Happy Halloween, to all the sweet pumpkins who read my blog. 
Here’s my costume this year:
(Yes, I’m joking…)
One Halloween, when I was a little boy, I remember walking up to a house that had a scarecrow sitting on a stack of hay. He looked like a natural part of the decorations, blending in with the spider webs, pumpkins, and such.
As I stepped up onto the porch, the Scarecrow jumped at me, instilling fear in poor little Nathan that I have never forgotten. I probably never will!
I am almost certain at least one of you has a similar story. It’s mean, it’s awful, it scars children for life. I was always afraid to go trick or treating after that night.
…Which is exactly why I must do it to young children now that I’m an adult.
Should I do it? Would it be evil? Wickedly cruel? I’m thinking about it. Just imagine being the mean man who brought fear to children the rest of their lives on Halloween.
There is a perfect corner on our porch… they’d never even see me until… BOO!
Putting all his negative traits aside, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video is still a classic. I’d forgotten how much I love this. Damn, the 80’s were good.
Tonight I’m in the mood to discuss scary movies. The first is “Psycho”, which I’ve posted about several times before, and it remains my favorite movie. I don’t know if any of you have heard about this, but a man named Rob Galluzzo is ambitiously putting together his own documentary called “The Psycho Legacy”, in which he is interviewing cast and crew from the entire franchise.
I love it when people just decide to go for something full force. This is a completely independent project, he didn’t wait around to get help from a studio. He’s been posting news and clips for awhile now on his MySpace page. It’s great to see a work in progress as it comes to life.
Here’s a brief tour of the Bates Motel:
Also, “Psycho IV” is finally coming to DVD for the first time in the U.S.! It’s part of a triple pack with “Psycho II” and “Psycho III.” As expected, they completely skimped on the bonus features. I hope someday the “Psycho” movies are released in a boxed set that does them justice. But this is a step in the right direction.
Next up is the “Halloween” remake. Whenever I hear about a remake, I just naturally roll my eyes and have my doubts. I hate to be that way, but come on… You know what I’m talking about.
In any case, Rob Zombie is the director and this version is both a remake and a prequel. It’s supposed to delve deeper into Michael’s troubled childhood and focus on how he grew to become the monster he was.
It sounds like a lot of work was put into this production, so I’m staying optimistic. The impact of the original “Halloween” is something that can’t be overstated enough. It launched the whole 80’s horror film craze with masked serial killers and monster flicks. It’s pretty amazing if you think about it. We’ll see what this remake brings to the table.
Here’s the trailer:
Well, another weekend has come and gone. It’s really been a good one, but I’m sad to see Halloween just two days away. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and once again it feels like time has slipped past me.
To make up for it, Rodney and I have been watching a lot of horror films/thrillers to get in the Halloween spirit. We love scary movies. Features included Hide and Seek, Halloween H20, Dexter, 100 Scariest Moments (something like that), Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, and surely there are some others that I’ve left out. All of this murder and mayhem inspired some pretty vivid nightmares for me last night. As I’ve noted in some of my previous posts, my dreams can be pretty gruesome.
I don’t recall much of it, but last night I had some dream about the killer from the Saw movies. He was trying to kill me, but I ended up killing him. That’s the cool thing about my nightmares– I’m never the victim. If I were in a horror film, I really think I’d be the survivor. 
I’m sure the film fest will conclude with Halloween and Psycho. Halloween the movie is a yearly ritual for both Rodney and me. As for Psycho, that’s my favorite, and Rodney saw it for the first time last Halloween. He’s now a huge fan and agreed that Psycho will be our true Halloween tradition.
I also carved a pumpkin tonight, another one of our traditions. Rodney likes to sit with me and sometimes the kids (i.e. dog and cats) join in too. After that, I baked the pumpkin seeds and seasoned them with garlic, butter, salt and pepper. The whole thing made Rodney gag, but they are really good and very crunchy.
We also made caramel apples, rolled in peanut butter cookie crumbs and two types of chocolate. That doesn’t even include all the candy we’ve been eating. I hope there will be some left for the trick-or-treaters!
That’s been my weekend. I know, probably not very interesting to other people, but it’s been fun for us.
Do you believe in ghosts?
I do. I’m a person who believes there are things in this world that cannot be explained with science. I do believe in an afterlife, although I don’t have any strong or solid opinions about exactly what happens.
One thing that is commonly reported is a feeling of coldness when a ghost is near. I had never experienced this until a few months ago. I was walking Petey down the sidewalk of our street. There is a vacant lot at the very end of the sidewalk. We usually walk from our house to that lot, then turn around and come back.
It was nighttime, and the air was hot and muggy. I was right at the vacant lot and walked through a certain spot on the sidewalk that felt ice cold. I kept walking and the air was hot again.
I thought this was odd, so I turned around and walked through again. In one spot, everything felt cold. I tried going back and forth, and it was hot on each side. But in this one spot, it was consistently cold.
I looked around for some sort of air flow, but there was nothing there to cause the coldness. It was the weirdest thing. I immediately wondered if there was a ghost there, but didn’t really know what else to do. Rodney was asleep, and I didn’t feel like waking him to have him come down and see if he felt it. So I just went home.
I recently had this conversation with my friend Rey, who used to be a ghost hunter. He thinks it sounds possible that there was a ghost there. I’ve never felt the coldness again though. I guess I’m 70% certain about it. There just isn’t a lot to go on.
I would be curious to know what the history of the land is. The neighborhood is very new, and most of the houses were just built in the last 2 years. I would like to find out what happened on the land before the neighborhood. Was the road always there? Was there an accident of some sort?
It’s worth noting that Murfreesboro, TN is considered to be very haunted. During the Battle of Stones River, over 23,000 people died there. It was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. I once wondered if they had died on the land where we live. But after doing some research, I found that the battle took place on a different side of town.
Anyway, that’s my ghostly experience. Not too amazing, but it has made me wonder about what lurks on the land.
This is the best Halloween costume ever.
Okay, not really, but it made me laugh out loud. This guy deserves an award for agreeing to pose for this photoshoot. If you want to see a man dressed as the devil with a buttplug tail, check it out after the jump.
Dan recently asked me to tell a story about a scary experience.
This story is from October, 2005, when our dog Petey was still a baby. Before he was trained, we often had to take him outside in the middle of the night.
Our back patio is fenced, so we just let him go out there and do his business. We live right off an intersection, with only a hill of grass in between our fence and the street.
It was about 3 a.m. (the Devil’s hour, if you didn’t know) and I didn’t bother turning on the porch light. It was dark, and the moon cast an eerie glow over us. I stood outside while Petey sniffed out a spot. I looked up and this very unusual figure was walking down along the hill.
As he passed under a streetlight, I realized how disfigured and scary he looked. He also had a very strange walk. As he got closer, he looked more and more like a monster. He seemed to walk faster and faster.
I became increasingly nervous. I didn’t want him to see me. It would only take a few seconds to run down the hill and jump the fence. I was praying that Petey wouldn’t make a sound.
Petey finished his business and I quickly scooped him up and slipped inside the sliding glass door. I double locked it and closed the blinds. Safe at last.
In daylight, this whole story would be different. But when it’s late at night, and we’re alone…vulnerability creeps up on us. I guess I’ll never know what this thing was doing outside the house. But it scares me to imagine.
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