Happy Friday! It’s the return of Friday Fright Nightcaps! It’s October and 100 degrees out west, not very Fall nor Halloween weather but what can we do.
I recently gave up soda and took up sparkling water as a go-to beverage. Of course it was only a matter time before I started experimenting like mad scientist mixing concoctions. Haunted Blue Vodka is this week’s freakish refreshment.
Ingredients: 2 oz. Blue Curacao 1.5 oz. Chilled vodka 4 oz. sparkling water (I choose coconut La Croix) Splash of lime juice
Pour chilled ingredients into a glass and stir well.
Tastes like alcoholic soda water, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m gonna warn ya up front. But, you can play around with the recipe and add more sparkling water if it’s too strong or vice versa. Honestly, it’s probably a better summer drink than fall but it’s kinda perfect for a SoCal Halloween.
Have fun. Please don’t drink and drive. Be safe out there this season!
We celebrate all 31 days in October and before I share the Halloween schedule this year, I just wanted to say a few words.
There’s a lot of misery in the world right now, and a lot of bad people. You have choice. Full stop. YOUR choice holds more power than you think. If it didn’t, so many people wouldn’t be trying to control it or take it away from you. Always remember that.
This is not just to remind my American friends to vote this November, it’s a reminder to all that sharing our cultural traditions helps preserve them and embracing our communities makes us stronger and breaks down barriers between human beings. This is the time of year when people do the most for each other, and the Halloween season is all about community.
Spirit Halloween’s charitable org Spirit of the Children celebrates 20 years!
So, I want to encourage people to go out and get involved in community events. Go to an art show, holiday fair or school carnival, visit a haunted maze, go to the theater to watch a spooky play or movie, invite some neighbors over on Halloween night and pass out candy together. Start a new tradition.
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, CA just opened a new horror movie exhibition.
I’m also going to repeat something I said last year because I believe in it so much:
Don’t let anyone tell you how to do Halloween. Decorate or not. Wear a costume or not. We can be scary and sweet. We can be spooky and cute. Let the teenagers trick or treat. Kids collecting candy are too occupied to do anything else. I truly believe Halloween makes people happy. It’s about community. We need our communities more than ever. It’s the only thing that can save America now.
Be sure to check back every day this October for cool, fun, and inspirational Halloween, horror, and haiku.
HALLOWEEN SCHEDULE 2026
Monday Macabre
Every Monday, I’ll be posting a brand new Halloween Haiku.
Trick or Treat Tuesdays
Check in on Tuesdays for some trivia fun. I’ve got treats and I’ve got tricks!
Wicked Art Wednesdays
Every Wednesday, I’ll showcase the amazing and unique talents of Halloween artists from around the globe. Real art, not ai made.
TimelessThursdays
Every Thursday, let’s travel back in time and revisit the spookiest toys and games.
Friday Fright Nightcaps
Bubble bubble, drink away trouble. It’s the return of Friday Fright Nightcaps!
Sinister Saturdays
Decadent desserts from the darkside. I’m not much of a cook, so this could get truly evil.
Spooky Sundays
Spooky Sundays are for reading, relaxing, and recharging our brooms.
The Halloween Haiku Challenge returns for one day only this October. The contest starts midnight on October 30th through Halloween day and a winner will be chosen on November 1st.
More details to come, but for now, sharpen those pencils or pull up a blank page; I can’t wait to see those Halloween haiku!
Don’t forget to follow Halloweenhorrorhaiku on Pinterest and Blue Sky.
Have a Happy Halloween season, everyone! Be safe out there!🎃
Happy Fall! The Halloween season has officially begun and instead of posting a horror movie list this month, I thought I’d share a list of best Halloween candy alternatives.
Anyone who’s been to the grocery store lately has noticed prices are up. Between cocoa and sugar shortages, trump’s stupid tariffs, rising manufacturing and packaging costs, and corporate greed, Halloween candy prices are also up again for the sixth consecutive year.
Now, I’ve always tried to keep optimistic about the over-commercialism of Halloween. I love how Halloween brings out the creativity, and the entrepreneurial spirit of some people, but left’s face it, sometimes capitalism goes too far.
Turns out kids actually like getting little Halloween novelty toys and glow sticks in lieu of candy. So this list is for those looking to please trick or treators without breaking the bank this season.
Silicone or rubber slap bracelets, squishy toys and fidget toys are all the rage. Many of these items can be found at dollar stores or Oriental Trading Company (OTC), a popular seller of bulk novelty, party, and craft supplies store that offers dozens of options of Halloween alternative items.
