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HALLOWEEN IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

It's Halloween! I challenge you to make the most of it! Go trick-or-treating! Go trunk-or-treating! Bob for apples! Watch the Elm Street series in its entirety! Sacrifice owls!

The weather here is perfect: Gloomy, grey and inoffensively chilly. I haven't checked the forecast, but judging by the wind and clouds, it wouldn't surprise me to be completely underwater by 9 PM. My kingdom for a thunder clap.

Tonight, we're heading to a friend's house to drink and eat our way through a pile of scary DVDs that would stack taller than Andre, all while carving pumpkins with designs that are certain to be obscene. It's the last hurrah for horror, and it's hard to imagine that by this time tomorrow, I'll be waist deep in red-and-green Sunday circulars, fifty times more excited that I am now. There are four quarters in the year, and people, we're living in the only one that matters.

So ends the Halloween Countdown -- thanks again for continuing to make the site worth keeping alive, and I hope your howliday is a good one! Course, if you're stuck home with nothing to do, you could always relive this year's creepy content, conveniently linked below!

The “Ghost Finders” Haunted Camera!
Evil Clowns, Evil Lip Balm and more Spooky Die-O-Ramas!
Halloween Mood DVDs: The Mega Review!
Cape is the new rock.
Frightening Filler.
And exposed viscera.
Milton Bradley’s SPIDER WARS, from 1988!
The NY Aquarium’s HAUNTED SEA-FARI!
Haunted Snack Mansion! Color-Changing Cars! AND MORE!
X-E’s Shoebox Die-O-Rama Contest: THE RESULTS!!!
Madballs Jumpers & Halloween Popcorn!
Halloween Window Silhouettes, Bubble Tape, and Spider Lights.
Kind and Gentle Freddy Krueger toys.
The Halloween Cocktail!
The Trix O’Lantern!
Along came a giant fake spider.
Halloween Velvet Treats!
Blood Bag: The Candy!
The Snoopy-O’-Lantern?
LIFE-SIZED MOTION ACTIVATED AUDIO-ANIMATRONIC JASON VOORHEES OMG OMG
Cap’n Crunch’s Halloween Crunch Cereal!
Chucky: Pro-Wrestling Superstar.
Halloween Slinky! Halloween Hot Wheels! Halloween Fruit Things!
X-E’s Shoebox Die-O-Rama Art Contest!
Deadly Dollar Store Stuff.
Dots Halloween Mix!
Monsters: A Pop-Up Book.
Halloween Chips Ahoy!

We've got a few hours to kill, because our little party is sure to last until tomorrow afternoon, and if we show up too early, we'll be unconscious by midnight. I've been waiting for trick-or-treaters, but none have arrived. Not a single one. I'm aghast that we've scared society into ditching one of its greatest traditions, but on the other hand...more Twizzlers for me.

Normally, we just combine assorted candies into Ziploc bags to give to trick-or-treaters, but Target was selling these awesome boxes of full-sized Twizzlers varieties for ten bucks. Couldn't resist. I'm so anxious to hear a knock on our door, because giving retail-sized candies to trick-or-treaters is sure to make me the hero of the neighborhood. Alas, nobody has come. Maybe it was a bad idea to decorate the front lawn in a dead ferret motif.

In the comments, discuss your Halloween adventures! Don't know what kind of computer access I'm going to have by tonight, but if there's any, I'll pop by with drunken tales of poker games won and face paint tubes exploded.

Oh, and as promised, below are the final entries in the Spooky Die-O-Rama contest! I'm sure I missed a few, since I never get through one of these art contests without pissing off several people. Thanks again to everyone who entered -- these entries were truly the soul of this year's Countdown!


(Click here to see a larger photo!)

"Attack of the Corn"
Created By: Stephanie B.

Stephanie is just one of the many entrants who was robbed of a spot in the winner's circle, but at least she's done her part to make the last batch of Die-O-Ramas feel mighty and proud.

