Eli Roth’s History of Horror

Hello and welcome back,

I want to start with saying I am not a documentary person. They bore me and just generally not my cup of tea. Although, I just recently binge watched Eli Roth’s History of Horror documentary series.

It was fantastic. I ask every horror movie fan to check it out. The show goes through the history of different types of horror movies. Such as Slasher films, creatures, demons, and vampires.. of coarse there are more topics but that’s just a few. The show has interviews with all kinds of people. Directors from different horror movies throughout time, actors and actresses from horror movies, horror novelists, and movie fanatics.

I learned a lot watching this series and I found myself super interested in different movies I myself have never seen. It opens your eyes to different horror genres and what makes them so special. From black and white silent films to more recent horror films like IT. The directors don’t give to much away but tell you just enough about the movies to draw you in.

The show is amazing and I cannot give better reviews on it. Eli Roth is an amazing director, writer, creator, and just master of all things horror. If horror even slightly interests you I recommend checking it out! (Also it has interviews with Stephen King! So there’s that)

If you have tv on demand, that’s where I watched it, if not I know it’s available on AMC’s website.

There are 8 or 9 episodes and they are about 50 minutes long each. Please give it a chance and let me know what you think!

Until Next Time Ghouls and Ghosties,

Ghoulishly Yours, Helena

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Christmas Horror Movies

Welcome back Holly Jolly Ghouls,

I am one of those people who watch Horror year round. Christmas time is no different. My husband and I actually love Christmas Horror movies. I thought it could be fun to share with you all some of our favorites.

KRAMPUS (2015)

A young boy whose family always argues at Christmas, makes a sinister Christmas wish for them to all go away. Krampus arrives with a horrible blizzard trapping the family and essentially tortures the family and picks them off one by one.

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

An escaped maniac returns to his childhood home on Christmas Eve, which is now a sorority house, and begins to murder the sorority sisters one by one. This one is a bit corny and a bit gross but a favorite we watch each year.

P2 (2007)

A businesswoman is pursued by a psychopath after being locked in a parking garage on Christmas Eve.

JACK FROST (1997)

After an accident that left murderer Jack Frost dead in genetic material the vengeful killer returns as a murderous snowman to exact his revenge on the man who sent him to be executed. This one is very corny and kind of reminds me of chucky.

Well that’s my short list of Christmas Horror movies, if you guys and gals can think of any more please let me know in the comments! I would love to check them out.

Until next time Ghouls and Ghosties,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

It’s My Birthday!

Hello Spooky Followers,

It’s been awhile! Since this is my first blog, i quickly realized that writer’s block was an actual thing. After Halloween finished I had no idea what to post about. Although I have found a way around it. I am planning on having a Halloween Christmas. I thought whats a good way to incorporate my favorite holiday with Dylan’s favorite holiday. We decided on A Nightmare Before Christmas. So stay on the look out for more on that in the near future.

Now today is my birthday and I’m really hoping I got something Halloweenie. It’s a nice colder day today, and tonight I’m going to go see the new Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I am so excited to go out. I have seen every Harry Potter movie in theaters and always for my birthday! I have always thought it was cool that the movies come out right around my birthday.  I am a huge Harry Potter fan. Slytherin here.

I’m actually a part of a huge online Harry Potter group, called The Vanishing Cabinet. In the group it is set up like an actual Hogwarts experience. We have classes, shops, games, and even Quidditch! I am Slytherin HOH and I Love it! Needless to say I am so excited for tonight to see the newest movie!

I hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I’ll try to make a few more posts in the next few days and get my blog active again. If you have anything you would like me to review or talk about in future posts either send the page a message or leave a comment below!

Until Next Time Ghouls and Ghosties,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

Disneys Original Halloween Movies

Welcome back Ghouls and Ghosties,

Recently I decided to play all the original Disney Halloween movies for my son. I wasn’t really sure how it would go since the ones I chose were not really cartoons. We started with HalloweenTown.

HalloweenTown

13-year-old Marnie Cromwell discovers she is a witch. Marnie and her brother Dylan travel to another world and attempt to help their witch Grandmother to save the residents of Halloweentown.

As a child this was my favorite Halloween movie. My grandmother and I would watch it every Halloween. I remember when the second one came out she let me stay up late and watch it with her. My son loved the music and all the magic in the movie. He got bored with all the talking but he adored the magic!