Bulk Halloween Character Rubber Duck Assortment – 60 pc $24.99, OTC
Personally, I’m more into eco-friendly wooden Halloween pencils, Halloween notepads, and cute little Halloween stickers or temporary tattoos.
Halloween pens, pencils, notepads, OTC
Cash and coins are still cool, but not good if your neighborhood hosts a lot of trick or treators. Naturally, quarters are preferred over dimes and pennies, but hey, if you’re about to spend $40 on miniature candies and have around 150 trick or treaters, financially it works out about the same anyway.
Halloween Rubber bracelets, 32-pc $49, Kohl’s
Keep this mind, glow sticks, rubber bracelets and tiny plastic toys may provide instant happiness and are great candy alternatives, but they’re also not biodegradable, and that’s bad for the environment and unsafe for wildlife.
Halloween pencils, 16-pc set $1.50, Dollar General
Ask yourself if you’re looking to be more budget conscious or be environmentally or sensory friendly this season. There are so many alternatives about there!
Sensory-friendly Pop Fidget Toys, $1.50 Dollar General
Before you forego your candy treats, first determine your budget and the number of expected trick-or-treators you anticipate this year.
Free Halloween Printables from iHeartCraftyThings.com
There are still plenty of reasons and ways to celebrate Halloween without spending gobs of money. Don’t forget, you could always mix and match.
Whatever you decide, I wish you a Happy Halloween!
Summerween might be ending next week, but where I live, I’m not so sure the temperatures are coming down.🥵
Truth is, I envy those who can walk out their front door and experience a fall that I only see in pictures. To have mother nature showering you with inspiration, inviting you into the dreamscape and awakening your soul with the crisp morning air…. it’s kinda the only thing I dream of right now. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
The point is September feels less like Fall out west more and more each year. Climate change is real, and this is a reminder to all to treat the planet more kindly, because it’s the only one with pumpkins, and we can’t have Halloween without pumpkins! Full stop!
dried out fall leaves chocolate melting in the sun SoCal halloween
There’s a lot of misery in the world right now, and a lot of bad people. You have choice. Full stop. YOUR choice holds more power than you think. If it didn’t, so many people wouldn’t be trying to take it away from you. Always remember that.
This is not just to remind my American friends to check if they’re registered to vote this November, it’s a reminder to all that preserving traditions and embracing our communities makes us stronger. It improves our mental health and well-being. So, I want to encourage people to choose to get involved with community as much as possible during the ‘Ber months. This is the perfect time of the year to do so.
This is the time of year when people do the most for each other. We’re all trying to bring joy into our lives and escape pain. Helping others will help youself. It’s as simple as that. It’s a proven time-tested theory. So, you wanna feel better? Get out there and be part of your community. Participate, volunteer, buy local and embrace the holiday spirit. There’s so much to do, see, and experience during the ‘Ber months.
Also, protect your wallet. People are scamming, at the highest levels. READ. Do research. See who you’re supporting and don’t support people and companies who hurt your community. We all gotta stick together and protect ourselves.
The ‘BER months are a magical time. Let’s make the most of it!
Don’t forget to follow Halloweenhorrorhaiku on Pinterest and Blue Sky.
Have a Happy Halloween season, everyone! Be safe out there!🎃
Midsummer Scream never fails to get me excited for the Halloween season! More on my MSS experiences later but today I’m ready to kick off the unofficial start to Halloween 2026!
It’s two weeks til the ‘Ber months, our favorite time of the year. This is what we’ve been waiting 8 long months for! Four months of festive holidays, cooler temperatures and the smiles and laughter that can shape a community. Halloween is the one of the few holidays truly for everyone. It’s a season for the people, by the people. People’s creativity and passions are what fuel the love for Halloween and keeping hope alive and making people laugh is no small feat in these dark times.
Seeing as I likely have two more months of 90 degree weather giving me brain fog, I decided to lean in and accept my cheesy haiku, because we deserve all the humor we can find.🎃
summer full of dread ‘ber months are returning soon just like your smile
Have a spook-tacular Halloween season! Be safe out there.
Creature features are any movies featuring a non-human horror element. They’re monster movies, man vs. monster, sometimes nature vs man, survival is usually on the line. Nearly all Universal’s classic monster movies are creature features, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon…and, we certainly cannot forget the legendary King Kong, 1933.
King King 1933, RKO Pictures
All vampire, werewolves, and zombie films are creature features, so are most of the Hammer Horror, and the atomic-age creatures from the 1950s, like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the giant ants of Them! and of course, the King of the monsters, Godzilla, along with all his friends.