There's a lot to love with this one -- from the wholly custom scarecrow with the paper facial features, to the evil corn dudes who seem to have been crafted out of those amazing corn-themed corn on the cob holders. Any justification for using the word "corn" that many times in a single sentence equals brilliance. Steph, you're my favorite Steph out of all the Stephs I've ever known.



"Count Dogula"
Created By: Tommy

Oooh! This one is pure glee. It's hard to find dioramas featuring vampires in blood-soaked chambers that manage to seem so harmless and cheerful, but I suppose that's the benefit of making a vampire out of a hot dog. Tommy even provided a photo of Count Dogula burnt to a crisp, and though he didn't provide an explanation, I'm guessing that it represents a vampire who was exposed to sunlight.

Also, is this really the only Die-O-Rama that made use of those five-point casino arcade spider rings? To everyone besides Tommy: For shame.



"Die-O-Hazard"
Created By: Nick

Nick's diorama is pretty wonderful, mixing LEGO figurines and fallen branches to recreate a scene from Resident Evil. I just wish he included some larger photos, because who wouldn't love a closer look at Cujo mangling Man Eating Chicken in the lower left?



"Haunted Evening"
Created By: Nakairra D.

Nakairra went through a lot of trouble to send me this entry. The pictures kept bouncing and the links kept dying, and by the time I actually got to see it, Christmas had already come and gone. Really dig the haunted mansion in the background, and the pipe cleaner trees are just the thing October 31st needed to double its birthright specialness.



"A (Star)Scream of a Good Time"
Created By: Alienux

Alienux provided no description of his diorama, save for its title. I'll have to piece this one together myself. Seems as if Starscream is spending his Halloween torturing a skeleton, while a living-but-sadly-stationary Demon Apple voices his displeasure in the background. I don't know why the Demon Apple is wearing an enormous severed finger, but then, Halloween is all about mystery.

PS, I can't tell if that's the original Starscream figure or one of the many re-issues. I'm guessing "re-issue," because there is not a single original Starscream figure left in the universe that still has its forearm missiles.



"The Terryfying Tale of the Tricks and the Treats"
Created By: OrbitalVelocity

Perhaps it's best that Orbital handles the explanation. "Our little protagonist just wants Mr. McEvil to give her some of his shitty candy, but he's gone to great lengths to make sure that doesn't happen. He's blocked off the path to his haunted mansion with a spooky toothpick fence and a giant man-eating spider! Oh nooo..."

Does the crayon castle in the background remind anyone else of Bowser's fortress from Super Mario World? I've gonna have that ominous techno beat playing in my head until Thanksgiving now. Thanks, OrbitalVelocity.



"Sneakerama"
Created By: Kristin M.

HEY, that's not a diorama. Kristin knew that skirting the rules was grounds for disqualification, and said as much in her e-mail. But look closer, and you'll likely forgive her. Here, the shoebox diorama is less a diorama and more of an actual shoebox, playing home to a pair of sneakers with iconic horror-related images painted on the sides. I'd totally wear these, but truth be told, I have hooves.

Have a good one, monsters!

Posted by Matt on 10/31/2009. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 212 comments

Happy Halloween everyone!Didn’t go trick or treating because 30 minutes befor I was set to go there was a terential downpore!I did have a few trick or treaters though.Fun times!The Halloween party was a success,thanks,in no small part to Matt’s holiday jukebox.Everyone was asphixiated in they’re own alchoholic coma.Thanx,Matt,for a spectacular countdown for this losers favorite time of year!Alright!Let’s bring Rudolph’s jolly ass around for some holiday cheer! :)

Chestnuts roasted by Jason @ 11/01/2009 2:23 AM

Sorry guys. I’m drucking funk! :)

Chestnuts roasted by Jason @ 11/01/2009 2:23 AM

I watched They Live , Underworld:Rise of the Lycans and Return of the living Dead 3 tonight. Awesome combo for Halloween. Well, now its all over . Bring on Thanksgiving. And after that Christmas. Man, as soon as your done with one holiday, it’s time for another. But that’s how it goes I suppose.

