Random crap with Uno.

[Rusty Edge]

Season I had the Kraken, didn't it?

[Buster's Uncle]

I do not remember.

(Jim or Artie playing Kerbal Space Program, though Dr. Lovelace could have invented it early enough...)

[Rusty Edge]

I think the Kraken was a Dr. Lovelace device.

[Buster's Uncle]

He invented everything.

[Unorthodox]

Stumbled on this today.  The line of kids that showed up early (I have posted times), waiting while we lit the pumpkins last year.





Didn't get any 'down time' yesterday between work, yard work, cooking, homework with the kids, and my son dropping "oh yeah, the Halloween dance is Thursday" on me, so he needs a costume NOW not by end of the month. 

[Buster's Uncle]

It's good to feel needed.

[ColdWizard]

Stumbled on this today.  The line of kids that showed up early (I have posted times), waiting while we lit the pumpkins last year.

Gotta get there early before all the good spots are taken.

[Unorthodox]

Wall Street Journal "How To" on house haunting. 

Stage One: The Street View

You can’t scare the daylights out of little goblins if they never make it to your front door, so make a first impression that’s appreciable from the road. “Night of the Living Dead”-style X-shaped zombie barricades across every window and door is always classy, but you can also make a statement with flickering shadow silhouettes in the windows: a creepy old lady rocking in a chair (“Psycho”), long-fingered strangle hands (“Nosferatu,” “Dracula”). To pull off the effect, just cut a shape out of dark paper, dangle it from dental floss behind a drawn shade, and place a light source and gentle fan on the floor below. Multiple foam gravestones in the yard (Party City currently has a buy-two-get-one-free promotion on select models) are a classic that can get trick-or-treaters salivating. Little do they know what’s in store...

Um.  Yes you want a well placed scene...none of their suggestions will make that.  Lighting is key, but from the street they're not going to notice the little props. 

Stage Two: The Approach

Now that you’ve got their attention visually, engage the other senses. Set up a playlist on your smartphone of increasingly scary sounds to play through a Bluetooth speaker hidden on your porch. Start with simple, deep, repetitive music (like the “Jaws” or “The Omen” soundtracks, both available on Spotify) and proceed to soul-shaking Halloween sound effects. (One album to try: “Halloween Chopped Up: Scary Horror Sound Effects,” available from Amazon Prime Music and other services). As the kiddies get closer, skip to incoherent whispers (“Children of the Corn”) or mournful animals braying (“An American Werewolf in London”), cawing (the raven from “The Omen”) or snarling (the rabid dog in “Cujo”). When you can see the whites of their eyes, remind them they’re not alone by adding a human factor, like laughter or chanting demon children (“The Ring”). The track “Ghost Twins Singing” on the aforementioned sound-effects album is particularly chilling.

Lighting should be bright enough on the path so kids can safely flee if they lose their nerve—but with plenty of dark corners. As they creep within range, up the ante, and make them start abandoning all hope with some unexplained mystery, like those little stick statue things from “The Blair Witch Project,” a big ’n’ bloody “Do NOT Open” crate (“Creepshow”), a cleaver stuck in a porch post (“The Horror Show”) or a slowly swinging meat hook (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”). The key: Let them know they’ve passed the point of no return—they’ve walked into a living nightmare, and it’s too late to turn back now.

  How to be as cliche as possible!  Sound is step 2, yes.  But avoid the cheesy canned tracks of sound effects.  Get familiar with dark ambient works and choose one to fit. 

.Stage Three: The Scene at the Door

As they near your door, they’re going to start smelling the prize (metaphorically, unless you’re doling out caramel apples). It’s the perfect time to chill them to the bone with a detailed scene they’ll never forget. Hit your local thrift store for a dentist’s chair and a tray of improbable-looking surgical instruments (“Hostel,” “Saw”). Or drag out some old children’s toys—there’s honestly nothing creepier than that (“Chucky,” “Magic”). Find some old puppets, or assemble a family of broken antique dolls. And clowns; definitely throw in some clowns (“Clownhouse,” “It”). Consider a clown in a hockey mask, handing a dead-eyed doll to a puppet—genius!

Don’t stop there: With fishing line running through a series of hooks, a co-conspirator can control these from behind the front door like puppets, and make them move—not much, just enough to convince the kids they saw...something (“Paranormal Activity”).

Did a teenager write this?

You want a "staircase" scene of some sort.  Some point they have to decide:  Keep going...or turn back.  Lots of ways to do this.  There should be a hint of danger at the far end.   

Stage Four: Cue the Action

Now that you’ve worked them up to a fever pitch, it’s time to spring the trap. Cinema has showed us many ways to surprise a curious young person. Once they knock or ring the bell, cut the audio to dead silence and wait—the calm before the storm—then, throw open the door, and play a sound effect like screeching violins (“Psycho”) or a bloodcurdling scream (every horror movie ever) and pop out of the shadows dressed as a killer (“Halloween”) or an unfortunate victim (“Friday the 13th”). Spring any unsprung surprises: If your brother-in-law was pretending to be a dead body in a porch chair, for example, now’s the time for him to jump up and reveal it was a human accomplice after all. Just warn him to wear shin-protectors: There will be kicking.