Godzilla 1954 (Toho)
Creature Features was a weekly American television broadcast that started in 1950s and ran through the 80s and featured Univeral monster classics, Hammer films and other British horror, RKO gems, American International Pictures, including Roger Corman b-movies, Toho Studios Kaiju films, and all the atomic nuclear monster hits of the 50s. If you ask any movie director, actor, or filmmaker over 30, I’d bet good money they’ll admit it was weekly theater matinees and these late night horror shows that inspired them to get into the business.
Them! 1954 Warner Bros. Pictures
Animal horror from the 70s, 80s & 90s brought real terror with movies like Willard, Ben, Grizzly, Cujo, and Piranha, a bloody fun franchise with military experiments and girls gone wild. Spanning over 40 years, the Piranha and Piranha DD movies grossed over $100 million collectively.
As eye-opening as that sounds, it pales in comparison to the now iconic Jaws, 1975, the first summer blockbuster about a vengeful man-eating shark that spawned 3 sequels, its own shark horror sub-subcategory, domestic inflation-adjusted lifetime gross of $1.5 billion dollars (just Jaws 1) and hundreds of millions of people worldwide suffering from galeophobia, the fear of sharks. What a legacy!
Jaws 1975 (Universal Pictures)
Personally, I’m a big fan of scary movies featuring mythical forest beings like Bigfoot, wendigos, evil fairies, trolls, and whatever that terrifying Norse creature was in The Ritual, 2017.
The Ritual 2017 (The Imaginarium)
While it’s true many are horror films, two of the greatest sci-fi movies, Alien and Predator, are considered the top-grossing creature features franchises of all-time, with Alien films grossing $1.6 billion collectively and Predator following close behind with $885 million. These two behemoths crossed over into each other’s territory in the 2004 film Alien vs. Predator or AVP.
Alien vs. Predator (AVP) 2004, (20th Century Studios)
Proving that creature features have no genre, anyone looking for quieter entertainment should search out Neil Jordan’s Ondine, 2009 starring Colin Farrell, set in Irleand, or Spring, 2014 starring Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker set in Italy, a beautiful romatic horror film, one of my faves.
Of course, no one does creature features like the masterful Guillermo Del Toro, whose magnum opus Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006 won three Academy Awards, and changed the landscape of fantasy films forever. Ten years later, The Shape of Water, 2017, would also win four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, securing his place as the greatest creature feature director ever to walk the planet.
Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006 (Warner Bros. Pictures)
I could go on forever raving about how much I love creature features, but I better just let you go to watch some of these great films instead. Hit up Google or IMDB or check local listing to see where you can stream one of the movies listed above, and don’t forget to leave a comment and tell me your favorite creature feature.
Wow, the summer heat this July is no joke! This is the part of the year when I’m most miserable…hot, tired, cranky and longing for the Halloween season.
As my little pumpkin plant struggles to grow, I can’t help but think how climate change is slowly destroying our planet and worry it won’t be long before it affects our human traditions. Will there be less pumpkins? Smaller pumpkins? No pumpkins at all?
The only relief is the cooler temps of dark summer nights. Who doesnt love sitting under the moonlight with a tall glass of lemonade, watching old 50s scifi horrors, Them! The Blob, Godzilla, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I’m not sure I would’ve loved anything about the 1950s except hiding out all adternoon in a Saturday matinee. Some say it was a simpler time but it was also filled racism, suspicion, and hatred. No thank you. Truth is, our monster films were the mirrors of society for voices often too scared to speak during that time. This is perhaps the best reason why I love old horror and creature features. This was a time when movie magic was born from real human creativity, crafted by skilled hands, and reflecting the best of the human spirit. Horror films today still show us who the real villains in society are and it isn’t the creatures. We should never lose sight of this.
summer moon above shadows dance across the screen old creature features
There’s only a few days left in June, but Summer’s just getting started. Don’t let soaring temps ruin your spooky fun! There’s no better way to celebrate than by firing up the BBQ, mixing up the sangria, chilling in your favorite collapsible chair, while watching these amazing summer camp horror movies!
Friday the 13th The Ritual Tucker and Dale vs Evil The Cabin in the Woods Evil Dead II Eden Lake In a Violent Nature The Blair Witch Project Wrong Turn Cabin Fever Sleepaway Camp Significant Other Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight
Happy Summer Solstice! Werewolf summer returns and the beasts of washignton are on the prowl. They may very well be the scariest most evil monsters on the planet.
summer cherries old beasts sniffing around in search of victims
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