I am grateful for so many things. I hope you are too. Here's another pic of me in the newspaper, in probably 1983? Who knew I was so local-famous back then? I'm in the back left with the Osh Kosh overalls... Today, in honor of Matthew Perry, I will construct my own Moist Maker. I understand that it was Ross's sandwich, but there's enough common degrees to make it happen...

There have been a few additions to the Halloween decorations and bric a brac here at the Haunted Mansion, Rumsey Island edition. While searching my parent's basement boxes for my old VHS collection I came across a few things I kept. My parents no longer decorate for Halloween, which breaks my heart. But now these things are with me now, so.... At Barnes and Noble the other day, T had disappeared for 10 minutes. When we got home I found out why. She had found, at the counter, this really cool Halloween advent calendar she surprised me with. It comes with this lil plush ghost for the days. Just look at 'im; he looks stoned on jack-o'-lantern stuffing or something. Or he's horrified he's stuck on this site because he didn't make it on Dinosaur Dracula... Next is Gerald from Target. I first saw this preppy pumpkin-head scarecrow a few days after Halloween a couple years ago, and when I returned next to pick him up, he was gone. Liquidated unt...

Curse of Crom, The Legend of Halloween is a new favorite film. I watched this film last season, and I honestly fell in love with it right away. I ordered the bluray right after watching it on tubi or some other streamer, of which there were many showing Crom. Low-budget Indy flicks have never been my cuppa but this one had me at Halloween. The opening is Halloween 4-style perfection. It's incredibly earnest, for some reason I've used this word often when talking about this flick. What I mean is that low-budget or not the characters are in this film and they own it. I really like every single character. Steve, or Lil Rock, as I refer to him (Halem Medina) is the spitting image of a younger Dwayne Johnson. I do not accept that this guy is not the bastard son of the Rock. I shouldn't gossip, it doesn't become me. The scene where Steve finally sees the spirit is great. The next time we see him he is dressed in a costume of dead animals (or the likeness thereof, to protect ...

Blood Omen Legacy of Kain came out for the Sony PlayStation in 1996. I bought it day 1 and was hooked. The game was a bit challenging, but the story, revolving around the vampire named Kain and his betrayal was right up my dark, foggy alley. The story gets quite convoluted over the nearly half dozen games on the PlayStation, and sequels on the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube, but what a story it was. I've always hoped we'd get a film or novels based on these characters and the world of Nosgoth. The lore is there, just waiting to be explored by a Brad Lineweaver or a Kevin J Anderson. The first game is my least favorite out of the Kain storyline games with regards to gameplay, compared to the more traditional action/adventure 3D games sequels. The top-down sorta-RPG is more of an exploration game of discovery rather than action. In fact, the action in the game is borderline dreadful compared to later incarnations. But the music, the story, the art, and the voice acting is al...

It's fair to say, if a bit macabre, that I am collecting "retro" (that hurts to admit that the games/systems I grew up with are classified as retro) games due to the death of a once quite close friend. Last July my close friend Dan Wood died suddenly of heart failure. Funny thing is, if any of it is funny at all, is that through the years when I'd have health issues, I'd think to myself why couldn't I be healthy like Dan. Turns out I was the healthier one all along! Dan and my mother After the viewing and memorial dinner Dan's widow offered me a game that he and I had spent months playing together, Castlevania Symphony of the Night for PS1. This game means the world to me. Dan and I spent 1997 finding every single piece of food and items we could, and upright and upside down, we searched Castle Dracula. This game is quite expensive today, especially a black spine first printing. I lost my copy decades ago, while Dan kept his original game with ...

I just received some items from the Etsy creator, 12 Months of October , who makes absolutely adorable Halloween ephemera. I have a feeling I will be ordering more from her shop. It's Halloween nostalgia at its best. These pieces just make me feel like I'm a kid again in 1986 and it feels so good. I can practically smell the PAAS vampire makeup running on my face and feel the uncomfortable pinch of vampire teeth plastic in my gums... This Etsy store has given me so much inspiration - from simple mugs and bumper stickers! - for a short story I've added to my Halloween short stories collection. 12 Months of October has become my muse.

