Vampires, the immortal creatures of the night, are the first monsters I can remember being afraid of but also endlessly infatuated with. And what's Halloweentober without the undead?! After all, if it wasn't for vampires I probably never would have developed such a fondness for Halloween in the first place... The 1980s especially hosted a smorgasbord of the undead for me to, uh, sink my teeth into. From the hilarious to the horrific, the vampire films of my childhood were the things that kept me up at night. I was blessed with having my own television in my bedroom at an early age, with parents who were kind enough to respect my privacy and leave me alone when the door was shut. So staying up to watch vampire flicks until dawn was quite normal for me in adolescence. Once Bitten was one the first I can remember staying up late for and was Jim Carrey's movie introduction to me years before In Living Color debuted on Fox in 1990. This movie has it all: Halloween c...

I wanted to talk about Tom Shellenberger. When I was barely a young kid there was a man who would dress up as Dracula and walk around Dundalk, my hometown. Dundalk is like the underarm of Baltimore. Dundalk is the punching bag for the suburbs of Baltimore, always has and always will be. But I don't mind, I love growing up there. I miss it. I love Dundalk. People like Tom are Dundalk. I have always had an affinity for vampires. I grew up with a Hollywood obsessed with the undead. Check out this list!: Once Bitten, Fright Night, Vamp, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Near Dark, The Lost Boys. All of these films came out in the mid-1980s and I watched them all, over and over again. I am still obsessed with these movies! I read everything I could find in the library on vampires as early as elementary school. In high school I found the Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice's vampire universe, and later, other writers, like Michael Romkey, Laurell K. Hamilton, John Steakley, Charlaine Harris and...

  31 Days of Halloween is here. Tonight we had our 2nd annual family jack-o'-lantern cutting contest where we were all winners. Above is my offering to the Halloween spirits. I managed to carve 2 jacks this season. Next year I'm going big and bold, and attempting 31 jack-o'-lanterns, one for each day of Halloweentober! Where am I going to put them all, you ask? EVERYWHERE. I may drop them off at unsuspecting neighbors homes, lit of course. Staring at their door, I'll ring their doorbell and run off. Little adoptable jack-o'-lanterns in need of a new home. This is the lineup. It was a solid year for jack-o'-lanterns this year at the House of Dolan. Tonight we watched The Midnight Hour on DVD. The Anchor Bay DVD is long, long OOP. I settled for the Spanish DVD years ago, which used the old VHS cover art. Transfer is not too bad. I pray annually for a Blu-ray release. T fell asleep. I woke her up and told her to go upstairs to bed. She was not amused. Ad from my 1...