Book Review: Monsterland by James Crowley

Books, Monsters,
Monsterland by James Crowley

Every autumn I pick out a few books related to the season and challenge myself to finish reading them before Halloween. This year I’ve read Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which I absolutely LOVED) and am halfway through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In between these bigger more famous novels I decided to take a break and read a kid’s Halloween story. Let me tell you what a absolute joy and surprise it was to stumble upon James Crowley’s Monsterland! What I had expected to be a cute simple story turned out to be a wonderful epic adventure I won’t soon forget.

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How To Build Halloween Tombstones

Decorations, HowTo,
How To Build Halloween Tombstones

So even though this has been a weird year where it feels like every day is groundhog day, I decided to try to break the monotony and work on a project I’ve been procrastinating on for a long time…DIY Halloween tombstones! For years I’ve used store bought tombstones for my graveyard scene. You know the ones that are odd colors and say nothing more than RIP on them. Although they looked fine, I wanted to take things up a notch and really customize my tombstones to match my theme of “The Ghoulie Graveyard.”

To note there are awesome YouTube videos on how to build tombstones. I highly recommend you watching those videos to really get the best instruction. Here I’ll take you through my experience on how I made mine.

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Movie Review: House of Usher (1960)

Movies
House of Usher (1960)

So that’s it, huh? Halloween is officially over. You might be like me, thinking of all the props you didn’t finish this year or how you ran out of candy a lot earlier than you expected. Well however your Halloween turned out, its nice to reflect on the successes and failures and toast the holiday off just right by enjoying a good horror movie the day after. In my goal to watch more classic films I decided on watching House of Usher (1960) starring Vincent Price. This film is considered one of his better ones. So kick off your shoes, pour some left over apple cider and enjoy my movie review. Continue reading →

Remembering Nostalgic Halloween TV Specials

Television
The Muppet Show Halloween Special

I have very fond memories of nostalgic Halloween TV specials when I was a kid. In the late 70’s and all through the 80’s I couldn’t wait to watch TV to find the next Halloween sitcom or cartoon special. Television was so fun back then! We’d get our TV guides and circle all the Halloween episodes that would be on during the week. Sometimes TV shows had a Halloween or spooky theme such as when horror movie icon Vincent Price guest starred on an episode of The Muppet Show. However, it was the Halloween cartoons that aired year after year that really warms my heart now. We never tired of them but waited to watch them each year with great anticipation. Many are so good that today they are considered classics. Continue reading →