X-E's third annual Halloween Countdown starts now -- a growing archive of tributes to Everything Spooky, posted every weekday from now until Halloween! (I'll throw in a weekend or two, but don't bet blood on it.)
For those new to the site, this is one of its traditions. It's also quite possibly my favorite of the traditions; at least, it will be until December rolls around and I replace whatever fuel I use for my own personal fires with liquid nitroSanta. X-E's Halloween Countdown began with the 2003 Edition and grew even more intricate with the 2004 Edition, but I can say with solidly spooky creepy confidence that this will be the best year yet. With all the money I've spent gathering items to review, it damn well better be.
Halloween's become the bastard stepchild of the calendar holidays. By and large, each year delivers a progressively lessened interest in this once great season. Or maybe it just seems that way. I've watched the number of trick-or-treaters decrease dramatically, I've seen stores that formerly dressed their entire staff like vampires only devote half of a half of a half of an aisle to Halloween stuff, and worst of all, I've seen entire years fly by without so much of a peep out of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on network television. I can't get mad at the world for caring less, but I can do my best to share my Halloween love with as many other people who feel the same. The weather, the bad horror movies, the candy, the dead leaves -- we love it, we'll always love it, and that's the only definitive point I have for spending all of my diminishing free time on this. Halloween deserves a celebration, even if it takes a lot of work.
What will you see? Tons. For one, it's become my personal duty to those who read this site to seek out all the new holiday-themed crap that arrives each year. All the weird cereal brands, all the Hostess snacks with orange icing, all the new toys and costume junk -- I'll hit every store on the entire planet until it's all here for your eyes only. Or at least, the stores within a ten mile radius.
That's not all, of course. Through the efforts of my own haunting hunts and the contributions of great readers, I'll also deliver y'all a ton of old Halloween shit -- everything from odd trick-or-treat fodder to the classic Halloween commercials of decades past. So long as it has something to do with Halloween, everything is fair game. I will zap you with the motherfucking holiday spirit even if it kills me. By October 31st, I'll have you in a room of bats and black cats bathing in a cauldron of goat blood while a team of subservient demon midgets cook you hard-boiled eggs with little devil horns made of pimentos. If you don't appreciate Halloween more by the time we're through here, I haven't done my job.
So sit back, enjoy, and stop by every weekday to see what's new and what's what. All of the current articles are listed in bold orange on the right side of each page. That list will be your guide to Hell. Skim or be thorough, do it with Halloween music or without. Halloween means the world to me, and I'm so appreciative to still have a way to express it.
Feed my Frankenstein.
PS: I'm often asked to create archives for the hundreds of articles buried deep within the site, inaccessible from any of the main pages but still annoyingly there. And while that would seem like the natural, smart thing to do, I've always been so self-conscious about my past work (many times, with good reason), and have rarely wanted to draw extra attention to it, much less put it on an even playing field with the recent stuff. Despite all this, I can't justify robbing you from a boosted Halloween fix, so here's the big ol' archive of every spooky-themed X-Entertainment article Google helped me find. When the Countdown just isn't enough, feel free to browse through this crap...
