Happy Friday! Tonight’s Friday Fright Nightcap is The Bride’s Nightcap, a Midori and pear vodka cocktail in celebration of Frankenstein Friday.
Ingredients:
2 oz. Midori 2 oz. pear vodka .5 oz. Malibu (or white rum) .5 oz. Key West lime juice (or lime juice) 4 oz. lemonade
Mix ingredients well. Garnish with Maraschino cherries or fresh fruit. Serve chilled.
I got a little exotic using Malibu and Key West lime juice. Honestly, regular white rum and lime juice will work too. It’s a little sweet if you don’t add the lime juice and Isuppose regular vodka is fine too. F*** it, use what you got. Midori is the star of the show no matter how you dice it.
This is my last post in October. Such a bittersweet moment. I thank everyone who stopped by all 31 days this Halloween season!
We’re 3 days away from Halloween and for a big treat on this Trick of Treat Tuesday, I’m sharing my favorite Haunted House Horror.
The Changeling, 1980 Poltergeist, 1982 Hereditary, 2018 House of Haunted Hill, 1959 13 Ghosts, 1960 The Innocents, 1961 The Haunting, 1963 The Amityville Horror, 1979 Legend of Hell House, 1973 Burnt Offerings, 1976 The Others, 2001 Woman in Black, 2012 Stir of Echoes, 1999 Crimson Peak, 2015
It’s always hard to put together these lists. All the films are so good. There are a lot of classic horror films from the 60s and 70s on my list and I hope people will give them a watch.
I personally feel The Changeling starring George C Scott from 1980 is one of the scariest haunted house films ever made.
House from The Changeling
Scott plays composer John Russell grieving the death of wife and son. He moves from New York to Seattle to start over and moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a little boy who died mysteriously.
These movies will certainly spook anyone staying in on Halloween night and films like House on Haunted Hill or Poltergeist play nicely in the background at parties too.
Honorable Mentions:
Paranormal Activity House of Usher Horror House We’re Still Here House, 1985 The House that Dripped Blood House by the Cemetery
Today’s Wicked Art Wednesday artist is goth legend Roman Dirge. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to pay a tribute to the amazing creator of comic book series Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl and his own unique creepy gothic cute style.
Lenore reboot The Time War, variant issue #1 from January 2025
Why we love it: Magician turned goth artist and comic book creator who never gave up on his dreams on being an artist… we all should admire anyone who pursues their passions and creates a lane for themselves.
Happy Friday! It’s the return of Friday Fright Nightcaps! In honor of this month’s theme Haunted Halloween, I present the Ghastly Spritzer. Who doesn’t love a nice smooth fizzy cocktail!
Ingredients: 1 oz. Malibu coconut rum 2 oz. vodka 1.5 oz. pineapple juice 3 oz. sparkling water ice
This drink wildly interchangeable. Too weak, add more vodka. Too strong, add more pineapple juice. Too sweet, add more sparkling water, I used a flavored La Croix but honestly the Malibu drowned out the flavor in sparkling water.
Ghastly Spritzer
Also, I missed Random Acts of Poetry Day on October 1st, so I’m sliding in a suggestion to check out this great book from Everyman’s Library and edited by John Hollander entitled “Poems Bewitched and Haunted” a collection of classic spooky poems and short stories.
Gothic scares from literary greats like Dickinson, Goethe, Horace, and Poe. Must read for Halloween!
Happy October! It’s been a busy summer. I admit that keeping up with a blog this year has been challenging. On one hand I love it, I love sharing Halloween haiku and other spooky stuff, but truth is I simply don’t have the time to blog like I used to.
I did make time to visit Disneyland recently for some Fall fun.
I also know times are tough and depressing. It’s not going to get better anytime soon, we need Halloween! We need to celebrate our culture and traditions more than ever and we need to make new memories! Good memories! You never know when that may be the only thing you have. So after careful consideration, I will again be celebrating all 31 days of Halloween this year.
