calliopes_pen

wish_list is open for business. I’ll try to come up with something later.

American Horror Story was renewed for a second season. whedonesque discusses it here.

10 Great Horror Comics, From the Golden Age To Now.

From Tor: 10 Reasons Why Ghostbusters Has Such An Enduring Legacy.

New pictures from the set of The Hobbit, along with a full set report.

A couple of people chose to celebrate their Halloween as Ghostbusters characters: Vinz Clortho the Keymaster, and Zuul the Gatekeeper. Very nice.

Top 31 Horror Comedies. I would add High Spirits, but that’s really more of a personal preference. Plus, Big Trouble In Little China, and Saturday the 14th.

Jezebel lists The Best Halloween Specials Ever. Including the Garfield Halloween Special, Halloween Is Grinch Night, Marc Summers’ Magical Mystery Tour, The Worst Witch, that episode of Salute Your Shorts with Zeke The Plumber, Buffy’s Fear Itself, and many others.

In the end, we had a grand total of 9 trick-or-treaters last night, with the final three popping in around 7:30 PM. They forgot to wear costumes. So the only costumes I spotted last night were a little boy that was Satan, and a little girl that was a Crayola crayon.

Original art auctions will benefit Steve Niles’ sick dog.

Syfy Films is planning to adapt George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards.

From Geeks of Doom: 13 Comic Book To Haunt Your Halloween. 13 Movies To Haunt Your Halloween.

The Multifandom Horror Comment Meme for Writers and Artists.

Promo for the next episode of Merlin.

Courtesy of Comic Alliance linking to it, you can watch the Tomb of Dracula anime.

From the AV Club: 21 Plus Unexpectedly Scary Episodes Of Not Scary Shows. Doctor Who’s Blink makes the list.

It’s Insanejournal’s 10th anniversary.

Timothy Dalton, David Tennant, John Simm, Freema Agyeman, Billie Piper, Catherine Tate, Bernard Cribbins, the late Elisabeth Sladen, John Barrowman, and everyone else on the cast and crew sing along to I Would Walk 500 Miles while on the set of The End of Time. Even the Adipose pop in for a visit—you get to see an Ood dance, too.

Sung by John Barrowman, here’s The Ballad of Russell and Julie, from the wrap party of David Tennant’s tenure as the Doctor.

How to make your own Vigo the Carpathian using Xbox Kinect.

Halloween Shows.Net has Bride of Boogedy for viewing. I’ll be watching it, along with Mr. Boogedy, a bit later.

10 MST3K Episodes to Watch On Halloween

CNN reports that one of Bram Stoker's writing journals has been unearthed.

This month for Halloween, I have now watched for the first time: Subspecies, Bloodstone: Subspecies 2, Warlock, Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, The Omen (original), Poltergeist, Silver Bullet, The Lost Boys, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, The Changeling (1980), Ghost Story (from 1981), House (from 1986), and House II: The Second Story.

I didn’t post about the Zombie Walk. It didn’t take more than 5 minutes for everyone to pass on by. There was a Zombie Chef, two Zombie Ghostbusters, a Zombie Batman and Catwoman, and about 200 others. Including someone’s little Pug puppy, with fake blood on its back. Yesterday, I went to see The Lost Boys—aside from a few technical difficulties (and a grand total of 7 people were there, counting us) that made it a couple minutes late in starting, it went nicely.

ETA: Forgot to add the Bram Stoker news, so that's added now.

LJ claims the security hole was just a cache issue that lasted a few minutes, contrary to what everyone else has experienced. In an odd moment of madness and a desperate need for tokens—after reading the dw_news post about it, I entered their Halloween sweepstakes for 10,000 tokens. I know I’ll never win, but hey. Why not?

yuletide fandom nominations will open soon.