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 11/01/2009 2:42 AM

Hey, it’s my first time posting here but found Halloween a fitting time to do so. I got so few trick ‘r treaters, it was a bummer. Last year I had over 150 kids then I moved and now got probably under 15. Lots of left over candy in the plus column.

By the way I made the Count Dogula die-o-rama, but I also made a video of singing hotdogs in tuxedos for the beginning of an indie movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko6p7yq2U9Q

or you can watch the whole movie for free right here:

http://lawsonwhiteheat.com/

It’s an excessively vulgar action/comedy and I hope you all check it out and enjoy! I’m going to go watch Return of the Living Dead part 2 now. Good Night and Happy Halloween!

Chestnuts roasted by Tommy @ 11/01/2009 2:47 AM

Ah, Halloween – the most important SNT of the year! How appropriate that Halloween was a Saturday.

Only got 3 trick or treaters, boo-urns.

Watched 6 scary movies today, and about to watch number 7.

Saw ‘This is It’ and loved it – what could have been….looked like it would have been a mind blowing show.

Happy Halloween, all! THANKS MATT for making it a great scary season!

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 11/01/2009 3:00 AM

the time change in effect and the halloween countdown done. Sad I should be but happy I am. Let me explain, what makes Halloween special and the two holidays that follow is that they don’t last in the physical sense, it’s mental, as many of us are, and in the emotions it sparks. If you had it everyday it wouldn’t be special.

Chestnuts roasted by retro-stoked @ 11/01/2009 3:01 AM

Aw, my die-o-rama was one of the ones that was missed. And I did use the five cent plastic spider rings. One of them is even the mask for a sand person’s Halloween costume. On Tattoine.

Tonight my brother and I scared a ton of trick-or-treaters when we handed out candy at my gram’s house. One of us would hide in a leaf pile, and the other in my car’s trunk. So when kids came up the walk, something would jump out of the leaves and scream at them, and then after they calmed a sec, something else would jump out of the trunk, scream at them, and give them candy. A couple of times, we couldn’t hide fast enough, so he would pretend he was killing me and shoving me in the trunk. Then I would bang on the trunk and scream, and yell, “Let me out, I have candy!” We had fake blood made of chocolate syrup smeared all over our mouths, just cause.

Also, almost none of the trick-or-treaters we had would say “trick-or-treat” without being prodded. Kids of all ages. It was like they just didn’t understand how it worked. They would just stare at me weirdly for a couple seconds until I said, “You gotta say it.” I remember being a kid and yelling it at all the neighbors, like I was pulling some big surprise on them every single time. Where’s the enthusiasm? Happy Halloween everyone! Though it’s Day of the Dead now.

Chestnuts roasted by hobbitsubculture @ 11/01/2009 3:04 AM

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I’ve loved the Halloween Countdown for years, and I still chortle at the dollar store Halloween costume article like nine years later.

At like 3:30 (I don’t get up early), I assembled my costume — complete with a Freddy Glove with real knives — and some gruesome makeup and went outside to mess with the neighborhood kids, who’d cringe until they saw I was throwing twizzlers at them. I then went to a fancy Italian restaurant with my parents in full costume, then to a laid-back apartment party in NYC. Chill holiday for me this year, but I’m cool with that, I was just enjoying that it WAS Halloween.

Sidebar: People gotta step their costume game up. I was pretty disappointed at the lame, derivative display I saw in the City tonight. Every fourth guy was A-Rod, and most people had “funny” costumes that couldn’t make me laugh if the dentist from Little Shop of Horrors was pumping me full of gas. Step up your creativity, my dudes.