There will be two themes this month, Haunted Halloween and Halloween Happy. Americans are a haunted people, but we all deserve life. Halloween is for everyone. Full stop. The holiday combines both ancient pagan and religious ceremonies. The original purpose was to chase away the demons and bad ghosts that crossed over the spirit realm because of the thin veil between the living and the spirit world.
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 2025
Monday Macabre
Every Monday, I’ll be posting a brand new Halloween Haiku, honoring the theme of Haunted Halloween.
Trick or Treat Tuesdays
Check in on Tuesdays for some online 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.
Timeless Thursdays
Every Thursday, let’s travel back in time and revisit some of the greatest Halloween music ever made on the corporeal plane.
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.
October is mere hours away and to celebrate this month’s theme of pumpkin apocalypse and welcome back the Halloween season with some of the spookiest pumpkin scenes in horror.
Stsrting with my personal fave from Disney’s Adventures of Icabod and Mr. Toad, 1949. The Headless Horseman wore a fiery pumpkin head on top his shoulders and terrified the poor ‘ole school master Icabod Crane by chasing him down and throwing his own head at him. It’s one of the most iconic scenes in animation and pretty darn scary for Disney.
Disney’s Adventures of Icabod and Mr. Toad, 1949
Who can forget the 1952 Disney classic Trick or Treat, when Witch Hazel casts a spell on Donald Duck’s pumpkin causing it to dance around and sing. Head on over to Disney Plus to view the whole classic animation in its entirety.
Horror films are meant to scare us, whereas spooky family films are meant to delight us. It’s all about the intention, right? Which is why horror fans everywhere took a doubletake at Eli Roth’s scary kids film, The House With a Clock in the Walls.
The horror maestro traded in his trademark blood and gore for a whimsical Halloween tale with an incredible production design featuring a magical haunted house filled with secrets and crazed jack-o-lanterns who spew their pumpkin guts on you.
Enough with the kid films, we want killer pumpkins!
Carved 2024
If you didnt see the logo plastered all over the posters, no one would have ever guessed this stoner horror-comedy was a Hulu production. It wasn’t the greatest movie, but the scene where the pumpkin creature exacting revenge by slaughtering most of the participants of a pumpkin carving contest is alone worth a watch.
Tales of Halloween, 2015
Starring several horror icons, this spooky anthology features ten terrorific tales set on Halloween night, directed by a who’s who in horror. I adore this film, it has Adrienne Barbeau as segment DJ, killer ghosts, naughty trick or treaters, aliens vs axe murderers, demons, witches, but no creature is scarier than the killer pumpkin from hell in Neil Marshall’s horror short Bad Seed.
Trick ‘r Treat, 2007
Michael Dougherty’s directorial debut is four Halloween stories connected by a mysterious trick or treat demon named Lil’ Sam. Candy is good enough keep Sam at bay, just as long as you don’t break any of the rules of Halloween. In one of the movie’s scariest scenes, we learn there are consequences to making Lil’ Sam angry. You will never blow out a pumpkin before midnight again after watching this movie.
Trick ‘r Treat never received a decent theatrical release, but instead of falling into obscurity, it became an instant cult horror classic. This October, the movie will get a re-release for two nights only.
It’s one of my favorite horror films of all time and instantly invokes the true spirit of Halloween. A must watch for any Halloween and horror fan.
August is for aliens. Ha! When I went to write up my list for favorite alien movies, I noticed I forgot to post my favorite Werewolf Movies list last month. Obviously, my brain was abducted by aliens back in July.
That’s okay though, cuz now you’ve got one post with two lists of great spooky movies to watch this Halloween Season. There’s no breakdown, just lists. Go watch ’em!
There doesn’t appear to a definitive origin story for the werewolf. Early movies were just based on a collection of myths and legends from around the world. Like vampires, this lead to a variety of possibilities of appearance, characteristics, and nature of the beast. Early movies like Universal’s Wolfman, starring Lon Chaney, wowed audiences using brilliant make-up techniques and stunning special effects of their time to achieve the werewolf transformation. It was simple, but sorta magical. By 1981, technical advances in both film making and special effects allowed John Landis to direct one of the most realistic transformations of man into monster that moviegoers ever witnessed. To date, it’s been hard to top. My list though, isn’t necessarily a ‘best of’ list, just my faves.
