How To Make A Jack O' Lantern

Ok gang in past posts I've showed you Jack O' Jantern designs. Today I'm gonna tell you step by step how to make one. :D

How to select a Pumpkin:
1. Consider size. The pumpkin should be big enough to carve eyes, nose and a mouth on.


2. Tap the pumpkin. If it isn't entirely solid, it's rotting. Choose a dry pumpkin with a hard shell.


3. Look at the shape of the pumpkin. Do you want a moon-faced or a tall, thin one?

4. Wash the dirt off.

5. Find the best side. Turn it around to see which side will make the best Jack o' Lantern face.

Carving the Pumpkin:

1. Mark the features on the pumpkin using a pen or pencil. Draw them slightly smaller then you want them to be.

2. Cut the top off. Put the knife or carving tool all the way through the shell into the pumpkin. Saw a clean circle around the stem and lift off. Angle the cutting tool slightly towards the center of the pumpkin to provide a lip for the top to sit on when you're done.

3. Clean the pumpkin. Discard the seeds and sticky interior. Make sure the inside of the face area is free of clinging tissue.

4. Cut the face. For each feature, push the knife or carving tool through, then cut on the line until the piece comes out. 

5. Clear away the rough edges.

Protips: 1. Cheap Carving Tools can be found at your local Grocery store or Wal-mart.

            2. You can smear the inside of your Jack o' Lantern with Vaseline to keep it from 

               dehydrating and molding.

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Movies To Get You In The Halloween Mood (Part 4)

Finally we have reached the last list for this Halloween. Today's list is that of classic horror, the kind of horror that freaked your parents and grandparents out long ago. :D


Frankenstein(1931)
Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again.


The Wolf Man(1941)
Upon the death of his brother, Larry Talbot returns from America to his ancestral home in Wales. He visits a gypsy camp with village girl Jenny Williams, who is attacked by Bela, a gypsy who has turned into a werewolf. Larry kills the werewolf but is bitten during the fight. Bela's mother tells him that this will cause him to become a werewolf at each full moon. Larry confesses his plight to his unbelieving father, Sir John, who then joins the villagers in a hunt for the wolf. Larry, transformed by the full moon, heads for the forest and a fateful meeting with both Sir John and Gwen.


The Creature From The Black Lagoon(1954)
A scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free. The Gill-Man returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition, with whom it has fallen in love.


Dracula(1931)
After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferral of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead.


Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1956)
Dr Miles Bennell returns his small town practice to find several of his patients suffering the paranoid delusion that their friends or relatives are impostors. He is initially skeptical, especially when the alleged dopplegängers are able to answer detailed questions about their victim's lives, but he is eventually persuaded that something odd has happened and determines to find out what is causing this phenomenon. This film can be seen as a paranoid 1950s warning against those Damn Commies or, conversely, as a metaphor for the tyranny of McCarthyism (or the totalitarian system of Your Choice) and has a pro- and epilogue that was forced upon Siegel by the studio to lighten the tone.


The Mummy(1932)
In 1921 a field expedition in Egypt discovers the mummy of ancient Egyptian prince Im-Ho-Tep, who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. Also found in the tomb is the Scroll of Thoth, which can bring the dead back to life. One night a young member of the expedition reads the Scroll out loud, and then goes insane, realizing that he has brought Im-Ho-Tep back to life. Ten years later, disguised as a modern Egyptian, the mummy attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated into a beautiful young woman.


The Phantom of the Opera(1925)
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What's his goal ? What's his secret ?


The Raven(1935)
A wealthy judge coaxes the brilliant but eccentric neurological surgeon Dr. Vollin (Lugosi), who also has an obsessive penchant for Edgar Allen Poe, out of retirement to save the life of his daughter, a dancer crippled and brain damaged in an auto wreck. Vollin restores her completely, but also envisions her as his "Lenore," and cooks up a scheme to kidnap the woman and torture and kill her fiance' and father in his Poe-inspired dungeon. To do his dirty work, Vollin recruits a wanted criminal (Karloff), and turns him into a hideous monster to guarantee his subservience.


Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde(1941)
Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone. Experiments reveal his evil side, named Hyde. Experience teaches him how evil Hyde can be: he kills Ivy who earlier expressed interest in Jekyll and Sir Charles, Jekyll's faincee's father.


Bride of Frankenstein(1935)
Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil experiment business, but when a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius, kidnaps his wife, Dr. Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new creature, a woman, to be the companion of the monster.


Thank you to everyone for checking out my Halloween movies lists.
I'm gonna try to have a movie player/chat up on the blog for Halloween weekend if you guys want to see some horror films.


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Movies To Get You In The Halloween Mood (Part 3)

Ok so i decided to do this third set of 10 and tomorrow I will add a 4th part with just classic horror.
All these movies I watch as often as I can, I remember as a kid being so scared of these films, but as an adult I have some kinda psychotic joy. Not all of these are just horror some are just for fun. :D


Jeepers Creepers
On their way back home during the spring break, Darry and Patricia Jenner witness a mysterious person dumping something down a tunnel. Deciding to discover what was dumped down there, Darry discovers a huge disturbing hideout full of modified bodies. Darry and Patricia set off to get help, unaware that the individual is now aware of who has been down the tunnel. Darry and Patricia soon realizes that their pursuer is not just a mysterious person, but something even more horrifying, who has more in store than they could possibly imagine. 


The Thing
An American scientific expedition to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic is interrupted by a group of seemingly mad Norwegians pursuing and shooting a dog. The helicopter pursuing the dog crashes leaving no explanation for the chase. During the night, the dog mutates and attacks other dogs in the cage and members of the team that investigate. The team soon realises that an alien life-form with the ability to take over other bodies is on the loose and they don't know who may already have been taken over.


Planet Terror
After an experimental bio-nerve gas is accidentally released at a remote U.S. military base in Texas, those exposed to the gas turn into flesh-eating, mutating zombies out to kill. An assortment of various people who include stripper Cherry, her shady mechanic ex-boyfriend Wray, a strong-willed doctor, the local sheriff, and an assortment of various people must join forces to survive the night as the so-called "sickos" threaten to take over the whole town and the world.


Evil Dead
Five friends go up to a cabin in the woods where they find unspeakable evil lurking in the forest. They find the Necronomicon and the taped translation of the text. Once the tape is played, the evil is released. One by one, the teens become deadly zombies. With only one remaining, it is up to him to survive the night and battle the evil dead.


Pet Sematary
The Creeds have just moved to a new house in the countryside. Their house is perfect, except for two things: the semi-trailers that roar past on the narrow road, and the mysterious cemetary in the woods behind the house. The Creed's neighbours are reluctant to talk about the cemetary, and for good reason too.


Hellraiser
Clive Barker's feature directing debut graphically depicts the tale of a man and wife who move into an old house and discover a hideous creature - the man's half-brother, who is also the woman's former lover - hiding upstairs. Having lost his earthly body to a trio of S&M demons, the Cenobites, he is brought back into existence by a drop of blood on the floor. He soon forces his former mistress to bring him his necessary human sacrifices to complete his body... but the Cenobites won't be happy about this.


The Nightmare Before Christmas
Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween -- but alas, they can't get it quite right.


The Crow
A poetic guitarist Eric Draven is brought back to life by a crow a year after he and his fiancée are murdered. The crow guides him through the land of the living, and leads him to his killers: knife thrower Tin-tin, drugetic Funboy, car buff T-Bird, and the unsophisticated Skank. One by one, Eric gives these thugs a taste of their own medicine. However their leader Top-Dollar, a world-class crime lord who will dispatch his enemies with a Japanese sword and joke about it later, will soon learn the legend of the crow and the secret to the vigilante's invincibility.


Shaun of the Dead
Shaun doesn't have a very good day, so he decides to turn his life around by getting his ex to take him back, but he times it for right in the middle of what may be a zombie apocalypse... But for him, it's an opportunity to show everyone he knows how useful he is by saving them all. All he has to do is survive... And get his ex back. 