Cry Baby Lane—the movie that disappeared for a decade because Nickelodeon deemed it too scary, until a Reddit user unearthed it—will air in Teen Nick’s The 90’s Are All That block. This will mark the second (and third) time it has been seen in 11 years. 11 PM CST, Halloween night, I’ve got to tape this one. It airs from 11 PM, to 12:30 AM, and then they show it once more from 1 AM, to 2:30 AM.

First impressions of NBC’s Grimm pilot.

Synopsis and a few possible spoilers (if the movie gets made) for the rumored remake of The Evil Dead.

From After Elton: Die Laughing: 50+ of the Most Hilarious Horror Movies.

Steampunk Pumpkins.

The United States of Things Coming To Get Us. Zombies for Kentucky, Cthulhu for Tennessee.

Ghostbusters Wedding Cake. Impressive.

Tim Burton’s version of Dark Shadows includes Alice Cooper—he will be playing himself. I thought I had already posted about it before, but I only posted that he was in it, not the role.

There’s a major security bug in the latest code release for LJ, which puts personal information at risk, by bouncing people to other accounts, in addition to issues like being able to view content that should be locked from you. As of yet, I haven’t run into anything strange.

The rules of surviving a horror movie.

October 31st isn’t just Halloween—it’s Undead Pride Day.

From Newsarama: 10 Worst Comic Book Live Action TV Series Of All Time. I liked Swamp Thing: The Series. Then again, I was 10 at the time. I also watched Lois and Clark, but bailed at some point around either the lizard clone thing or the Kryptonians in need of help.

Watch a Halloween episode of the animated Addams Family series from 1992.

During this year’s Children in Need, the BBC will air a sneak peek of Doctor Who’s Christmas special.

Sylvester McCoy talks a little bit about his role as Radagast.

From Cracked: The 6 Creepiest Things Discovered By New Homeowners.

The amusing course list for the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

I have 15 Dreamwidth invites if anyone would like one.

Tor’s staff picks for All Hallow’s Read.

Now that Batman: Arkham City is out, Mark Hamill has retired from voicing the Joker.

The best moments from the Scream Awards. It includes George Lucas and Darth Vader onstage—more footage than I linked to in the Geeks of Doom post. I have yet to see any footage floating around of Matt Smith accepting his award.

Misfits may be getting an American remake, from the producer of Gossip Girl. While I’ve never seen the UK version, I know this is a terrible idea.

How It Should Have Ended takes on Ghostbusters.

Rifftrax has provided more information about their Halloween plans—their online Halloween double feature has moved to October 27th.

From Newsarama: 10 Worst Comic Book Animated Series of All Time.

Stan Lee will receive the Visual Effects Society 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Warner Bros. has greenlit the American version of Akira.

A 6 minute Dark Knight Rises prologue is attached to the screening of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Not even that would make me go anywhere near a Tom Cruise movie. I’ll just wait for it to hit the internet.

Halloween Shows.Net remembers Mr. Boogedy. As with yesterday’s Zeke the Plumber, you can view it on their website. Like all the copies I’ve found, this one is missing Michael Eisner’s intro. However, you can see what may be what I recall at the beginning of Bride of Boogedy.

I was reading about a UK show called The Fades. Is it worth watching? I’ve been looking to find another show to watch, since the only things I currently keep track of are Doctor Who (which won’t be back until the Christmas special) and Merlin. Any recommendations for any other shows? I gave Bedlam a shot, but didn’t care for it—ended up mocking it MST3K style with Mom. Tried and didn’t care for American Horror Story.

When Halloween 3 was released back in 1983, you could buy replicas of the masks that melted the faces of children. Had I been older than 2 at the time and known anything about the film, I might have wanted to buy one of those.

Neil Gaiman explains All Hallow’s Read. Here’s the page that discusses what books are appropriate for various ages.

oct31storg lists several Halloween specials that are available on Youtube here. The Haunted History of Halloween is one that I watch every year.

First trailer for The Raven.

Steven Moffat on the future of Doctor Who.