American Werewolf in London, 1981
The Wolfman, 1941
Ginger Snaps, 2000
Dog Soldiers, 2002
The Howling, 1981
Wolfen, 1981
Silver Bullet, 1985
In the Company of Wolves, 1983
Wolf Cop, 2014
Brotherhood of the Wolf, 1998
By mere definition, aliens on the other hand do not have origin stories. They come from beyond the great unexplored universe. Movie audiences flocked to theaters to see the original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers in search of thrilling new sensations. In 1979, Ridley Scott’s Alien, delivered in spades, spawning a 40-year blockbuster franchise, solidifying aliens as a huge part of cinema. SciFi and Horror are like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together. Condensing a list of thousands of movies down to just ten spots is pretty agonizing. For purposes of this list, I chose what I think are the scariest alien movies. Admittedly, some are more action than horror, but having a terrifying villain is half the assignment.
Alien, 1979
The Thing, 1982
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978
Event Horizon, 1997
Annihilation 2018
Predator, 1987
Pitch Black, 2000
District 9, 2009
A Quiet Place, 2018
Nope, 2022
I love all these movies so much, I can watch them over and over. It’s really hard to pick a winner. Help me out! Here are two great lists of horror films to watch for Halloween 2025, help me decide who wins this epic battle, werewolves or aliens?
Distributed by Universal Pictures and directed by young and upcoming wunderkind named Steven Speilberg, the oceanic horror-thriller was based off Peter Benchley’s best selling novel of the same title grossed $7.9 million dollars and spent 14 weeks at the top of the box office, making it the very first “summer blockbuster” of Hollywood films. A critical and commercial success, the movie changed the landscape of all art and film and would go on to be the first film to earn $100 million dollars.
Jaws is a masterclass in fear, even John Williams’ brilliant score alone was enough to send shivers up spines and keep people outta the water. It isn’t just about facing the horror of giant man-eating vengeful shark though, it’s a psychological look at the breakdown of smalltown life. It’s the fear of a simple man overwhelmed with the job of trying to protect his community. A weary wife and mother afraid of losing her family. The fear of a elected official losing the faith of his community. The fear of a community losing their economy, their livelihoods, and their lives to something they cannot control. The fear of a young insecure college grad being ridiculed for his intellect and his ideas. And, the fear and trauma of an old fisherman who survived a horror greater than war.
It was years before I truly understood how great the story of Jaws was. I was very young when I first saw it in a drive-in theater in San Diego, CA. It’s my first movie memory, peeking inbetwen the car seats up at giant screen, yards away, as young swimmer was violently yanked under the water. This was back in the day when parents didn’t really shield kids from sex and violence in movies and TV. I watched a lot of old 70s horror movies this way. In fact, this is where my love for horror movies began. Being the first movie I ever saw, Jaws has a very special place in my heart. I try to watch it every year, usually around Fourth of July, when the story is set. I must have seen this film a hundred times at least and it never gets old.
Some may argue Jaws didn’t do any favors for sharks. Yes, it created mass hysteria and worldwide fear of sharks, For all the fear it generated, I think Jaws also sparked interest in sharks. Something that led to the increased study of sharks and all sea life behavior, maybe even put marine biology on the map. This all helped create conservation of sharks and ocean life. It’s been a long hard fought battle to save this planet by learning not to be afraid of what lurks in the ocean. Love it or hate it, Jaws is an unforgettable masterpiece worth celebrating.
Cemeteries are big part of almost all scary movies, really only a handful are set in a cemetery or at least prominently feature a cemetery. Here are my picks for top films heavy on atmosphere and dripping with terror.
“Sometimes, dead is better”. ~Cemetery Man ~Gravedancers ~Pet Sematary ~Phantasm ~Return of the Living Dead ~The Omen ~Graveyard Disturbance
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