Showing posts with label haunted houses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haunted houses. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2010

Our Christmas in 2010, Part 2

Zombie Claus came over for Christmas.

Well, kids, you may remember that last time I posted some pics of the spooky/kooky/altogether ooky friends' home I visited on Christmas. Let's continue the tour! (Click on the photos and enlarge them--there's so much "cool ghoul" detail.)

Here's the front parlor (I use this old term on purpose--as in "funeral parlor") as you look to the right:

Our gracious and ghoulish (g)hosts, Bill and Ariann.

I said to Bill and Ariann, "The Christmas decor in most people's homes today says 'Believe.' Yours says 'Beware!'"

Skulls make for a striking kitchen decor. These were placed near the bottles of poisons and acids.

There was an exchange of gifts. I got some skull-and-crossbones bling and monster books; Jane got some horror-related books, too. We gave them a "witch's garden" (a spookily-decorated terrarium) to grow plants mentioned in spell books, and the latest issue of Famous Monsters magazine.

Now let's look into the dining room--


We had a bountiful feast, although I noticed the joint of ham served looked a lot like a thigh from a "long pig" instead of a real oinker. It tasted like ham and looked like ham, but perhaps it was a roast. Chuck, perhaps.

The ale that we drank to keep us hale:

We talked about a lot of things during dinner, like the recent solar eclipse that occurred on the same day as the winter equinox. I was the only one among us who'd managed to see it, and said the moon that night looked to me like a pink pearl in the night sky.The fast-moving, very thin clouds high up in the sky that night made the pale orb appear to pulse.

Other odd things recently seen were a man who was a deep gray blue, a skin condition that comes from ingesting too much colloidial silver. (It results in argyria, whose only benefit is warding off werewolves and vampires.) We also talked about forgotten old Christmas traditions, such as telling ghost stories, or playing the game snapdragon, where raisins are placed in a wide shallow bowl and covered with brandy, which is set on fire. The object is to reach into the fire and grab the raisins, the winner was whoever got the most or was able to look like a dragon by blowing the burning vapor out after tossing the raisins into one's mouth.

Bill, Ariann, Jane and I gathered around the tv later to watch The Bells, a classic silent about murder, a ghost, a hypnotist and a nagging conscience, loosely based on an Edgar Allan Poe poem. It was heartwarming.

Then we said our thanks and goodbyes to our generous friends, and went home. We felt the need to watch a religious film before the holiday was done, so of course we popped in The Exorcist. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Monday, January 19, 2009

SEE CASA CABEZA!

Yes, you can take a text-and-photo tour of my new house (that I spent a snowy New Year's Eve moving into) by clicking on the link below, which takes you to a page at the Universal Monster Army site (I help moderate there.) The tour begins after the first couple of postings, and then begins again on the following page of the thread:

Finally settling into Casa Cabeza

Sunday, November 2, 2008

What has eaten up most of my free time for months

Finding a house has been the all-consuming activity of the last few months, but now Jane and I have found one and close the sale in the middle of November. Here is the future Casa Cabeza:


Is the house haunted?

Not until I move in.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Visit CASTLE BLOOD!

If you live in or near western Pennsylvania, I urge you to tour CASTLE BLOOD, a top-rated Halloween attraction that puts the emphasis on macabre mystery and memorable weird characters-- and it has many more props and scenes than other attractions its size. Click on the image below to go to the Castle Blood website, where you can see and hear more. Open through Nov. 1rst!

Jane and I will be taking the trip to experience the haunted horror of CASTLE BLOOD-- join us!


Monday, October 6, 2008

31 Days of Halloween: OOTBDCIES!

No, the word above isn't pronounced"ootbadeechies." It is my way of shortening "One Of The Best Damn Costumes I've Ever Seen." Photos and video of the costume (an 8 foot tall female gargoyle) can be found at this post and this post at the blog Hell Bus.

The latter post includes the author's description of her work in a haunted house attraction, and is pretty amusing. An earlier post on the same topic is also interesting (if a tad disturbing about how freaked out and frightened grown people can get at such places.)

The author is a woman named Holly, and her imagination and enthusiasm are dazzling and delightful. I really recommend you read her blog Hell Bus.

You can also read about *my* experiences working in a haunted house attraction here, a post at the intelligent, fun, jam-packed site Zombos' Closet of Horror.


Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Not too late to visit Castle Blood!

After participating in the Zombie Fest here in Pittsburgh (more on this tomorrow), Jane the Voodoo Queen and I went to check out CASTLE BLOOD, a haunted house attraction in southwest Pennsylvania, maybe 30 miles from Pittsburgh. We had a good time, as this was different from the usual maze chock-a-block with rubber masks, gore and chainsaw-wielding loonies. (Not that there's anything wrong with those things.) This was an old Victorian house refurbished as a home of many supernatural characters, who help their guests with a spooky quest to find talismans.

Very atmospheric, and the range of creepy characters was a plus.

There was also a talking severed head there, and so I felt right at home! Based on a browsing of the Castle Blood website, is apparently one of some characters introduced this year. The characters of past years are still visible at the site, and some make return appearances this year.

The hosts of Castle Blood are Gravely and Grizelda, who have their own TV show, Midnight Monster Hop.

Naturally, I couldn't take photos inside, but below are some photos of characters we met outside and some details of the outside facade. (It really is a home where real people live upstairs, although I saw a strange, ghostly face in one of the upper windows; the "real people" are Ricky and Karen D., and they bear a strong family resemblance to Gravely and Griselda.)

If you're in the southwest Pennsylvania area on Halloween (it's closed on Tuesdays), go see this spooky site-- and have fun storming the Castle!








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