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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
1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 9

Well, Happy After Halloween kids,

Had a fairly good time last night. I thought I was going to crap out and not have any real costume to speak of because I just couldn’t decide what to do, but on my way to pick up a friend, I swung by Walgreens and spotted a Michael Jackson zombie mask. Not something I ever thought I’d do for Halloween, but I bought it on a whim (all their Halloween stuff was 1/2 off and I also ended up with 2 sets of F13 and Nightmare on Elm St. shot glasses).

Picked my friend up and we ended up going to a cool house party where we hung out with another friend who went as Coraline. The house was enormous. I’ve been there for parties before and the guy that owns it is pretty well off and the whole thing is decked out in old horror memorabilia. He even had someone outside doing twirling fire sticks and things. Afterwards, we went to a club to meet up with some other friends but couldn’t find them because the place was so packed. So my friend’s ride picked her up and I headed out by myself to my local dive. Throughout the night, my cheap MJ mask, which was bought solely just to have something, got a much better reception than I thought it would. People were freaking out and taking their pictures with me and genuinely really scared of it or thought it was hilarious. There really is something about walking around in disguise that’s very liberating. You kind of see things differently through those rubber eye holes.

Throughout the whole night I saw the following:
-2 guys dressed as the kid from Where the Wild Things Are
-2 original Silk Spectres
-1 new Silk Spectre
-Various other members of The Watchmen
-1 X-23 (for you X-men comic book folks)
-A Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love couple
-1 Greenman (from It’s Always Sunny in Philedelphia)
-1 Billy Mays
-Various John and Kate Gosselins

But my favorite one of the night, hands down, was Miss Argentina from the waiting room in Beetlejuice.

“If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have had my little…accident.”

Chestnuts roasted by DJ D @ 11/01/2009 1:43 PM

x-23? That’s awesome, no pics I’m guessing?

Chestnuts roasted by SevenYearsThisSunday @ 11/01/2009 1:46 PM

Man, Halloween sucked.

I wanted to stay home and watch horror movies with my family, but I had to work. Besides, no candy.

Driving through town, no Halloween decorations. Bummer.

So I was going to make the best of it and go to work in a Grim Reaper/zombie motif, but WE CAN’T WEAR MASKS for safety reasons. So no costume for me, as all the facepaint and maskless costumes are sold out.

Not only that, no one was wearing any costumes (FACEPAINT FOR YOUR FAVORITE FOOTBALL TEAM IS NOT A COSTUME, PEOPLE!) and the store I work at was busy removing the Halloween items and replacing them with Christmas stuff. No kids in costumes came into the store, NO ONE EVEN SAID HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

There was no Halloween themed music on the radio (I even prayed for the goddamn Monster Mash to no avail) so I had to make due by listening to Thriller on my MP3 player 5 times in a row when I realized that Halloween is just dead. :(

To make things worse, one of my (now ex) friends came up to chat and I asked him what he did for Halloween, to which he replied “I got laid, which is something that might happen to you if you weren’t so obsessed with a little kid’s holiday”.

I couldn’t hit him and still keep my job, so I just broke off friendship with him.

Can we just terminate all human life now? If we don’t hold holidays sacred anymore, then we don’t hold ANYTHING sacred anymore, and thus are no better than non-sentient beings like animals.

tl;dr: Halloween was a total depression trip, I hate people.

Chestnuts roasted by Cadpig @ 11/01/2009 2:37 PM

@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.

Chestnuts roasted by SevenYearsThisSunday @ 11/01/2009 2:45 PM

Emosawa= I’d love to see that one.

Cadpig= Where do you live, in a town full of those Witnesses?

Well, my Halloween was a little exciting. Some guys set off firecrackers, and others, including my neighbors, played Tejano music loud enough to he heard 2 blocks away. I could even hear the people leving by the creek partying.

Well, tomorrow is Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of The Dead. When we honor relatives and friends who have passed on to the Next World. I’m planning on honoring my relatives. And all the Xenomorphs who were killed in the Aliens movies.

Chestnuts roasted by Lonestar76 @ 11/01/2009 4:01 PM

Matt your Halloween jukebox was a huge hit for all the kids (and their parents) last night. I managed to set it up with some big speakers outside – thanks for the new tradition!

Chestnuts roasted by Ford @ 11/01/2009 4:15 PM

SevenYearsThisSunday: No, I really should have talked to her and taken pictures. It didn’t hurt that she was pretty foxy too. A hot girl doing a nerdy comic book Halloween costume? What was I thinking hiding behind my Michael Jackson mask all night?

As for trick-or-treaters, I had one. I must have spent 20 minutes dividing up all my candy into neat little baggies so that I could portion it out evenly, and then one person showed up. And she only came over because she’s the niece of the people that live across the street from me, and I’m kind of friendly with them. At least she was in costume. Last year I had a group of about 7 or 8 little rugrats that came screaming at my door without costumes, holding plastic bags. They grabbed handfuls of my candy, then stole one of the hands off one of my skeletons outside. Bastards. At least this year there was no petty theft involved. And what’s up with 18 year olds going around trick-or-treating? I pulled up to pick up my friend from her place last night and there was a group of guys on her porch and not a one of them could have been younger than 16 or 17. No costumes. Just a bunch of shady teenage guys walking around knocking on doors.

