Happy Halloween!

To celebrate, take a look at some creepy vintage Halloween costumes from The Huffington Post over here.

Just Had to Share

This picture demands an audience!

Creepy Haunted House Films

I've been too busy to update this as often as I should, but with Halloween being tomorrow and all, I thought I may as well post something. Here is a great article that my sister sent me from the Atlantic titled, The Enduring Creepiness of Haunted House films.

Enjoy!

How to Hit the Bottle This Halloween

Check out these creepy cocktails. My favorite is this rendition of Martha Stewart's bleeding heart, beet concoction.

Zak's Bagans: Deep Soul or Douche Bag?

I've been reading Dark World by Zak Bagans. All I can say is Ho Hum. The book is basically a guide for would-be ghost hunters. A lot of the chapters are devoted to all the things we Ghost Adventures fans are already literate in. For example: EVPs, the equipment GAC use, residual hauntings vs. intelligent hauntings, blah blah blah.

zzzzzzzzzz. . .


There is one chapter in the book that really held my attention and it's the one that's actually about Zak. The chapter recollects Zak's childhood, his vulnerabilities, and why he turned to ghost hunting. Fascinating stuff and what I really wanted more of out of this book. I thought the book would be more like a bio than a how-to guide. Oh well, I can respect that Zak keeps his privacy fairly maintained, but I wouldn't be so disappointed if I didn't find him so interesting.

Who is this brawny, uber metro-sexual, ghost-hunting ruffian (love that word)? Is he a drama queen, a deep soul, or just a douche bag?  I do hope to find out.

Paranormal Activity 3 Coming to a Theater Near You

Paranormal Activity 3 is set for wide release this weekend. I loved the first two movies so I'm looking forward to the third installment. This time, we go back to the 80s and see the two sisters, Katie and Kristi, as kids. When they're not playing with Teddy Ruxpin dolls and video cameras, they're being terrorized by some malevolent spirit.

The reviews are out and they're good for the most part. The LA Times reports that directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman continue the thrills with crafty cinematography:

Throughout, though, there is a newfound wit and invention. The blocking used to get characters (and scares) in and out of shots feels lively and fun, making the jolts hit harder and the thrills giddier.


I'll miss seeing it in Philadelphia where the audience reactions and comments were as entertaining as the film was. Tucson's audience will probably be a little more low-key. As long as I leave the theater jumpy and looking around every corner like some unseen force is going to bitch slap me, it will all be good.

A Haunting We Will Go

Check out the latest treasury I put together on Etsy: A Haunting We Will Go. . . 

Spooky Twin Witches Halloween Charm by Fairylandbeads

American Horror Story Episode 2 Tonight

FX's new drama, American Horror Story, about a haunted house and its new occupants, is on tonight. I have to say I'm really looking forward to it after watching last week's premier. I was a bit wary at first. It looked like it could wind up cheesy or creepy. Well, it's both. And it works.

Its over-the-top antics and clichés will probably turn off a lot of people, but once I started watching I couldn't stop, even though I was aware of what the writers were doing. AHS plays off of many horror movie stereotypes and pays homage to well-known horror films such as The Shining, It, The Amityville Horror, AND it has Dylan McDermott naked. A lot. Not a big surprise since Ryan Murphy, creator of Nip Tuck, is behind this one.

The Washington Post has this to say about AHS:

The “American Horror Story” pilot has aired on FX. And anyone who watched thinks it’s either the worst, most jumbled, depraved excuse for television ever, or a brilliantly audacious, twistedly compelling piece of work.


I couldn't agree more. I'm intrigued. What is with the gimp suit? What about Jessica Lange acting like a nutjob with hair that looks like a baked good has been sewn into her head? What's up with that bizarro daughter of hers? Is the guy with the half-melted face real or a ghost? And what about that phantom maid?

If you don't know what I'm referring to, you should really tune in.

Haven't I Written This Post Before?

I just had the most strong sense of déjà vu . I was sitting here at my computer watching my son play on the living room floor with the front door open and the early autumn sun coming in. It was one of those eerie this-has-happened-before moments. These familiar instances usually happen during the most mundane times.

These déjà vu moments (déjà vu translates as already seen in French) happen to me frequently as it happens to a lot of people. So what the hell is it? Are we remembering some mundane moment we've experienced in a past life exactly like this one? Are we remembering looking into the future at this ordinary moment?