Carrie
Carrie White is a shy young girl who doesn't make friends easily. After her class mates taunt her about her horrified reaction to her totally unexpected first period one of them takes pity on her and gets Tommy Ross, her boyfriend and class hunk to invite Carrie to the senior prom. Meanwhile another girl who has been banned from the prom for her continued aggressive behaviour is not as forgiving and plans a trick to embarrass Carrie in front of the whole school. What she doesn't realise is that Carrie is ... gifted, and you really don't want to get her angry.


And For Nice Family Fun and Nostalgia.....Honorable Mention:


Hocus Pocus
More than 300 years ago, 3 witches were sentenced to die in Salem, Massachusetts and a boy was turned into a cat (a black cat, naturally). Now it's Halloween, and the witches (who fly on [I kid you not] vacuum cleaners) are back. This time, they've got their eyes on immortal life and have turned their wrath on trick-or-treaters and it's up to the 300-year-old cat to save the day.


Hope Everyone Has a Good Day. :D
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Movies To Get You In The Halloween Mood (Part 2)

Glad so many enjoyed the first part of the list.
After thinking about the list this past weekend, I've got quite a bit of films to list. :D
Should be a Part 3, maybe 4.


Here's some more to enjoy this week:


Candyman(1992)
Helen Lyle is a student who decides to write a thesis about local legends and myths. She visits a part of the town, where she learns about the legend of the Candyman, a one-armed man who appears when you say his name five times, in front of a mirror. Of course, Helen doesn't believe all this stuff, but the people of the area are really afraid. When she ignores their warnings and begins her investigation in the places that he is rumored to appear, a series of horrible murders begins. Could the legend be true?


The Howling(1981)
After a bizarre and near fatal encounter with a serial killer. Karen White, a newswoman is sent to a rehabilitation center whose inhabitants may not be what they seem.


The Omen(1976)
Robert and Katherine Thorn seem to have it all. He is the US Ambassador to Italy and they want for nothing in their lives, except one thing: they do not have children. When Katharine has a stillborn child, Robert is approached by a priest at the hospital who suggest that he take a healthy newborn whose mother has just died in childbirth. Without telling his wife he agrees to to so but after relocating to London, strange events - and the ominous warnings of a priest - lead him to believe that the child he took from that Italian hospital is evil incarnate. 


Friday the 13th(1980)
One summer at Camp Crystal Lake, a group of young counselors begin to get ready to lead campers. Unfortunately for the former, someone isn't happy about what's going on in the camp and enjoys playing Kill the Counselor. As bodies fall to the ground in the camp, no one is safe.


Phantasm(1979)
Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost his parents, is afraid to lose his brother. This fear causes him to follow his brother to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lift a coffin on his own. Mike decides to investigate and discovers a horrible world where the Tall Man, along with his flying spheres, shrink the to half their normal size and reanimate them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother, and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man.


Trick 'R Treat(2007)
Five interwoven stories that occur on the same block, on the same night. A couple finds what happens when they blow a jack o' lantern out before midnight, a high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer, a college virgin might have met the right guy for her, a group of mean teens play a prank that they take too far, and a hermit is visited by a special trick or treater.


Silver Bullet(1985)
The small town of Tarker's Mill was a place that was very peaceful, where nothing ever happened. Until one night, murders begin. The town people believe its some maniac killer on the loose and intend to hunt the man down. Marty, a young handicapped boy, believes that the killer is no man at all, but a werewolf. After a run in with the werewolf Marty and his sister, Jane hunt all over town for the man who is the werewolf.


Sleepy Hollow(1999)
The cruse of the headless horseman is the legacy of the small town of Sleepy Hollow. Spearheaded by the eager Constable Ichabod Crane and his new world ways into the quagmire of secrets and murder, secrets once laid to rest, best forgotten and now reawakened, and he too, holding a dark secret of a past once gone.


Texas Chainsaw Massacre(1974)
En route to visit their grandfather's grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch-hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home... where they're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills... 