What the hell is this world coming to? I don’t want to get all “back in my day…”, but well, back in my day things were different. You got excited about trick-or-treating. You carefully selected your costume. Hell, you wore a costume, and went through the motions. You hit every house you could and screamed trick-or-treat at every doorstep like your life depended on it. And when you hit a certain age you called it off.

And they didn’t start putting Christmas stuff out in October, dammit!

Chestnuts roasted by DJ D @ 11/01/2009 4:36 PM

Thanks for another great Halloween season here on X-E, Matt. The shoebox die-o-ramas were all awesome. I am kind of sad to see Halloween go already, but I am sure this site will have me itching to put up candy canes, Rudolphs and snowmen soon enough.

No trick-or-treaters in our neck of the woods. But the wife and I had a wonderful night in just watching the assortment of horror movies that were on virtually every station yesterday. Had a mini-marathon of “Halloween” sequels between AMC and F/X… and then had a lengthy discussion trying to have them make sense in the continuity with “H20″. Aw, good times.

Chestnuts roasted by Jon @ 11/01/2009 4:53 PM

my husband and i were out this afternoon around osu campus and saw several sluts and dudes doing the walk of shame home.

Chestnuts roasted by DasTeufulNagatier @ 11/01/2009 5:11 PM

Despite the (expected) lack of trick-or-treaters at home, Halloween went quite well here. Didn’t quite get in all the movies I was planning on, but other fun was had in it’s stead. Drove around town to see how badly all this “trunk-or-treat” and “Fall Family Festival that we refuse to call by it’s real name” business impacted the traditional turnout, and I was pleasantly surprised by the absolute hordes of trick-or-treaters roaming the sidewalks. A few less houses decorated than in years past, but considering the economic state of things, I was pleasantly surprised by how much there actually was.

Despite getting a late start and only finishing it around an hour before November crept up on us, I’m thrilled with how my pumpkin turned out! Tedious, and with a few close calls, but totally worth the effort. My sister was off from work, and her pumpkin turned out great, as well; I especially love the little spider!

Chestnuts roasted by Jugendsehnsucht @ 11/01/2009 5:22 PM

My Halloween was fun but it wasn’t quite a “howling” good time. If anything, I took advantage of the fact that (outside of comic book conventions) Halloween is the only day of the year I can wear my Ghostbusters costume out in public and not receive strange stares from almost every person I come across.

On a more personal note, I need to thank you Matt for keeping up with these countdowns. Reading them have been a real tradition for me for the last 4-5 years now. But as sad as I am that this has ended and know I can look forward (pretty soon, I’m hoping) to my other annual tradition: reading the Christmas countdown/advent calender! Keep it up, Matt!

Chestnuts roasted by Rentongb @ 11/01/2009 5:38 PM

Been blasting the x-mas jukebox all day at work. With Halloween over ’tis the season.

Chestnuts roasted by Shawn @ 11/01/2009 6:39 PM

Been blasting the x-mas jukebox all day at work. With Halloween over ’tis the season.

Chestnuts roasted by Shawn @ 11/01/2009 6:40 PM

It’s 3:30 and the sun is going down. :|

I think the only thing that will keep my spirits up is to start my annual reread of the advent calander. It will take me at least a few weeks to be back up to speed. Just need a cup of tea, put on a little Vince Guaraldi and fire up the pine tree candle.

Where would I be without X-E? Probably a little more productive.

Chestnuts roasted by Bill @ 11/01/2009 7:38 PM

Jon: Yeah, I’ve always kind of wondered about that too. I caught those same marathons you were talking about last night as I was cooking dinner and preparing my candy for all the trick-or-treaters I didn’t get. The people who continued the series a little later on did conveniently leave a few things out and put a few things in. Such as, in Part 6, Mrs. Blackenship goes into that story about how she was babysitting Michael Meyers the night he killed his sister, but that’s the first you’ve ever heard of it. If you go back and watch the first one again, there’s no babysitter to be seen. Also, I’ve always wondered whatever became of his parents. His whole M.O. is that he’s trying to kill off his whole family, but aside from the opening scene of the first movie, you never see or hear anything about his parents again. I would think they would be the two obvious targets.

Jugendsehnsucht: Nice job on the punkins there. I especially like the detail on your sister’s, with the porch steps and the bat and everything. I’ll have some pics posted soon of the 3 that I carved this year.

Bill: I’m with ya. I need to do some catching up myself. Shamefully, I never even read last year’s calendar, and after all this time I’ve nearly forgotten everything that’s happened before that. I wonder if there will be more conspiracy shenanigans this year, and if so, how deep will the rabbit hole go?

