hard into my face as she divines my fortune: “You will travel many places, always looking,” she says in broken English. “But is better you stay close to home and have longer life.” Sitting in the kitschy Dracula Bazaar deep in the heart of Transylvania, I wonder whether buying a garlic braid in the next shop might be a life-extending investment for the darkness approaching. Or maybe I’ll spend my final hours dancing the night away at Dracula Disco just down the road.

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Finding 'Witchfinders'

The Washington Post reviewed several horror and supernatural books to mark Halloween. The illustration is from Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy.

Most Americans know about the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692, but a more lethal outbreak of witch hysteria infected England from 1645 to 1647, during the country's devastating Civil War. It all began when Goodwife Rivet got sick and her husband blamed her mysterious affliction on the bewitchment of a one-legged octogenarian named Bess Clarke. Two "witchfinders," Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, interrogated the widow Clarke, and she proudly confessed to "carnall copulation" with Satan.

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Fledgling

The Washington Post reviews Octavia Butler's Fledging.

How strange to find Octavia E. Butler digging up the old bones of this legend. As the first African American woman to make a name for herself in science fiction and the winner of a MacArthur genius grant, she seems an unlikely victim of Dracula's allure. But, as we might expect, her new novel, Fledgling , doesn't just resurrect the pale trappings of vampire lore, it completely transforms them in a startlingly original story about race, family and free will. "I awoke to darkness," the narrator begins. She's naked, badly burned, starving and without any idea where or who she is. She comes upon a group of homes destroyed by fire, but nothing looks familiar amid the cloud of pain and confusion. She can remember basic concepts only by trying to articulate what's missing: a bed, shoes, food. As a narrator, she couldn't seem more helpless, more vulnerable, more innocent. Then she chases down a deer and eats it. We're not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to the creepy story of Shori Matthews, a 53-year-old vampire who looks like a 10-year-old black girl. Suffering from amnesia, she makes a desperate narrator as we follow her on a dangerous journey of self-discovery and survival. She must somehow divine everything about herself from the clues provided by her strange body, the ashes of those burned homes and -- almost immediately -- a group of men trying to kill her. There's not a drop of Bela Lugosi in these pages, but Fledgling exercises the same hypnotic power the old Count projected onto his victims. Squirming in my chair, I was totally hooked, sometimes nauseated, anxious to put it down, but unable to look away. Go back, go back!

Hat tip to eafredel.

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Last Rites for Favorite Studio City Haunt

A 32-year old Los Angeles tradition dies.....

The Hallowed Haunting Grounds is a display of mysterious illusions. It appears each Halloween season at a private home in Studio City, CA. Many people have made visiting the show a part of their Halloween tradition. ...It is very sad that all things must pass, and this Halloween display is no exception. The time has finally arrived for your hosts to move on and sample what else life has to offer in the month of October. We thank our neighbors for their patience, our friends for their support, and our families for their undestanding. - Hallowed Haunting Grounds

(Thanks to blogging.la for alerting me to the sad news.....)

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Frankenstein vs. Dracula

The historical inspirations for Dr. Frankenstein and Count Dracula crossed paths, according to the Sunday Herald in London:

In a collapsed, moss-covered crypt in St Mary’s Evangelical church in the Romanian town of Sibiu lie the earthly remains of Frank Baron von Frankenstein where he was buried following his execution by Vlad Dracula the Impaler in the early 15th century. The discovery, by celebrated historian and Sunday Herald correspondent Gabriel Ronay, establishes an extraordinary historical connection between the real-life inspirations for two of the literary world’s most loved creations. snip In the 1430s von Frankenstein, a Teutonic Knight, was the lord of Bran manor and the chief adversary of Vlad Dracula. “Shamefully, their repeated wars did not stem from religious zeal but from filthy lucre,” explained Ronay. “Vlad Dracula extorted taxes from the rich Saxon merchants of Transylvania. Ultimately Vlad Dracula defeated the Saxon army and put von Frankenstein to a lingering death on a sharp wooden stake.” Compelling proof of the fight between the real-life Vlad Dracula and a von Frankenstein can be found not far from Bran Castle in St Mary’s Evangelical churchyard in Sibiu where von Frankenstein was buried. Ronay visited the graveyard last year after Frankenstein and Dracula fans told him of the connection between the two families.

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Phearful Photoshop Phriday (but Phound on Sunday)

over at somethingawful.