I found a fascinating article in The New York Times about the phenomenon here.

As might be expected, it basically it boils down to neurology:

Psychologists have long known, too, that people register impressions and images well before they are aware of what they have seen. The brain sends visual signals through at least two circuits, which move from the retina through the brain to the visual cortex via different routes.

Opacity: For the Urban Explorer in You

My sister recently sent me this link. It's a site called Opacity, devoted to urban ruins in the Northeast. Here's what they write about themselves:

This site is dedicated to documenting various abandoned places through both text and photographs; recording their transformations through time before they are demolished. The abundance of abandoned asylums and psychiatric hospitals in the New England area create the bulk of the locations here; these beautiful state funded structures are vast and complex, giving insight to both the humanity and mistreatment towards the mentally ill over the past two centuries.

They include Byberry (Philadelphia State Hospital) on the site, which my sister was always interested in. Unfortunately before she could see it, it was demolished.

Byberry

The site also includes Norwich State Hospital in CT, which I've been to. Very creepy. At the time I had a camera that generated prints (remember those?) instead of a digital camera. I wish I could find those pictures because there were some great shots.

 Norwich

Boo! It's Your TV Set.

Looking for some good TV to get the Halloween season started? TV Tango has listed all the shows with thrills and chills scheduled through Halloween.

Check it out here.

Ghosts in the Museum?

My sister is a keeper at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. For years she's been telling me that weird things happen there - elevators with minds of their own, strange noises, sights in the basement and galleries, etc. Recently a surveillance camera in the Etruscan gallery where she works caught a ghostly figure. Check it out below:

On October 22, the Young Friends of the Museum will couple up with The Free Spirit Paranormal Investigators to investigate the unexplained happenings.  Read more here.

FX's New Show: American Horror Story

The opening credits sequence for FX's new show, "American Horror Story", looks like something out of my nightmares: medical equipment, body parts preserved in jars, vintage children's photographs, a white nightgown floating through the air. Christ. I don't know if I can watch this, but it sounds wildly intriguing. Here's what EW is saying about it:

"Usually you have to hit up a multiplex for the kind of jolts delivered by this thriller, but creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk (Glee) have crafted a small-screen roller coaster ride. The series follows the Harmon Family — husband Ben (Dylan McDermott), wife Vivian (Connie Britton), daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) — as they move into an old Los Angeles home with a dark history. For example, the home’s basement not only is in need of dusting but also might be the resting place of a serious evil creature, seen in the Oct. 5 premiere. And then there’s the man in the rubber fetish suit…"

Oddly enough, when I went to the show's official site, I was surprised to learn it's described as a "psycho-sexual thriller." Didn't see that coming. I guess that explains the rubber fetish suit. . .

Watch the video here.  Thanks, Cat!

GAC is Back!

Just as I was bemoaning not having any new Ghost Adventures, Season 5 has begun. Makes me wanna pull on my Ed Hardy jeans and yell, "The portal 'a hell!" all up and down my street. The first show aired on the Travel Channel last Friday. Where have I been? Or more appropriately, where has my DVR been?

Anyway, the opening episode takes place at Ashmore Estates in Central Illinois. The place was built in 1916 and is said to be haunted by former residents. While I haven't seen it yet, I will be sure to tape it this Friday - that and the new episode, which takes place at one of GAC's first lockdowns,  the historic Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, NV where a "lady in red" is said to wander the halls.

I'll post some recaps when I watch the shows. And Zak fashion reviews, of course. (It looks like Zak is still wearing his new glasses.)

Zak Bagans Releases a Book

Who knew? I just found out that Zak Bagans wrote a book (in conjunction with Kelly Crigger), which was released last week. It's called Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of Ghost Adventures.

Yeah, it's going on my Amazon wishlist. I still love that ghost-heckling meathead.

The book will be displayed at the front of Barnes and Noble until Halloween. You can read a review of the book here.

OK, I just read the review. Now it looks like I'm going to have to run out and buy the damned thing.

Rabid Bat Found Dead in Halloween Aisle at Jo-Ann Fabrics

Need some ribbon or a couple yards of fabric for a Halloween costume? How about a dead, rabid bat instead?