Don’t Look Under the Bed

A teen named Francis enlists the help of an imaginary friend named Larry Houdini to deal with a prank-playing bogeyman, who’s framing her for his dastardly deeds.

As a child this movie freaked me out. It was about the boogeyman, and all those dolls whose heads turned and followed your every move wigged me out. My son loved the movie. He thought Larry was funny and wanted to make some BoogieGoo!

Under Wraps

Three very different kids from together to help a mummy find his love.

This movie was set on Halloween and I enjoyed watching it every year. The props in this movie were amazing. I hate how Halloween movies today even for kids have lots of crappy costumes and cheap looking props and decorations. Movies like Under Wraps had amazing props and costumes and made you really wish you could live in a town that celebrated Halloween like them. This movie my son kind of paid attention to and kind of didn’t. For me tho, it totally held up.

Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire

The Hansen kids are in a jam. Adam and his best friend Duffy have gotten their hands on some tickets for the Headless Horseman concert, and his sister Chelsea has a date with her dreamy boyfriend Peter. The only problem is their both grounded. Chelsea and Adam will do whatever it takes to get their mom Lynette out of the house, even if it includes a chance meeting with a very mysterious man. Everything seems to go according to plan until their little brother Taylor realizes that this stranger might be a vampire.

This movie is just plain fun. It has Vampires, movie monsters, a cute little family and a vampire hunter. A group of kids try to set their mom up so she can be happy only to discover they set her up with a real life vampire. I have always loved this movie, and my son loved it also. He enjoyed dancing to the music at the club scene.

Tower of Terror

A disgraced reporter investigates an abandoned luxury hotel where five people mysteriously disappeared sixty years earlier.

I remember this movie freaking me out as a child. The part where the ghosts are trying to scare them away wigged me out. My son though it was funny and absolutely loved the bell hop ghost! It was so much fun rewatching this movie and my son enjoying it with me.

Phantom of the Megaplex

A young man working at a cinema on a special premiere night, finds that the films being shown are full of strange and eerie occurrences.

Fun Fact. Dylan and I both worked at a movie theatre for 8 years. My mother, my aunt, my uncle, and my grandparents have all worked at movie theaters in their lifetime. This movie is so cute. A modern take on Phantom at the Opera, but at a movie theatre with kids. As a child I always wanted to work at a theatre, and hoped something like this would happen. Unfortunately no phantoms haha My son liked it and then begged me to go watch a movie. haha

Those were all the movies we have watched so far, and it totally made me miss my childhood. I’m happy to be able to watch these movies with my son and im glad he enjoyed them aswell.

Let me know in the comments below any movies I missed or didn’t think of.

Until next time Ghouls and Ghosts,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

Trick or Treating

Hello Ghouls and Ghosties,

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. Last night Dylan and I took our son trick or treating. It was the first year Dylan didn’t close on Halloween and got to come with. It was a blast.

We had a theme with our costumes. Our son was CatBoy from PJ Masks, Dylan was the Joker and I was Harley Quinn. Also a first, the first time in the 8 years we’ve been together that Dylan agreed to dress up with me. I let Dylan pick our costumes and he did great.

First we went to our small town trunk or treat. The entire down town decorates their trucks and cars and passes out candy. The town did wonderful. The people were giving handfuls of candy and they even had a small carnival. You play a game and win either candy or a small prize. Our son was really good at the bean bag toss!

Fun Fact about my son. He loves witches and blow ups. When he seen this witch blow up he wanted to give her his balloon. He spent a good five minutes playing with the witch before he wanted to move on and start playing the games.

There was another little game where you try to throw a cardboard pizza on pizza pans and if you win you get a free ice cream. It was so cute and sweet!

Next, we went to another trunk or treat at a local church. It was very small this year and not a lot of people but it was raining. The church people were so sweet and kind.

Then Dylan and I decided we really wanted to try to find door to door trick or treating. My son has been watching YouTube videos like crazy this month and a lot of people who live in cities go door to door. He has been begging us to go door to door and we kept telling him we had no idea if there was such a thing here.

We found a smaller neighborhood that had some waking to each house. He LOVED it. We went to 6 houses and it was so much fun. He got to ring door bells and he very sweetly would say trick or treat, Happy Halloween and then Thank you. He got 14 pieces of candy from 6 houses! It was awesome. We will definitely go back next year to that little neighborhood for him.