CliqueClack discusses the underestimated companions of Doctor Who. The list includes Rory, Donna, Jack, Mickey, and Harriet Jones.

Netflix scraps the Quikster plan.

Wonder Woman gets a new origin story after the relaunch. As of now, she wasn’t made from clay.

10 Awesome Places of Learning From Nerdy Fiction. I would have moved Xavier’s from the #6 slot to #1. I should think it would be a great place to learn, provided you survived the experience.

Pete Travis has been removed as director from the Judge Dredd reboot.

Livejournal has a planned site-wide maintenance for up to three hours today, beginning at 5:30 PM CST.

The latest Dimestore Dames entry is Starfire.

The Simpsons could be in serious trouble thanks to a contract dispute.

New character profiles for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows.

The Classic TV Database also has a Halloween related tv schedule—anything TV Tango’s list doesn’t cover, this should. This one includes channels such as Logo, USA, BBC America, and numerous others. Their post will be continually added to, so check back periodically.

NBC ordered full seasons for both Up All Night and Whitney. The Playboy Club is the first of the season to be cancelled.

A first look at Russell Crowe dressed as Jor-El outfit.

Beware The Batman is coming to Cartoon Network in 2013.

Disney announces more big screen re-releases.

Mutant and Proud: An X-Men Themed Feel-Good Meme.

10 Songs For Supervillains.

River Song’s chronology on Doctor Who, from River’s own point of view.

The final Doctor Who Confidential included a skit with the Eleventh Doctor and Einstein, written by the children of Oakley Junior School. You can watch Death Is The Only Answer here.

Kevin Sorbo suffered three strokes during his time on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. This explains why they had to film around him for several episodes, such as when he was transformed into a pig. It was always claimed he was a little ill, or a stunt had injured him. I’m amazed he continued with the show while still trying to recover.

10 Comics Worthy of an Arrested Development-Style Comeback.

Wired lists the top 10 Halloween movies for younger kids. The only thing on the list I don’t agree with is the inclusion of E.T., but that’s just because I truly despise the film.

Rogue harnesses a cat’s powers to get out of trouble.

A listing of all the theaters screening Ghostbusters in the month of October.

According to a small ad in a local newspaper, on October 18th Maiden Alley Cinema will be showing An American Werewolf In London. I can’t verify yet, as their site hasn’t been updated. If it airs at a good time, I’ll be going—never seen it before, always meant to. On October 28th is The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I won’t be going to see. On the 29th is the Zombie Walk—no word yet as to what will be showing after that.

From College Humor: The X-Men Guide To Puberty.

Torchwood: Where Does The Series Go From Here?

Krang stomach tattoo.

Star Trek red shirt, complete with warning of imminent doom.

Filming of Doctor Who’s Christmas special has been disrupted by a 24 hour strike.

Two clips have been released for Doctor Who’s season finale. Clip 1 is here. Clip 2 is here.

Here is the schedule for AMC’s Fearfest 2011. The version of House of Wax that will air is the Paris Hilton version, and not the Vincent Price version. The Mummy is the Boris Karloff version. The version of The Hills Have Eyes is the remake. The version of The Omen is the 70's version.

WKYQ has begun to list the haunted houses in the area. So far, I know of two around here. One is in a part of town that I don’t want to be in after dark, so that’s out. The other (not listed, but I’ve seen the signs in various spots around town) is also out, since I went to it last year—had the misfortune of stepping in cow manure, and would rather not repeat the experience. The Industrial Slaughterhouse used to be called Oller’s Oddities—I can confirm they’re great, when they're closer I've tried to keep track of them. They’re too far out of the way for me this time, or I would be heading out there, but I highly recommend them for all your scaring needs if you happen to be in their area.

What horror fans should be thankful for.

The people behind the Paducah Zombie Walk uploaded their footage to Youtube. If anyone is interested, you can watch it here. Watch until the very end to get a good look at Zombie Bruce Campbell, complete with Boomstick on his back, and chainsaw on his hand.