Chestnuts roasted by DJ D @ 11/01/2009 7:41 PM

Cadpig:Your former friend sounds like a really obnoxious jerk. I can see why you stopped being friends with him. And why you wanted to hit him. I also agree that it sucks to see Halloween become less important as time goes on. Although I didn’t see alot of trick or treaters walking the streets of my neighborhood, I DID see A LOT of em at our local trunk or treat event. They may not of have been collecting free candy the traditional way, but they were still out in costume having fun, and celebrating the holiday.

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 11/01/2009 7:56 PM

It’s official. My Halloween was pretty bad.
The redeeming moment was seeing five little zombies in the hour we had our light on.
You go, zombies!

Chestnuts roasted by Emily @ 11/01/2009 8:44 PM

Welcome to the club, cadpig~

Chestnuts roasted by Neg @ 11/01/2009 9:28 PM

Matt I just wanted to say thanks for the great Halloween Countdown. I can’t wait for December to get here!

Chestnuts roasted by Capt. Will @ 11/01/2009 9:30 PM

For my halloween, i watched two Pumpkinhead movies in a row:Ashes to Ashes and Blood Feud.It many not seem like much on a glance but, if you’ve watched them, you know how awesome that is.

Chestnuts roasted by BloodMist @ 11/01/2009 10:42 PM

Cadpig, that fucking sucks, sorry.

My Halloween was pretty good- first year in a long time I’d actually really done something. Went to a couple parties, last minute costume of Mad Scientist. Ended up running into a bunch of friends with a running Alice In Wonderland motif. A buddy of mine did a makeshift Two-Face costume that kicked ass.

Since when is it a kids holiday? Hell, I knew a couple people in their 20s who went trick or treating. And at the nightclub nearly everybody was in costume, with an age range of like 18 to 50.

Most interesting costumes? A group of Zombie Nazis with their pal John Lennon-the “black sheep of the group”

Chestnuts roasted by Tutsuro @ 11/02/2009 12:27 AM

I just spent all day watching the two “V” miniseries on Syfy. Not bad at all.

Chestnuts roasted by King JLA @ 11/02/2009 12:58 AM

I had an interesting Halloween.

I work at a mall, and this is the first Halloween where I’ve both worked and worked at a mall, and apparently they have mall trick-or-treating. It seems fairly obvious I guess. Like how could I have missed that? But I honestly never thought about it before…going door to door, or in this case, store to store, asking for candy. And I’m not sure what I really expected, but HOLY CRAP! Every kid in town showed up, or so it seemed. From 3.00-7.30, I did nothing but hand out candy. I guess it helps that I work in a chocolate shop, but still, I wasn’t expecting a line as long as next Christmas. Of course we ran out of free candy. And after that, we started giving out shit that WASN’T for free. And then I eventually called it quits. I mean, by this point kids were making their second rounds, and if parents are desperate enough they can BUY their kid candy. Why do you go trick-or-treating at a mall anyway? Half the fun is ringing the door bell. I mean, c’mon!

Anyway, I did see some interesting costumes. One kid had a homemade alligater head as a mask, with two chomping jaws cut from cardboard extending from his head. That was pretty cool, I thought. Another kid was a scuba diver, with a rather innovative costume. Then there was a surfer girl, in a wet suit with a surf board also cut from cardboard. Aside from that was the expect array of superheros and transformers. I thought this one kid was dressed up as Venom, but he scolded me saying he was the symbiote Spider-Man from the movie. “Okay,” I said, dissapointed simply because if had been Venom, it would’ve been like a 10,000,000 times awesomer! I also saw a kid dressed as Captain America. That surprised me simply because he’s about the only super hero left without a major movie from the last 5 years to back him up. I was happy this little kid thought of ole Captain A’ and doubly surprised that he found a store bought costume.

After work, I lit my jack-o-lantern, hung out with my bro, and indulged in some festivities that included episodes of Tales From the Crypt and old school video games like Ghouls and Ghosts and Darkstalkers. Rather low key, but enjoyable nonetheless. I always feel like I need to make Halloween night some sort of unforgetable adventure that will be retained in my memory forever, but it always tends to fall short. I’m not complaining, but it’s just strange when you put all this time and effort into this holiday that lasts for only a day. Then again, the fact that I’ve been essentially celebrating since the 1st of September really puts my conscience at ease, but if nothing else, finally seeing my Die-O-Rama on X-E really made it a night to remember. Thanks for that Matt! Now I can die content.

Chestnuts roasted by namideo @ 11/02/2009 2:56 AM

http://www.focusstone.com/gallery for our party pictures in the UK. Fourth page of the ‘Helloween2009′ folder contains a little movie of the ‘get completely wrapped up in clingfilm wear identical masks and race down the street’ game. The screaming you hear is my 6 year old son who fell over.

Chestnuts roasted by UK Matt @ 11/02/2009 3:25 AM

Sorry I am so late to the party.
I actually was on here a lot but never got around to posting.
Anyways, the girls got a good haul this year.
Allie went as Belle from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and E. Claire went as (this was NOT my idea but I think it shows my influence) Catra from SHE-RA.
Nuff said.

Happy Belated-ween!.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44191401@N05/show/with/4062906952/

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 11/02/2009 6:12 AM

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