Gotta be a teenager...

No, you don't have time to be killing music and whatnot.  Classic jump from the dark scare are easy, and a decent place for someone to start. 

Denouement

Finally, cement the memory of this trauma by going big with the prize and supplying full-size candy worth bragging about. You’ve spent an oodle on the tricks, so don’t cheap out on the treats—there’s nothing “fun” about “fun size” candies. And remember who gets to eat the leftovers.

There, at least, I can agree. 

[Buster's Uncle]

We average somewhere near less than one trick-or-treater a Halloween, and the only time I did anything special, I had on a black hooded robe and my broadsword handy.  Opened the door slowly with hood up and sword tip-on-the-floor in front of me.  Just stood there silently, hands resting on hilt, and loomed.

Long pause and eyes got pretty big before he said "Trick or treat" badly.  Turned out the kid was deaf, and it was exactly right for him... 

[Unorthodox]

We average somewhere near less than one trick-or-treater a Halloween, and the only time I did anything special, I had on a black hooded robe and my broadsword handy.  Opened the door slowly with hood up and sword tip-on-the-floor in front of me.  Just stood there silently, hands resting on hilt, and loomed.

Long pause and eyes got pretty big before he said "Trick or treat" badly.  Turned out the kid was deaf, and it was exactly right for him... 

The silent scares actually are a hell of a lot more difficult to pull off, so well done. 

When I hear teenagers scream from the back, it makes me smile, knowing one of the kids' got them.  But it's a fleeting moment. 

When I get that 5 year old petrified up front, tell him that this glow stick is magic and will scare the monsters away, see him nervously holding it out in front of him, encouraged by his parents to disappear down through the corn tunnel, and come out the other side extatic and wanting to go fight the monsters again I could leap for joy.  I know the boys acted the scared part PROPERLY, which is not easy to do in some of our costumes.  THAT is what we're all about at my place.  That is something that will stick with the kid for a long time. 

[Unorthodox]

Curious. 

critique the lighting:

[Buster's Uncle]

Short version - too obvious, too fake.  Mostly bad colors unless it was SUPPOSED to be some elctro-sciency horror. 

Shadows.

I see grave and corpse props, so light should be to make shadows, not really to light except to focus attention, even misdirect.  You can do all sorts of things with black light effects -the purple hints that that's what's up- but they don't work very well when they're telegraphed, now, do they?  That's why horror movies have funny scenes disarming the audience before the shock reveal of the bloody corpse or slasher attack.  Less is more.

Also?  Electricity is not free, and we are doomed as a civilization.

We average somewhere near less than one trick-or-treater a Halloween, and the only time I did anything special, I had on a black hooded robe and my broadsword handy.  Opened the door slowly with hood up and sword tip-on-the-floor in front of me.  Just stood there silently, hands resting on hilt, and loomed.

Long pause and eyes got pretty big before he said "Trick or treat" badly.  Turned out the kid was deaf, and it was exactly right for him... 

The silent scares actually are a hell of a lot more difficult to pull off, so well done. 

When I hear teenagers scream from the back, it makes me smile, knowing one of the kids' got them.  But it's a fleeting moment. 

When I get that 5 year old petrified up front, tell him that this glow stick is magic and will scare the monsters away, see him nervously holding it out in front of him, encouraged by his parents to disappear down through the corn tunnel, and come out the other side extatic and wanting to go fight the monsters again I could leap for joy.  I know the boys acted the scared part PROPERLY, which is not easy to do in some of our costumes.  THAT is what we're all about at my place.  That is something that will stick with the kid for a long time. 

I was pleased at the return on my modest effort.  Seems to me that kids have to be pretty young and credulous to buy into anything so overt as recordings playing, you know?  Less is more.

I also didn't want to scare some random kid enough to get a scream, really.  The pause, widened eyes and hesitation was JUST right.

[Unorthodox]

We try to avoid water works.  "Clinging to parents legs, not up all night with nightmares" is our motto. 

[Unorthodox]

Randomly here's our audio for the year.  I rarely get to share what we SOUND like.  There's a decent amount of INFRASOUND buried in the actual album, I'm not sure translate to the upload/computer speakers. 

Not a valid vimeo URL
Also stumbled on the test run for Talia's July costume.  Don't know if I ever posted it.  Tried for giggles, having never tried my hand at 'face painting' before.  She had fun with it for the rest of the day, creeping out the neighbor kids.

[Unorthodox]

Short version - too obvious, too fake.  Mostly bad colors unless it was SUPPOSED to be some elctro-sciency horror. 

Shadows.

I see grave and corpse props, so light should be to make shadows, not really to light except to focus attention, even misdirect.  You can do all sorts of things with black light effects -the purple hints that that's what's up- but they don't work very well when they're telegraphed, now, do they?  That's why horror movies have funny scenes disarming the audience before the shock reveal of the bloody corpse or slasher attack.  Less is more.

Also?  Electricity is not free, and we are doomed as a civilization.

Good it's not just me who sees that as an actual suggestion at proper lighting and I just have to bite my tongue and walk away.