Obscurus Lupa has posted the first part of a three part video review of She-Wolf of London here. This just makes me want to track down the whole series in time for next year’s Yuletide even more. It looks delightfully cheesy these days. As Obscurus Lupa said, it also looks as though Ian could have been the prototype for Giles.

This morning, the temperature was around 70 degrees. A thunderstorm passed through, and it went down to 42 degrees. It dropped that much in less than 30 minutes. It should drop a bit more by tonight.

Meanwhile, I see that I managed to miss the anniversary of my LJ. As of November 10th, I have been on LJ for 7 years.

Yuletide related: I seem to have pretty much all of my fanfic plotted out, and know how almost all of it should go, moment by moment. I downloaded the source material and I'll watch that in the next few minutes, just to make sure I have everyone's voices right. I'll get to work on the actual fanfic tomorrow. I've written snippets as the ideas come, and I just need to work it all together.

ETA: Given the character I'm focusing on has a bit of a tendency to free associate, he's probably going to be all over the map. That helps!

Thanks to this recent post over at whatwasthatone, I’ve managed to track down that I was looking for, too. Long ago, I watched something that involved a shadow of a good guy being sliced across the back by an evil shadow. Now that someone else has asked, and discovered what it was, I know the answer, too. A very short animated special from 1981, called Faeries. I can only assume I found a VHS of it…or that I saw it when I was just a few months old.

The 10 Best Moments From The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror. I haven’t watched the Halloween specials (or even a regular episode) in at least 7 years. Maybe even longer than that, but I do remember how good they once were.

If anyone hasn’t already seen these two by now, here you go. A deleted scene from The Eleventh Hour, and one from Flesh and Stone. I think the second deleted scene should have been left in, but I can see why the first was removed.

From Cracked: 6 Eerily Specific World Events Predicted By Comics.

AMC has ordered a second season of The Walking Dead. While it’s not a show I’m inclined to watch, I know a lot of people on my friends list love it.

Io9 found a rare promotional film from 1982, called Return of the Ewoks.

I Ship You With ___ Meme. My thread is here.

James Nesbitt and Adam Brown are joining The Hobbit. I thought Nesbitt was great in Jekyll, so this is good news.

A record has been set for the most fans to do the Time Warp at the same time: 8,239 people.

10 Insane Facts Comics Taught Us About American History.

How To Make A Scarecrow Costume. The kind from Doctor Who’s Family of Blood.

Some Back To The Future items are up for auction.

MGM files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. whedonesque discusses it here, since Cabin in the Woods is mired down in this mess.

Back to the Future returns to select AMC theaters on November 6th. It’s not near me, unfortunately.

For anyone that hasn’t already seen it—you can see Alyson Hannigan, Alexis Denisof, and their baby dressed up as Raggedy Ann, the Christmas Tin Soldier, and a sock monkey for Halloween here. Last year, they were kangaroos—if you can’t find the picture in the comments, it’s linked to here. Astoundingly adorable.

I’m not sure if this is a flash mob event, or simply regular cosplay, but Lord Voldemort and a few Deatheaters showed up at Grand Central Station. I’ve never been interested in Harry Potter, but I thought it was funny.

Flee the zombie hordes on the “Organ Trail.”

From Cracked: The 7 Most Ridiculous Ghost Stories From Around The World. I’ve heard of Raw Head Bloody Bones.

A Dalek Pumpkin. And eve11 made a Weeping Angel pumpkin.

This Krang costume is great. Krang’s comments appear to be recorded from the cartoon, making it even better.

I found out that Joshua Wyles Photography took pictures of all the zombies in the Zombie Walk. This is Zombie Bruce Campbell/Ash, complete with chainsaw on hand, boomstick (which can’t be seen) and fake strap-on chin. Another angle, where you can see part of his gun. Pictures of everyone in the Zombie Walk are here. Thankfully, I don’t need an account to see any of this.

