Chick tracts

I've been meaning to write about this for the last few weeks. Anybody remember those fantastic Chick tracts handed out during Halloween? For those not in the know, chick tracts are little bible pamphlets often left at bus stops and in phone booths. The idea is that random passers-by will pick them up, read, be convinced by a poorly-drawn comic book, and dedicate their souls to Jeebus. Halloween was another special night for witnessing.

I've never understood the point of giving these out on Halloween. First of all, what kid wants reading instead of candy? Granted, most smart givers would give both the tract AND candy, but I remember quite a few houses in which I got only the chick tract. Yeah, that will endear me to the cause. Second, keep in mind that no kid is going to read this in the dark while trick-or-treating. So if Halloween is some big, evil ritual that needs to be stopped, at the very earliest, most kids will only read this when they get home. If the chick tract scares them into holiness, how much do you bet it doesn't last more than a year with most kids? Right back to the Devil's birthday, next year, kiddies! Muh ha ha ha!

(click to enlarge images)




The above is one of the newer ones - I never actually got this one during Halloween, although my daughter might in the next few years. Note how cavalier Chick is about sending kids to hell. Sure, he's only 11, but since he didn't choose Jesus . . .



I actually do remember getting this one as a kid. Note how it not only treats Halloween as evil, but also ties it into the completely bogus paranoia about tainted candy.

My favorite part is how black and white Chick's worldview is. There are literally Satan worshipers living amongst us - probably that Stepfordish-looking woman on the corner. But don't worry, you can always tell who they are in advance, because they all have the same laugh. Chick used up his "haw haw" quota pretty early in this strip.

Halloween recap

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been sick as a dog this entire month and I'm pretty sure it's currently the swine flu. This sucks because I didn't get my ideal "first Halloween" with Baby Charlie. She still did dress up, but I wasn't able to carry her because I didn't want to get her sick. My wife carried her around and we went to a grand total of 3 houses (pretty much the number I expected to go to).

My wife was extremely apologetic at every house we showed up at, "No, no, I'm aware that we're capable of buying our own candy. Heh heh, it's her first Halloween . . ." But seriously, my wife did a wonderful job, and I'm glad that one of us got to go with Baby Charlie for her first trick-or-treat. Pics of Charlie and my wife soon to follow. Pics of me and Baby Charlie once I'm no longer viral.

Haunt review: Darkwood Manor

Although it's not close, Darkwood Manor is easily the best haunt within driving distance of Roanoke. Five out of five stars.

I'll have to write this review carefully, because I don't want to give away any of Darkwood's surprises or tricks. But I can review it in generalized terms.

First, Darkwood is a good blend between well-trained actors and very detailed props. Even on the night when I attended, when they were low a few actors, they kept the scares coming at a pretty good clip. Second, the scares were varied - some were very tongue in cheek, others were very disturbing, many came out of nowhere, and all were well-executed (pun intended). Third, Darkwood's a great value for the money. Not only was I treated to a top-notch haunt, but the "pre-show" when waiting in line was very good (disturbing film reel and very talented line control actors), as well as paranormal investigators at the exit of the haunt. Finally, great ending! I won't spoil the surprise for you, but you'll know where the end is. It was impressive enough that I hung around for half a minute to watch it go. Highly recommended.

Next week - first view of Baby Charlie's costume!

updates and apologies

Apologies to my many, many readers for almost a month of absence! Once the school year starts up, my schedule gets chaotic. But trust me, I am thinking about Halloween near constantly. (promise!)

I've purchased the materials for the Baby Charlie costume and should put pics up as the costume progresses. I've found that unconventional costumes are easy to shop for at fabric shops, because you're often looking for ugly fabric that's on sale. I found a semi-suede dark brown for the alien skin and a pinkish, knotted fabric for the viscera of the "gore-hole". It was actually harder to find a good hoodie for Baby Charlie, but I think I found something that I can build the costume around - something that the ever-expanding baby from beyond won't outgrow within a month.

The marionette project is stalled and it looks unlikely that I'll have it up by Halloween, which is a shame. I got over a major technical hurdle this summer and I now have a working styrafoam turntable. But there were so many other parts to the contraption (let alone the marionette, itself!) that I would seriously need another summer to get anywhere on it. Maybe next year!

Luckily, a semi-decent Halloween store has opened in Roanoke - Spirit Halloween. They seem to have gotten the genius idea to cannibalize the corpse of old Circuit City stores. I don't doubt that they got a great deal. I hope I would be able to do something similar in the future, if I opened a haunt. A space like that would be perfect.

change of plans for baby charlie costume?

For those of you unfamiliar with the Baby Bjorn baby carrier, it's like a harness that straps a baby to your front. Baby Charlie loves it, and is currently big enough to ride in it facing the same direction that I'm facing, about chest height. You see where I'm going with this, yes?

I got the idea for a hilarious baby/daddy combo costume today. We can re-enact the infamous scene from Alien, with me playing the part of poor Kane and Baby Charlie being the chest-burster! Tell me that doesn't rock! Charlie's costume would actually be simpler to make, as all I'd have to do would be to make a tight-fitting alien "hoodie" for her, because only the upper half of her body would be showing. My own costume could be very simple - throwaway clothes from Goodwill with gore around the chest hole.