Chestnuts roasted by Esoteric @ 11/01/2009 4:00 AM

I JUST finished watchin Trick R Treat, and I gotta say, IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!! :D REALLY deserves all the praise it gets!!! I wonder how long it’ll be before the Halloween graphics get taken down off the site? LOL XD Here’s to ya X-E you know I like ya!

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 11/01/2009 4:34 AM

I’m starting Trick R’ Treat now- for the 4th time! Heartily agree with Ultraman- It’s like a Love-Letter to Halloween… no idea why Warner made us wait 3 years for it… oh well.. almost 2 on the left coast, and I’m milkin’ just a weeee bit more outta this (most beloved) Halloween season… I hope everyone out there had as GREAT a time as I got to this year… THANKS MATT!! You have once again made the season Even More than it would have been on it’s own Awesome self… Now, it’s time to Bring On the Candycanes… (with a brief detour for turkey & football)… HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Chestnuts roasted by servo @ 11/01/2009 4:43 AM

Halloween is over. So sad. See you next year.

Chestnuts roasted by Bill @ 11/01/2009 4:54 AM

Well. Looks like maybe I missed everybody. It was totally the kind of week where the appropriate thing to do was come home, watch both “Hostel” movies and get massively drunk.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween!

Chestnuts roasted by Reni @ 11/01/2009 6:08 AM

This Halloween was still a vast improvement over last year’s (I was in Iraq). Originally had a big party planned over my friend’s house. No one showed but me. Bummer! We said “screw it!” and grabbed some hibachi, Sapporo and hot sake and took in a screening of Paranormal Activity. Can’t say I cared for it much, but oh well. Happy Halloween!

Chestnuts roasted by Spectre @ 11/01/2009 7:00 AM

Thanks Matt for a great Halloween countdown, really helped set the mood for our house here.

I’m in the UK, where it’s not that popular, but we still had some kids in our building come by our door! I was so excited I got to give out candy (and we had some good cadburys fun chocs too!).

It was great..they were all so shy at first, but then they all got into cackling like little witches and shuffling like zombies with a little encouragement :P

Now I can’t wait for next year! heheh

Chestnuts roasted by divechaz @ 11/01/2009 9:10 AM

One of our neighbors a few streets over said to expect 200 trick-or-treaters. We ended up with only 70. Now we’ve got a ton of candy. Besides a huge bowl of candy, we’ve got an unopened bag containing 245 pieces of candy. Will this stuff last until next year, or do I have to wolf down it all myself?

Chestnuts roasted by Mike @ 11/01/2009 9:55 AM

I watched “Dead and Breakfast” last night. Good movie.

From the above comments, it seems we weren’t the only ones with lower than expected trick or treaters. What’s going on this year? Is candy becoming so cheap you can now simply just buy the bags for yourself? Has the holiday simply lost it’s magic? Is Halloween becoming a minor holiday that only a few people are gonna celebrate?

Chestnuts roasted by King JLA @ 11/01/2009 10:34 AM

I have to say ugh a little, it’s November 1st and you know what that means? Christmas bombardment! Christmas is great and all, but the consumerism is outrageous this time of year. Pretty soon everyone will be trampling over each other for overpriced video game systems and BD players. :(

I was half expecting to see Christmas-themed TV shows and specials this morning.

Chestnuts roasted by Palmerholic @ 11/01/2009 10:54 AM

Had a great night! I worked (at my theme park) but it’s a Halloween event, and I’m running the Park, so I got to enjoy a fantastic evening.

Here in Toronto (err rather Canada) Thanksgiving has already passed…..thus making today, Nov. 1st, the start of Christmas.

Yes!

Chestnuts roasted by Nickelodeon @ 11/01/2009 11:13 AM

I stayed home and watched the wolfman and Monster Squad, dressed as Freddy Kruger. Unfortunately not too many kids showed up. I dunno what it is about Halloween. It was so anticlimactic this year. Its been waning recently. But I didnt think it would have become so….whatever.