Dawn of the Dead(2004)
Ana, a young beautiful nurse finishes her day-shift at the hospital to return home to her beloved husband, they make love and sleep together. The next day, after her husband is killed by her neighbor next door, he suddenly comes back to life. She discovers the chaos happening in her neighborhood and escapes from her home. Soon after coming to her senses in the woods, she encounters a cop and other survivors, they decide to find safety in a mall. Soon more survivors come, and they learn that if they want to stay alive, they should stick together as the world is overrun by an army of undead. Can they survive the horror in this horrific global chaos? When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.




Hope you guys get a chance to watch some of these this week. :D






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Movies To Get You In The Halloween Mood (Part1)

Here's a nice little list to get you in the Halloween mood this upcoming week. :D


The Rocky Horror Picture Show
For the ultimate Halloween experience, catch a late-night showing of the raunchy musical about a couple who get lost and stumble into an alien transvestite's castle. Make sure you don't ruin it by watching it on video. This film is all about audience participation. 

The Shining
Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel could quite possibly be one of the scariest films of all time. The bone-chilling movie is based in an isolated hotel where Jack Nicholson and his family have moved in as caretakers for the winter. What follows is a ghostly encounter with a former hotel custodian who murdered his wife and two daughters. Beware: The eerie silence of the movie will haunt you long after you've hit the stop button. 

The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter the Cannibal will scare you into numbness. Not for the weak-hearted -- the psychological thriller is a two-hour-long hair raiser about FBI agent Clarice Starling, who tries to gain insight into a murderer's mind by interviewing psychopath Hannibal. 

Halloween
A Halloween night turns deadly when a former child murderer escapes from the mental hospital and returns to his small hometown to terrorize a babysitter. Soon her friends start disappearing one by one.... 

Poltergeist
Watch this before you go haunted house hunting this Halloween. A suburban family is visited by ghosts who play odd tricks on them, and soon the events build up to a frightening climax when the ghosts kidnap the youngest daughter. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 
The film that spawned six sequels and made Freddy Krueger into a household monster is still a must-watch horror flick. A group of teenagers start having dreams about a scarred man with razor fingers and soon they are brutally murdered in their sleep. The remaining teen, Nancy, realizes that she has to stay awake to survive. Good luck going to bed after this one! 

Alien
This ultimate horror-sci-fi combo is an eerie look at what happens when a space crew stumbles upon an unknown planet and finds alien eggs. 

Night of the Living Dead
This black-and-white film can still disturb you to death. You'll cross your fingers for the group of people who hide in a farmhouse, trying to avoid being killed by the dead who have come back to life. 

The Exorcist
You'll know why The Exorcist is the most bloodcurdling movie ever made when you watch the brutal depiction of a 12-year-old girl possessed by an evil spirit as the exorcist tries to save her. 

Seven
Shock, nausea, and utter fright, you'll feel it all at the pit of your stomach while watching Seven. The intense psychological drama follows two detectives, played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, as they try to catch a maniac who plans to kill seven people, one for each of the seven deadly sins.






Part 2 Will Be Up Soon. :D

Halloween Superstitions

Halloween is quickly becoming my favorite time of year. All of these movies that come out this time of year and get played on television are so much fun for me. besides the movies that are viewed there is a huge rebirth of superstitions around this time of year that come to life.

There's so much more to a Halloween superstitions than just trick or treating and Halloween snacks! Halloween started with a long history of superstitions, goblins and witches, and folklore and fantasy.

Halloween as we know it today, originated from a very specific history. Many countries celebrate some form of Halloween - it's simply not just a Hallmark holiday that the States came up with.

One such Halloween superstition is that in the olden days (very olden days) a woman looking for a husband would put a sprig of rosemary and a sixpence under her pillow on Halloween night. The superstition was that she would dream of her future husband that night!

What about other Halloween superstitions? Here are a few that are interesting and fun to read about (13 superstitions to be exact!)