It was a very fun night of Trick or Treating and we went to Sonic for .50 corn dogs afterwards! It was a huge hit and a wonderful Halloween. I hope all of your Halloween’s were just as magical.

Now that Halloween is over for the rest of the world, doesn’t mean its over for us. Over the next 12 months I will still be here writing about different Halloweenie and Spooky things and adventures so stay tuned.

Until Next Time Ghouls and Ghosties,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

Halloween Day

It’s finally here ghouls and ghosties. I am so excited to have finally reached my favorite day of the year.

Halloween tradition in my family has always been carving pumpkins and trick or treating.

Halloween stems from the Celtic holiday known as Samhain. Celebrated from October 31 to the end of November 1st. In Celtic Ireland about 2,000 years ago, Samhain was the division of the year between the lighter half (summer) and the darker half (winter). At Samhain the division between this world and the other world was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through.

The family ancestors were honored and invited to celebrate at the family home while the evil and bad spirits were warded off. Everyone would wear masks and costumes to disguise themselves as bad spirits so that the bad spirits would leave them alone. Bonfires and feasts were also used in celebration.

Christianity started celebrating the dead with all saints day on November first followed by all souls day on November second. Christians also took upon wearing masks and costumes to ward off evil spirits.

Day of the Dead is the Mexican (Aztec) version of Halloween. Celebrated from October 31-November 2nd.  The Aztecs believed in honoring the dead ancestors by having these beautiful feasts int he graveyards with the spirits. They believed that the spirits could come celebrate with them in the mortal world.

I love learning about all the different cultures and there takes on Halloween and celebrating the dead. I am so excited my son loves Halloween as much as I do. For today we will be binge watching Halloween movies/t.v shows and then tonight it will be trick or treating.

The goal this year is to find actual houses to trick or treat at. We live in such a rural area that the houses are so spread out so there are normally just a few churches doing trunk or treats in the parking lot. I’ll post tomorrow with pictures of our costumes and telling about all our adventures.

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween

Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

Halloween Weekend

Hello Ghouls and Ghosties,

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! For our final weekend of October we took our son to a few Trick or Treating places in the community.

Target Paw Patrol Event

First off Target had a Paw Patrol Trick or Treat event in the store. My son was Catboy from PJ Masks. The event was very small. You enter the store and there is a person at a small table passing out a Paw Patrol tub for the event. The lady told us that there were two tables throughout the store passing out candy and little activities. Unfortunately only one table was set up and it was right next to the toy isle.. my son was more interested in the toys then getting the one piece of candy haha. We tried to find the other table but the woman who was running it put it up an hour early. It was a cute little thing for the kids but also disappointing to go all that way in costume for one piece of candy.

HYVEE HALLOWEEN PARTY

Next, we decided to go to the Hyvee Halloween Party. It was SO fun! The first 100 children got a free trick or treat bag to use throughout the store and we got one of the first 5! You go from station to station throughout the store. Starbucks, Chinese restaurant, butcher, baker, ect.. They each give you a piece of candy. Then there was a cotton candy person passing out cotton candy. Then there was a cooking decorating station, and a pumpkin coloring station. Both my son loved. It was a cute little trick or treating experience and my son loved it!

The Strip, Trick-or-Treating

There is a place near where I live called the Strip. It is a street filled with businesses and its right next to the damn. The entire street decided to pass out candy to the kids! We started at on end of the street, crossed the highway and went down the other. The treats ranged from candy, to Fudge pops from the local fudge store. There was a smaller area where there was games set up. You win the game you get a prize. Either candy or a small toy. My sons first time attempting golf and he got the ball in the first try! They also had a cookie decorating station here. This was a super fun experience and I love that our community put this together for the kids.

To finish the weekend on Sunday we carved our pumpkins.

My son painted his first and then with a little help from his Nan, they carved a face. I made mine into a scary face and Dylan made his into Jason from the Friday the 13th movies.

It was a great weekend and I’m looking forward to Halloween. Dressing up and going trick or treating! Stay tuned lovely ghouls.