This month, Halloweentober, has been fantastic, fun, wonderful and just lovely. Without doubt Halloween, and October in general, have become my favorite time/holiday. I'm a lifelong Halloween fan but as I get older my love for this ancient holiday just continues to grow. I spent nearly every evening reading Halloween-centric books or watching movies or TV shows about All Hollow's Eve. On more than one occasion I carved pumpkins into traditional jack-o'-lanterns to ward off evil spirits. I spent time fashioning a rustic witches broom from a fallen branch from the back yard tree. I spent some time writing my Halloween short stories notes. Eventually I'll have to stop writing notes and begin the stories themselves. Ideally, October would have been the perfect time, so it will probably be another 10 or 11 months before I start. I read Cameron Chaney's Autumncrow . It is such a warm and cozy ode to Halloween, and I was wishing it was longer. Autumncrow is the living embo...

I just wanted to share a commercial that came out last Halloween season from Unicef. Now the big U and Halloween have gone hand-in-hand together for over 70 years helping kids with fresh water and food. Last year they had their annual Halloween commercial that just is the coolest, most atmospheric one to date. I absolutely love it. The 30-sec film is practically the most Halloween commercial ever, at least in the days of Covid. It is this small, quick package of wonderful, and the message is a good one, too. It features a pair of really cool blow mold ghosts, some jack-o'-lanterns, a scarecrow that I think winks at me, and a TV stuck on a dead channel. It's a shame that those cute little orange milk cartons for collecting quarters are no longer a thing, but it appears that the carton has given way to a digital giving experience via the QR code above. Here's the video below from their YouTube channel. It's a favorite of mine, and I've been watching it this Halloweent...

I found WNUF Halloween Special only after it made the jump to bluray, thanks to boutique label Terror Vision. Upon my first viewing I was enthralled . I may have been hypnotized with magical nostalgia (I use that word a lot) as I sort of drifted off (but not dozed off) into this subconscious trip back in time, or so I imagined. The film is a supposed found-footage tape of fictional news station WNUF of a Halloween Special produced in 1987. It follows Frank Stewart as he visits the purportedly haunted Webber House. The brilliance of this film is the authenticity with which it appears to be a product of the '80s. 2nd slipcover option And so as I watched the film, that stupor had set in, as I was half-tired, and my brain was fooled into comfortable fantasy. The commercials felt so real, like half-forgotten moments of long lost life. Or maybe a tape ejected from one VHS dimension into an adjacent dimension here. I had begun to believe that this was indeed a tape that had been found, an...

The O's are in the playoffs, fresh off winning the AL East. They've just a season that consistently had me pinching myself. But yes, it was all real, and they play the Rangers here at home today. Halloween has taken a huge truck stop-after-chili dinner dump all over our home. Jack-o-lanterns sit on every table and mantle and sit aglow in warm candlelight every night. This time of year just makes me happy. It's rather simple: autumn, Halloween, horror movies and ghost stories, lots of candy and pie, the chill in the air, it all makes for the most wonderful time of year. I'm currently reading Autumncrow by Cameron Chaney. So far it's better than anticipated. I'm on vacation in a few days, and I plan on writing my Halloween short stories, and overdosing on Reese Cups and slasher films. I'll try to make time to walk Betty Boxer. Another new addiction is watching 1980s and 1990s Halloween commercials. I've got a playlist on YT that's into 6-hours. And I j...

  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...

I have an insane amount of love for this Halloween flick. Like way more than you think I mean when I say an insane amount. Like the other day, someone asked me which fictional universe would I want to live in and without hesitation I yelled Hocus Pocus Salem! with food still in my mouth... As nostalgia is a bigger part of my life now than at any other point in my life, the 1993 setting is a banger here. The film, when compared to contemporary Halloween films, is innocence at its core. The film has no agenda other than to make you feel that Halloween is the greatest night in America one night (or month in my case) a year. Only half of my copies... sigh Halloweentober usually begins every year the same for us around here, and that's with watching The Pocus . This year was the 30th anniversary *coff! (just shot coffee out of my nose and mouth) and I don't know how that happened. Like many of fans of this film, I spent most of my time watching this on Fox's 13 Nights of Hallow...