In Olympia, WA, a dead bat was found in the Halloween section of Jo-Ann Fabrics. How appropriate. The bat was found on a shelf in the Halloween aisle and later tested positive for rabies. Local health officials are concerned people may have handled it, thinking it was one of the Halloween items. "Oh look! Such a life-like bat decoration!. . . Oh, wait it's . . ."

Gross.

The two people in the store who found the bat and reported it were given a rabies vaccine, Local health county officials are asking anyone who may have come in contact with the bat to contact authorities.

Jo-Ann Fabrics: where crafters go batshit-crazy

Supernatural Skanks

The Huffington Post recently published an articled titled "Worst Paranormal Book Sex Scenes". The author, Paul Goat Allen, writes:

"Many readers tell me that they would rather have no sex scene at all than a badly written or awkwardly choreographed sex scene – but I disagree. Sometimes a bad sex scene produces laugh-out-loud entertainment and makes an unremarkable read suddenly memorable – albeit for the wrong reasons. And in the case of novels like Peeler’s "Tracking the Tempest," bizarrely described sex sequences can make a good story truly unforgettable – for all of the right reasons."

Allen then lists his favorite supernatural steam scenes, which are all hilarious, but my favorite is from "A Brush of Darkness" by Allison Pang:

"He was a velvet rock in my hand."


Nicely put, Pang.

"Bronwyn: Silk and Steel" by Ron Miller the grande finale of Allen's list:

“Her pubes was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune. It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid. It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rain forests, the ibis and the scarab; she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt, the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals.”

If this excerpt is any indication of what the book is like, then it must be an otherworldly hodown.

Death Coaster - What a Way to Go

Julijonas Urbonas, a Lithuanian PhD candidate at London's Royal College of Art has designed a roller coaster to kill the rider. Those who want to end their lives, but not do it themselves, are normally given few options (lethal injection is legal in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and apparently the US states of Oregon and Washington).

Urbonas wants to change that and give the person wishing to die the ride of their lives before the end. He's designed a "Euthanasia Coaster", which would climb to 1,600 feet and drop the person into a corkscrew of loops that would produce 12-Gs of force, enough gravity to kill someone, but leave them with a sense of euphoria on their way out of the world.

Leave it to a Lithuanian to design such a thing. (I say this because I'm half Lithuanian. haha)  To read about Urbonas's idea in detail, go here.  You can also read about it on Wikepedia.

House of Restless Spirits

I found this webpage for a place in Santa Montica called House of Restless Spirits. It looks like some sort of Halloween attraction. It's "history" sounds fabricated, but the place sounds fun for a night out. According to the site, you can pretty much just wander around the place for free in small groups.

Upon further research, I've found this snippit from a place that reviews Halloween attractions:

"While you take a tour around the old house not too far from the Pacific Ocean, a series of incredible ghostly manifestations tingle your senses, some in the yard and some in the windows. The effects are subtle but spooky, emphasizing imagination and atmosphere instead of shock. This is definitely a haunt that demands a careful gaze and patient appreciation, so that the phantoms may appear at their leisure."

Sounds like my kind of place. It makes me think of the haunted house at Disney World that my sister and I visited when we were kids. While it was nothing as special or arty as this place sounds, I remember it had that same type of spooky, organic feel, like if you looked in a mirror, you might see a face behind you. At one point I remember knocking on the wall three times and receiving three knocks back in return. It was one of those kid Halloween moments I'll never forget.

Anyway, the site for House of Restless Spirits features cool little videos that are supposed to give a taste of what visiting the place is like.  Check it out.

Bitch Craft

"God, I love that bitch," one of my friends once said about Martha Stewart. I couldn't agree more. Shes 'the queen of craft, and when it comes to Halloween, the bitch has some fantastic ideas. Her yearly Halloween magazine recently came out and I snatched up a copy faster than you can say "tablescape".

Her costume ideas this year revolve around B movies. When I saw the Space Girl costume, I knew I had to make it. It's a pretty involved project, but it looks like something I've dreamt of since I was little. (I've always been as space case in more ways than one.) If you're near a copy, check it out. The costume even has a drink recipe that accompanies it and the drink glows.

The queen B of craft

99 Rooms

I just stumbledupon one of the coolest, creepiest websites I may have ever seen. It's an interactive/urban exploration/art project/game called 99rooms. I won't ruin anything for you. Just go over there now!