Last night, we had a grand total of three trick-or-treaters. We had the door open (and the lights on once it got dark) from 3 PM, until 8 PM. We didn’t get anyone until 7:05 PM, and that was all we ended up getting. It was two kids, and their mother said to count the baby in her arms since she had gone to all the trouble of dressing it like a pumpkin. We have a huge bowl of candy left over, which will soon be given to my uncle. It might take him a few months to get through it.

How many trick-or-treaters did everyone else get? Our numbers were low because downtown Paducah was roped off for trick-or-treaters—they were expecting 2,000. That, and three or four Trunk or Treats being done, along with a fall festival at another church means low numbers for everyone else.

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Oh, yes. I love the history of it. So much so that I wrote a research paper on the topic in college. I celebrate through Zombie Walks, giving candy to whatever trick-or-treaters we might get, and watching as many horror movies as I can. What I like the least? Probably the fact that we don't get trick-or-treaters anymore, and they don't show the older horror movies as much anymore. The lower number of trick-or-treaters is due to Trunk-or-Treat being held at various churches in the area, including my own.

My horror marathon today? I watched Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn for the first time, thanks to AMC showing it--it appeared to be uncut. I liked it. This was followed by me watching the first Halloween movie for the first time, also thanks to AMC. I located a Rifftrax of that, so I’ll give it another viewing later. I have a copy of Snow White: A Tale of Terror, so I’ll be watching that, along with The Oblong Box and The Haunted History of Halloween. And whatever else might be airing, or is free through On Demand.

AMC has a few older horror movies on their website, so I’ll see which ones I want to watch from that. Probably Werewolves on Wheels.

A&E shows Ghostbusters around 11 AM today, so that’s part of my marathon. The Hallmark Channel is doing a Munsters and Addams Family (the tv series) marathon, so I’ll be going back to that on occasion. Yesterday, I watched Urban Legend and They Live for the first time. I started to watch Shaun of the Dead, but realized it was time for the Zombie Walk.

Which reminds me—there was a Zombie Ash spotted in the Zombie Walk. He had his “boomstick” strapped to his back, a chainsaw hooked to his hand, and cuts in various spots just like in Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. It also looked like the same shirt. I almost applauded. I hope he won the costume contest at Whaler’s Catch when they got there.

There were around 200 people there. They started 20 minutes late, and were only on one side of the street this year. Nellie’s grown daughter—Donna--showed up. She went to the side of the street with the zombies to get a better view, and one gave her a finger. No, not that one. A plastic severed finger in a baggie. Severed body parts for everyone, I guess. There was also a zombie being pulled along in a wagon. Turned out it was to get a better view to film them all.

There was one lone Dracula in the midst of the zombies. He looked amused.

Oh, and on the way to the Zombie Walk? We briefly got stuck behind an ice cream truck. A few kids were near it, looking confused--it's a little cool out for ice cream. And what was the truck playing? Silent Night. After a few moments, it drove off.

I finally found the episodes of Days of Our Lives that recapped Marlena’s possession. I always thought it was immediately following the battle in the morgue—but no, it was right before that. It's the episode where John discusses everything that happened with a priest. If you’re interested in watching that one, start at Possession 169 and continue watching until midway through Possession 173.

Remember how Tim Burton was supposed to do a version of Superman back in the 90’s? This is what almost happened when it comes to the costume.

The 16 Least Scary Sci-Fi Movie And TV Monsters. While Manos and The Creeping Terror make the list, there’s not a single monster from Doctor Who.

geeksofdoom posted 7 of the Most Memorable Werewolf Transformations.

Horror’s Greatest Heroes: 10 Greatest Monster Fighters. Ash, Buffy, and Van Helsing make the list—unfortunately, the Doctor and the Ghostbusters don’t.