Chestnuts roasted by Paolo Mongon @ 11/01/2009 11:37 AM

Time to leave the Halloween decorations up until Christmas!!

Chestnuts roasted by Yak Face @ 11/01/2009 11:44 AM

@King JLA, I sure hope not, but the numbers do seem down from last year…which is sort of strange when you think about it. I mean sure the economy isn’t doing as well, but it’s not like you have to make a big out lay to go TrTing! I mean I remember my last year TrTing, I went out last minute and didn’t have a costume; a little flour, a little ketchup, and some slicked back hair and boom! I’m a vampire. It’s not hard people and there are plenty of people who still WANT to give away FREE candy, don’t disappoint these kind and generous souls.

As far as our night went only ten trick our treaters and more than half of those were people I saw driving around in the neighbor hood down the street and directed over to our street(to be fair we’re a dead end street off of a fairly busy road, still there are plenty of kids on this street and you’d think they’d warm up with a few houses here before moving on to bigger fish)

As far as me and my little one,after two hours the haul was decent if not spectacular…lot of m&ms for some reason, better than last year’s glut of tootsie rolls I suppose.

The night was not without it’s disappointments though. One house all decked out in Halloween decorations(some a little beat up and faded, but that’s ok added to the charm)was giving out candy…so far so good, but what do I see in their dining room…a freaking 12 foot Christmas tree! I mean really? I can see setting up in the lead up to Thanksgiving, that doesn’t bother me, but on Halloween? The stores have an excuse(not a good one, but hey they want to get you humming jingle bells sooner rather than later), YOU DON’T! Come on people give the big H the respect it deserves, not to mention Thanksgiving.

But you know at least they were giving out candy, I think the biggest disappointment was the houses all decked out for Halloween, that WEREN’T giving out candy…>_<, one house I could hear music going, someone was home(they may not have heard us, still). At another when they heard us next door getting candy they actually turned their lights out, this was at the beginning of the night so it's not like they had just run out of candy, if your gonna decorate and your gonna be home have a damn bag of candy people! I mean come on! There were at least 4 or five houses set up for Halloween that had no candy..just wrong, I mean bring your pumpkins in and turn out your lights if you don't have anything.

Chestnuts roasted by SevenYearsThisSunday @ 11/01/2009 12:08 PM

Can you guys believe it’s November already? :\

I thought Halloween was gonna be big this year, but it really did kinda fizzle out, didn’t it? Sad. I know we ended up not doing anything except go out to eat some Chinese food. My husband didn’t feel like watching holiday specials with me so I did my own thing while he played video games. Probably the lamest Halloween I’ve had in a long time.

Chestnuts roasted by Annette @ 11/01/2009 12:20 PM

For those interested Target has Boo and Franken Berry on sale for $1.68 a box. Buy em while you can…………

Chestnuts roasted by Shawn @ 11/01/2009 12:34 PM

You’re absolutely right Matt, those cornspawn are made out of corn-on-the-cob holders! I’m actually disassembling it now as I’m reading through the comments. Hopefully the clay chunks can be washed off of the metal prongs. At least we’ll now have corn holders that have angry faces on them.

My Halloween was laidback but thoroughly enjoyable. Just a few of us gathered at my sister’s house to watch the Phillies play (and lose :( ). We ate chicken nuggets and fries and cheesecake brownies and Sour Patch kids. We only got about 5 or 6 groups of kids (there aren’t many kids in her neighborhood) but most of the groups had about four kids in them. We didn’t buy much candy, so we were wiped clean.

I really, really love Count Dogula.

Chestnuts roasted by Stephanie @ 11/01/2009 1:10 PM

Hey, Matt. I think you should have a contest to see who gets to keep the sneakers.

Chestnuts roasted by ReesiePuffs @ 11/01/2009 1:34 PM

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under 2009 Halloween Countdown, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.