In the world of children's books, Richard Scarry is a renowned master of such reckless and insane ideas as worms driving apple cars and cats directing traffic and fighting fires. Whatever madness made him dream up such terrifying ideas is a mystery, but it has delighted children for decades. Because Richard Scarry is incredibly dead right now, he can no longer produce new books. To make up for Richard Scarry's lack of heart, the Something Awful Forum Goons have decided to pick up the slack and update his works for modern audiences, making them timely and realistic. You best start beholdin'

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[cue Evil Overlord theme music] Muaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Courtesy of /., news that a Cold War-era underground bunker complex has come onto the market:

WELCOME to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown. The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground. The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left. [...] "It was like a set from The Avengers," said Nick McCamley, author of Secret Underground Cities, who lived locally and first discovered the existence of the site in the 1960s.

Of course, there are a couple of catches... First, the asking price of UK£ 5m (approx. US$ 8.9m or EU€ 7.34m); second, you must also buy or otherwise invest in the entire decommissioned military base aboveground (not included in the price); third, no mention of lab space sufficient for the creation of robot zombie armies. If I'm gonna shell out US$ 9m, it bloody well better include robot zombie armies. A starter set, at the very least. Or winged monkies. Winged monkies would be a perfectly lovely compromise.

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Breaking!!! Zombies at the Center of the Universe!!! Film at eleven!!!

Dateline: Seattle, Washington, 29 October 2005, 22:41 PDT Fremont, Seattle, the neighborhood known as the Center of the Universe, is under siege! Hordes of the undead have been unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace, and people are fleeing in a blind panic. A neighborhood better known for art cars, naked bicyclists, funky bars, and funkier inhabitants will, from now on, be associated with wholesale slaughter. Those of us who have made it to safety are hearing on the radio that the Seattle Police have blown up all bridges that cross Lake Union and the ship canal except for I-5, which is under heavy guard at this hour. Stryker mechanized infantry units rushed from Fort Lewis are being deployed at this hour, but I fear it will be for naught: the zombies are too strong, and their numbers are many. We are doomed, I fear. Wait - I hear something outside... It's [end transmission] It was a real hoot - I'd have to say there were at least 100 zombies in varying states of decay to be seen shambling and stumbling down the streets of Fremont this afternoon. I posted a full photo stream on Flickr, here, and the LiveJournal of the Seattle Zombie Walk instigator organizer may be found here.

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Robert E. Howard helped inspire Laurell K. Hamilton

I like reading Laurell K. Hamilton's novels. I met Anita Blake of the Guilty Pleasures series 11 years ago in a bookstore in London. I've read several since, not all of Blake's novels, but quite a few. They're what I refer to as "fun reads," quick action and interesting characters and sexy. The ratio of pleasure you get out of it vs. the thought you have to put into reading her books is high. Turns out Blake is an interesting character herself. From The Associated Press:

When she was 5, she begged to be able to watch Boris Karloff in "Frankenstein." Later, she would read authors Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, and was particularly taken with "Pigeons from Hell," a short story collection by Robert E. Howard. She started to write herself, but noted she wasn't a teenager clad in black, composing death poetry. "The inside of my head is so dark," she said, "I didn't need the outside trappings."

Blake's official web site is here. She also blogs (I need to add the links to the sidebar) here.

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Witches: a different perspective

SallyCat is leading discussion on a different perspective for witches on BooMan Tribune. A poem traditionally posted about the fate that befell many during witch hunts and how it ties in with today. On a lighter note, she also posted a recipe for witch hat cookies also from a pagan site.

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Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba from Sin City is hot. Hat tip to independentchristian.

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Underworld visited

The set of Underworld: Evolution was visited by Coming Attractions. From the preview, I wonder if it's a sequel or more like hitting the reset button. (The first movie did well on DVD.) I really wanted to enjoy Underworld. Vampires vs. werewolves, what's not to like? Except it sucked and I don't mean in a good way like the vampire Kate Beckinsale biting into my neck and drawing out my life's blood kind of sucking. I mean sucked as in what-the-hell-were-they-thinking? kind of suck. The movie had a great look and Kate Beckinsale looked awesome as a vampire. She's good in everything, but she carried off that mix of sexual allure and menace. But I know roleplayers who could have come up with a much better plot and dialogue than in the first movie. So I really shouldn't expect much from this one. Except for the part I'll highlight in bold gives me hope. Because it looks like the script isn't something overlooked. With the great look - due mostly to Kate Beckinsale in leather - combined with a decent story, Underworld: Evolution might actually have evolved into a sequel worth viewing. Part One:

One thing fairly obvious, which you can see from the recent trailer, is that "Evolution" is as much a prequel to the first movie as it is a sequel, since it goes back in time to the dawn of the war between the vampires and the Lycans. In those days, they wore armor and wielded swords while riding around on armored horses, rather than wielding the machine guns we see them using in the first movie.