Weird Ebay Find of the Week

This doll is up for auction on Ebay. Her name is  Apistaminum, which was spelled out for the owners on a Ouija board. She apparently cries in the night, moves locations, speaks in a small child's voice in an unknown language, and her hat flies off her head at times. These are just a few of her talents.

There are several of these types of dolls on Ebay, and a lot of the newer looking ones have "spells' attached. This one, however, comes with the original haunting and she can be yours for starting at just $250!
No thanks.

As I typed her name just now, my computer crashed (not uncommon) and my husband lost the connection with his friend on the phone. Guess I'd better just be moving along. . .

Secret Histories Waiting to be Read

There's a novel titled Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs that was published earlier this year. It sounds intriguing, full of spooky stories and an abandoned building.

To promote his book, Riggs made a trailer for the book. The trailer is almost a mini-documentary about his search, along with a Dutch urban exploration photographer, in Belgium for the building in his book. Along the way, he finds lots of abandonment - a rotting forest, a forgotten train station, a long-neglected and incredibly gorgeous house. The short film has spectacular shots that convey exactly why we love urban decay. Check out the You Tube video.

Gastronomical Ghouls

You can find creepiness anywhere, food included. This brilliantly entertaining website, called MoFA (Museaum of Food Anomolies) is proof of this. The website's mission states:

• • The MUSEUM OF FOOD ANOMALIES is an online art project of Michael Hanttula that exposes horrific aberrations of nature with photographs depicting common food items that have distorted into something more sinister than words can describe. The excellent submissions come from fine people around-the-world.
    
    

So you can submit your own photo of food witchery. The photo of menacing basil below is just a taste of what the website has on the menu.

"Put me in your sauce and you'll be sorry."

Zak Bagans Now Wearing Glasses

I miss Ghost Adventures. I find it odd that they aren't running any new episodes at this time of year. Granted The Travel Channel gave us a nice, long season this last go round, but I almost wish they had broken it up and given us some now.

I have little interest in Zak B's latest show Paranormal Challenge, but I went to the website anyway and discovered that in all the screen shots, Zak is wearing big, black-framed glasses. I think I may have to tune in just to see the hot GAC geekery!

Ed Hardy goes Ed Nerdy
Update:
New Ghost Adventures on Friday nights at 9pm E/P

UFO Spotted Over Notre Dame Stadium

Again with the UFOs. This time at Notre Dame Stadium in Indiana. On September 3,after a game between Notre Dame and Florida was delayed and the stadium evacuated due to a violent thunderstorm, some fans witnessed strange objects flying above the stadium.

Bookish Spirits

I stumbled across this site dedicated to Willard Library, the oldest, still-functioning public library in Indiana. The library, built in 1885, is situated in a large Gothic Victorian house that is rumored to be haunted. The library's site, "Library Ghost" has three cameras set up for viewers to scout out spirits. The most seen apparition is a woman in grey that has been spotted wandering the children's reading room.

This begs the question: What are these spirits reading? If you were to come back as a ghost and haunt a library, what would you pick up off the shelves one more time?

UFOs over China

Fox News recently reported that planes were diverted from a major Chinese airport after UFOs were reported to be seen hovering above the runway at Jianbei International Airport in Chongquing. 

After the sightings, officials rerouted several flights to other airports.

This comes after a similar UFO sighting last year at Xiaoshan Airport in Hangzhou when Xiaoshan Airport closed following reports of UFOs by airport controllers.

The craft disappeared but footage of a bright object floating across the night sky later became a YouTube sensation.

Jesus Christ Superstar

The Daily Mirror reported today that a French photographer named Luc Perrot captured an image that looks like Jesus in the clouds on a mountain above Reunion Island, which is known for its religious reputation. Perrot said:

"As I looked up, I noticed a shadow floating on clouds surrounded by a rainbow. It took me by complete surprise."

Shark Found in the Woods

A blue shark was found in the woods in Milton, New Hampshire, leaving the local police wondering how it got there. The shark's body was close to eight fee long and found by a resident of the small town.

"My brother happened to smell something that didn't smell right, like a dead animal or something, and he came across it Thursday night," Loyd Ellis told local station, WMUR.

"I've seen garbage here and there, but nothing like this, that's for sure."

Read more here. 

I'm Baaaack

It's that time of year when Halloween starts creeping up in craft stores and in my imagination. What better way to kick off the haunting season than with a recent news story about an abandoned house outside Philadelphia that has wild animals moving in?