Until Next Time Ghouls and Ghosties,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

The Haunted Holler

Hello Ghouls and Ghosties,

Halloween sure is flying by this month. I hope your all enjoying yourselves. Last Friday night Dylan and I went to a small haunted house called the Haunted Holler.

This Haunted House was running its third year. The first two years was a haunted trail throughout 1/4 mile trail in the woods.

This year was a little different. It was a much smaller little trail/house and then the option to shoot zombies with paintball.

We were just going to do the Haunted Trail this year, but to be fair to the blog we thought we should do the entire experience so we could give the best review.

Lets start with the Trail.. It was definitely fun with lots of screaming actors who jump out right behind you and scream in your ear. It definitely made me jump a few times. I would recommend making the Haunt a little longer, it took less than 5 minutes to go through the entire thing.

Next was the Paintball zombies. Now this was a fun idea. You get 100 paintballs to shoot at the targets and zombies. It was  fun to shoot some paintballs, but once again there were only two zombies to shoot at.. and they just stood there and let you shoot at them. Dylan loved this because he loves to shoot paintball, but I however wish there would have been a little bit more bang for the buck.

Pricing:

Just The Haunted Trail: $5
Paintball and Haunted House: $15

I give them an overall 7/10. I did love it in previous years, and I do know they spent more time turning into a paintball event this year. Which I believe they are opening up their own paintball company so it makes sense. I hope next year they add a little more but I will go back and support them because it was a good little haunt.

I recommend everyone to check it out, especially if paintball is your thing!

This weekend we will be going to many different kid friendly trick or treat parties, at local businesses so make sure to check back throughout the weekend and see how that went!

Until Next Time Ghouls and Ghosties
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena

Halloween 2018

Hello again Ghouls and Ghosties,

This edition of Trick or Treat is about the new Halloween movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD

Dylan and I went and seen it Friday night and then again Sunday morning.  We wanted to see if there was anything we had missed.

“Halloween” opens with a pair of pod-casters going to meet Michael and Laurie for a piece they’re doing. Michael has been completely silent for four decades, never saying a word, but the pod-casters think it a good idea to bring him his mask on the day of the interview, meaning they will be nearby when Mike later escapes and beats them to death. As he makes his way back to Haddonfeld on Halloween, a dozen or so victims stand in his way, including Laurie’s granddaughter and some of her teenage friends, some cops, and a few other locals. There’s an excellently staged sequence as Michael’s killing spree starts and the camera stays mostly outside of homes, watching the icon go about his work through windows.

I feel the remake is a lot like the original. Meaning alot of small things happen almost exactly the same. This movie has a very empowering woman standpoint going on. You can’t play the victim forever is the vibe you get from Laurie.

One of the teenagers asks what is so scary about a man with a knife who only killed five  people forty years ago, When the world is a much scarier place in 2018. With the war, serial killings, people with guns, and movies like jigsaw. So the directors answer the question. They up the horror factor. The killings are much more graphic in this movie. Which was a nice taste to the new horror genres.

Laurie is a survivor of P.T.S.D and this movie kind of circles this throughout. Laurie is an ace shot with a front door covered in padlocks and a bunker beneath her home. And that trauma spreads generationally, most evident in poor Karen her adult daughter, who hates Halloween so much she wears a Christmas sweater on Halloween and who saw the worst of her mother’s survivalist self-preservation, to the point that Child Services removed her from Laurie’s care.

Laurie and Karen have a horribly rocky relationship because of how Karen was raised. That doesn’t stop Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson and Laurie having a pretty good relationship. Allyson feels bad for her grandmother and wants to help her.

This movie likes to make you know time and time again that there were no sequels, in this version Laurie and Michael were not related, there was no rhyme or reason as to why Michael went after her. In my opinion it was much scarier when you knew the two were siblings.

I wont give away the latter half of this movie, you have to see it for yourself.

I would give this movie a 8/10 score

The graphics are better.+
The acting is spot on.+
A few things that didn’t quite make sense.-
The music was spot on all the way through.+
Many, Many more killings.+

I would definitely give this movie a chance. Go into it with an open mind, and just allow yourself to watch. It has some jump scares, and some of those oh my goodness moments.

I’m glad I got to watch it twice, and will definitely be buying this movie once it comes out on dvd.

Thanks For reading Ghouls and Ghosties,
Until Next Time,
Ghoulishly Yours,
Helena