Part Two:

Overall, it looks like they've really upped the ante for this sequel, using their bigger budget to put more thought and detail into the design and detail of the sets. With that in mind, we have to hope that the writing and acting are raised to that level, so that hopefully, this will be one of those rare sequels that blows away the original. (While roaming around the make-up truck earlier, we saw a loose script laying around, and we learned that screenwriter Paul Haggis of "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby" had done a few uncredited revisions to the script.

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Gentlereaders...Start your pumpkins.....

or pumpkin carving... as someone already has.... For handy carving hints....might I suggest a little cyber hop over to le Masters du Pumpies....PUMPKIN MASTERS!

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From dead to undead

Here's some really exciting news. The creator of Six Feet Under, a show my wife is a huge fan of (if you think I'm morbid, she's even darker), is creating a new series for HBO based on the Southern Vampire series. From Reuters:

HBO has dug up a new deal with "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball, but this time he's switching from the dead to the undead. The first project covered under the two-year development deal Ball signed with the premium cable channel will be based on the "Southern Vampire" book series. Written by Charlaine Harris, the series chronicles the intermingling world of humans and monsters in contemporary rural Louisiana, particularly vampires, thanks to a synthetic blood formula that allows them to roam far from their coffins. "The books are funny, scary, sexy, romantic, bizarre and really fun," Ball said. "I couldn't put them down. I will try to remain as true to the spirit of her book as possible."

Ball also wrote the script for American Beauty.

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Got a happy Halloween story? XXVI

He poured the blood into a tin cup for Lucy, who drank it in my presence. I could not repress a shudder at the sight of her lips touching the blood fresh from my body. She watched me out of the corner of her eyes, lowered the cup and smiled with a puckish delight. My limbs shook at the sight of her long white fangs. "Thank you, Henry," she said with a false coyness. "What does his blood taste like?" Adena asked. She picked an awkward time to satisfy her curiosity. "Like autumn," Lucy answered. "Henry’s blood tastes like October when the leaves have changed colors and a hint of smoke hangs in the air and you walk past a cemetery at dusk, the fallen leaves swishing under your shoes." The vampire Lucy Westenra's description of Henry Armitage's blood sums up what I love best about this time of year. Most of my happiest memories evolve around autumn: cutting firewood with my father, attending autumn festivals in smalltown Ohio, the color and sound and sweet smell of decay from the fallen leaves underfoot. Fall meant football and cheeks painted rose by the brisk air on the fair skin of my high school sweetheart and hands cupped around cups of hot chocolate to warm them. Fall meant a lot of work preparing for winter on our farm. But working in the autumn was much better than working in the hot and muggy summer. Working on a farm in the fall is pleasant - at least in memory. And fall meant trips to the grave yard at the end of Union Lane in Ross County. The cemetery was long abandoned and at the end of a long, narrow gravel lane with the trees so close they seem to form a tunnel. The cemetery is reputed to be haunted by Elizabeth's ghost, but those in the neighborhood know Elizabeth's ghost haunts a different cemetery on a small, family plot in between a cornfield and the woods. But the other cemetery was more accessible and when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I had friends over for a Halloween party. After we played games of tag and hide and seek and told ghost stories, Dad hitched up the wagon to the tractor and we sat on bails of hay and rode down Egypt Pike. We left the paved road to a gravel road and then to the very narrow lane back to the cemetery. It is surrounded by county-owned land set aside for hunting so no homes are within a mile of it. The roar of the tractor drowned out most conversations, but it was a pleasant ride bundled up against the chill. At the cemetery, we hopped out and with flashlights in hand walked through it. Most of the boys did not go far from the parking lot, but some of us walked through reading the barely visible names off the still standing tombstones and tripping over the occasional tombstone knocked over by drunken partiers. Someone suggested playing hide and seek in the dark in the graveyard, but no one spoke up in support. After a while, Dad called for us to return and we began walking back. No one wanted to appear in a hurry to leave and be called a chicken. I lagged behind to show off that I wasn't it frightened. As the other boys got ahead, I looked around behind me, though, suddenly not so sure of myself. Perhaps, I thought, a ghost or monster was merely waiting for one boy to lag behind to snatch him from the others. I stopped and listened. But I heard nothing except the sound of the other boys climbing on the wagon. I started forward again when I tripped over a fallen tombstone, hidden under the weeds. My shins hurt and my flashlight went out. I picked myself up thankful my hands hadn't landed on one of the broken beer bottles. I had enough light from the moon and stars to make my way through so I started forward when I stepped in a hole. Looking back, I tell myself it was a gopher hole but to my 11-year-old mind, it felt as if the grave had opened up so the skeletal corpse could grab my ankle. I felt a burst of adrenaline and kicked my foot free and ran the rest of the way from the cemetery and pulled myself up onto the wagon. "What scared you?" one of my friends asked. "Nothing," I replied. "Just didn't want you guys to leave without me." Dad started the tractor and we bounced on the back of the wagon. Nothing, I told myself again. But when I looked back, I saw skeletal arms and a bald skull pulling itself up from the grave. The wagon bounced down the ruts of the lane and the graveyard was lost to sight behind the trees. But I was happy to be on my way safe back home on the wagon, listening to my friends and smelling the sweet decay of the autumn leaves in the air.