1. Cats You know that old Halloween superstition that says black cats are bad luck? Well, once it was believed that all cats with a black coat were actually the devil, or eaten up by evil spirits.

In the middle ages, black cats were hunted and burned on Easter. (poor little kitties!) But, today, lots of families have black cats as pets and don't give it a second thought. I guess we outgrew that superstition! Good thing too, my little kitty is black and I'd move mountains before I'd let someone come and try and hunt her down!

Here's just the opposite of the black cat halloween superstition: in Britain, they believe white cats are bad luck!

2. Nuts Another old British Halloween superstition is, people at one time believed that Satan was a nut-gatherer, so, on Halloween night, nuts were used as magic charms.

3. Candles An old saying was, if the flame on a candle goes out and it happens to be Halloween, then you have a ghost visiting you! I bet that was a great tactic for keeping kids "scared straight!"

4. Witches This Halloween superstition is about those ugly witches! Here's how it goes: some people claimed that if you put your clothes on inside out and then walked backwards on the night of Halloween, then at midnight, you would see a witch riding through the sky.

Witches have such an interesting and long history, that would take a whole other website to talk about them, but some people believed that witches were the devil. Tests were devised to see if a woman was a witch or not.

Fearful crowds would throw a woman suspected of being a witch by throwing her in a body of water. If she floated, she was definitely a witch (YIKES! I guess nobody knew back then that women NATURALLY float better than men!) If she died, she was not a witch (sheesh! not a great scenario for these poor women!)

5. Bells When you ring a bell on Halloween, all the scary, evil spirits will fly away. Does that include doorbells? Think how many get rung on Halloween night!

6. Owls Owls hooting used to scare a lot of people. Some people believed that on Halloween, owls would dive down and eat the souls of anyone dying that night. So, if you heard a hooting owl, quickly pull your pocket out and leave it hanging. Then you'd be safe from the diving owls. (What imagination!)

7. Celtic custom Here's a really good ol' superstition... On Halloween, a bonfire was built and watched until it went out. Then the ashes were used to make a huge circle where every family in the village would place a stone just inside the circle. the next day, if any stone was moved or damaged, then that meant someone in that family was going to die within the next year.

8. Bats If a bat flies into your house, beware! You may have some ghosts or spirits visiting!

9. More about bats Or, on Halloween night, if you see a bat flitting around early in the evening, then you'll have good weather the next day.

10. And a little more about bats And, last, but spookily not least, if bats fly around your house on Halloween night 3 times, death is inevitable.

11. Warding off evil spirits Want to rid yourself of all evil? Just walk backwards around your house three times before the sun set on halloween and that would banish all evil. (if only it were that simple!)

12. More warding... You can bury animal bones in your front yard (I think that's against the law now!). Or, put a picture of an animal outside near your front door.

13. SPIDERS! If you happen to see a spider on Halloween (what are the chances?) then the spirit of a loved one is watching over you. (this is my favorite superstition...)

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What Do You Guys Think About This Trailer?

I really don't know anything about this film at the moment. I saw this trailer the other night and was instantly interested. Let me know what you guys think. :D

Some Random H.P. Lovecraft Works Excerpts.

"As we left the inhabited world behind the sun sank lower and lower in the north, and stayed longer and longer above the horizon each day. At about 62° South Latitude we sighted our first iceberg-like objects with vertical sides and just before reaching the Antarctic Circle, which we crossed on October 20 with appropriately quaint ceremonies..." ~ HPL

"He developed strange caprices, acquiring a fondness for exotic spices and Egyptian incense till his room smelled like the vault of a sepulchred Pharaoh in the Valley of Kings." ~ HPL

                

‎"My brain has been removed from my body by fissions so adroit that it would be crude to call the operation surgery. The visiting beings have methods which make these extractions easy and almost normal — and one’s body never ages when the brain is out of it." ~ HPL

 ‎"Things seen by the inward sight, like those flashing visions which comes as we drift into the blankness of sleep, are more vivid and meaningful to us in that form than when we have sought to weld them with reality." ~ HPL

Hope you enjoyed. :D

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