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20,000 visitors

We hit a milestone earlier today at The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire. Our 20,000th visitor.

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History of Halloween

The History Channel has a spooktacular collection of links to Halloween recipes, creepy videos, holiday e-cards, ghost stories and the origins of Halloween. There's a lot to see and do on the site. Most of it appears aimed at the young or the young at heart. In other words, perfect for me. Here's a historic tale of the ghost of the White House.

The ghost of Abigail Adams is seen hurrying toward the East Room, with arms out stretched at if carrying a load of laundry. She can be recognized by the cap and lace shawl she favored in life. Although Abigail Adams is the "oldest" ghost ever to have been encountered at the White House, she is by no means the only former occupant to occasionally wander its halls and great rooms. The home of the American chief executive has been the site of so much intense life it seems only appropriate that from within its walls come stories and legends of presidents and first ladies who linger...after life.

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Damned on Holy Grail search

From The Scotsman:

PUNK rocker Rat Scabies is to join renowned international authors to discuss his pilgrimage to France in search of the Holy Grail. The former drummer with The Damned is to address the latest symposium of the Sauniere Society, set up to help shed some light on one of the world's greatest mysteries.

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The Fog of Gore

A. V. Club has posted an interview with John Carpenter:

Director John Carpenter is a veritable anomaly in modern Hollywood: a veteran craftsman who eschews auteurism. Carpenter grew up in Kentucky as a fan of tough genre movies, and went to film school at USC at a time when cinema studies emphasized the old Hollywood masters. After bursting out of the gate with an Academy Award for "The Resurrection Of Broncho Billy," a short student film he co-wrote, edited, and scored, Carpenter prepared himself for a career in the Howard Hawks mold: a life of making lean, truthful movies in a variety of genres. Then Halloween happened.

Indeed. And while the after-effects of that 'happening' have been uneven, I'd have to say that on the whole it counts as a Good Thing. The interview doesn't really cover any new turf, but there are some good nuggets:

AVC: How do you make the leap from being somebody who likes to watch movies to somebody with the confidence to make them? JC: I have no idea. [Laughs.] You just have to want it enough. You have to have the passion for telling stories. You have to get by the love-of-movies aspect and move on to another plane, if you know what I mean. You can't just be a fan. What a director does... essentially, it's storytelling, but a director also controls the feeling and the sounds and the texture. It's an act of creation, like a symphony or a painting or a story. But with different tools. And the tools keep changing each year. Anybody can make a movie now, if you have the will. The digital revolution has made it very inexpensive to make a film. Anybody who wants to can do it.

(With all due apologies to von Clausewitz for the title... ) [spotted whilst perusing The Onion this morning].

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Wormwood

The current issue of Wired has an article about Ted Breaux, an American microbiologist posessed by the La Fée Verte: absinthe

Raised in New Orleans, a city once dubbed the Absinthe Capital of the World, Breaux has long been fascinated with the drink. Absinthe is a 140-proof green liqueur made from herbs like fennel, anise, and the exceptionally bitter leaves of Artemisia absinthium. That last ingredient, also known as wormwood, gives the drink its name - and its sinister reputation. For a century, absinthe has been demonized and outlawed, based on the belief that it leads to absinthism - far worse than mere alcoholism. Drinking it supposedly causes epilepsy and "criminal dementia." Breaux has made understanding the drink his life's work. He has pored over hundred-year-old texts, few of them in English. He has corresponded with other amateur liquor historians. The more he's learned, the more he's felt compelled to use his knowledge of chemistry to crack the absinthe code, figure out exactly what's in it, puncture the myths surrounding it - and maybe even drink a glass or two. snip But the biggest vindication came at the Absinth des Jahres contest in 2004, for which expert judges sampled newly distilled absinthes from all over the world. A little-known candidate, Nouvelle-Orléans, garnered perfect scores and won a gold medal. "Without doubt, the release of Nouvelle-Orléans was a milestone in the history of modern absinthe," says Arthur Frayn, one of the judges. The distiller? Ted Breaux.

More on absinthe may be found here.

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When you're asked to bring wine

to a little get together... surprise them with this.

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