Seems a shame to give up flying monkey, though. Although I could always do that next year, but she'll definitely be too big for baby bjorn, then.

Howl-o-scream 2009 (tampa)

Holy crap, this looks awesome!



I've been to both the Tampa and Williamsburg Howl-o-screams at their respective Busch Gardens. And while Williamsburg is very good (and close), Tampa is phenomenal. They (both) have such a fine attention to detail, a dark but cheeky sense of humor, and a mastery of timing and atmosphere. Think about how often Disney rolls out a new ride; it's positively glacial. Howl-o-scream reinvents itself EVERY year and it does it very well.

I'm guessing that Williamsburg is a little more kid-oriented (starts during daylight, doesn't go as late, haunts aren't as dark) because the park has been in operation longer and has more of a reputation as family-friendly. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with that. I have a young one, and I'd certainly want her to have fun with Halloween on her first few experiences. So I can definitely see taking Baby Charlie to Williamsburg in a few years. Tampa wouldn't be until (much) later.

The Tampa Busch Gardens is newer, and I think they must have planned for a more adult demographic when designing not just the park, but especially Howl-o-scream. The whole campaign is very slick, very professional - the website does a great job rescuing vampires from the Twilight-inspired wussiness they've gone through in recent years without ugging them out like some have done in recent years.

I really wish I could go to Tampa this year - all of the haunts look fantastic, especially the Nightshade Toy Factory.

marionette update

So the sculpey didn't work. However, I did ask around to people who had done similar projects and I've procured a U-Bolt which works nicely. I've bolted that into a wooden square. The styrafoam wheel now sits on top of the wooden square, and the whole set up works nicely, EXCEPT . . .

The wooden casing that I built for the motor interferes with the U-bolt. ARRRGGHHH! So this means that I will either have to make a new top for the wooden casing, or do away with it altogether and just have the motor by itself.

I'd like to stick with the casing, if at all possible. It keeps the motor from falling over and protects it from the elements. Plus, I spent a lot of time working on it. But in the end, getting the damn puppet moving is the main thing that counts. I'll post again when I've made more progress.

Recommended book

I recently picked up Kelly Allen's book, "So you want to be a haunt entrepreneur?" and I heartily recommend it for anyone wanting to start out in the haunt business. While there are a lot of books out there that instruct you how to make masks and props, this one focuses on the business side of things.

The advice is sobering. Allen covers things from making a business plan in order to procure a loan, to hiring professionals and volunteers to staff your haunt, to getting insurance and protecting yourself financially and legally.

I'm glad that someone took it upon themselves to write a book like this, because it's not the most glamorous subject to write about in regards to haunts, but it's maybe one of the more necessary aspects to it. The idea of making props and bringing spooky ideas to life is just so exciting that no one wants to think about the business side of things. But all it takes is not having insurance when a cast member breaks their neck, not having legal protection when someone sues you, or not getting that loan when your business plan is shoddy or non-existent - to kill your dream or not enable it to happen in the first place.

On "plan B" . . .

One thing I love about making props is the problem solving involved. It's good to run into snags occasionally, because then you have to figure out a way around them. Of course, too many snags is bad for any project. Too many snags means that maybe there's something wrong with the conceptualization of the project.

I'm currently trying to get a motorized marionette ready for Halloween. The central working of it is based off of a small but powerful rotary motor which goes about 33 RPM. Imagine a record player, if you will. If you put a raised track on top of the turntable, and then had arms on pivots moving along the track, then you could attach a marionette to the ends of these arms and have a pretty cool automated prop (see diagram above).

My "turntable" is a styrofoam wheel from a craft store (I picked this because it's light weight). My problem is that the motor is powerful enough that it grinds a hole in the wheel, so the motor keeps on going, but the foam wheel stops.

I've tried a few solutions for this, including a cap on top of the motor shaft. Today, I tried making the part I needed out of baked Sculpey clay. Of course, the motor ground this out, too. So FINALLY, I figured it out. I'll buy a U bolt and just bolt that bastard to a block of wood (the inside of a wooden square, actually). Wheel is then attached to wood, and viola!

Perhaps this won't work, but at the moment, the challenge is keeping me going.

National Haunters Convention

I got tickets for the 2010 National Haunters convention in the mail today (thanks Rob!). This show looks awesome, and the word of mouth about previous incarnations of the convention is very good. I'm definitely looking forward to attending.

If I'm able to find a few other haunt enthusiasts in the Roanoke Valley, it would be great to go as a group.

Baby Charlie, the flying monkey

I promise not to flood the blog with baby posts; I'll only do it insofar as it relates to the central topics of the blog.

A few months ago, my wife and I had our first child, Charlotte. A lot of my desire to make Halloween cool again is being done for her. Of course, she may grow up and think it's lame, but I'd like her to have a lot of fun, healthy experiences with the holiday and then let her make up her own mind.

One of my favorite experiences with Halloween involved making my own costumes, which I typically did every year. They were often very absurd and imaginative (like three headed skeletons), and I won quite a few awards at Halloween parades. I might never have done this if not for my mom making me some fantastic Halloween costumes when I was little. One year (2 years old, I think), I was a black widow spider. The cool part of the costume was a silver web which splayed out behind me.

So I've been putting a lot of thought into Baby Charlie's costume for this year and I'm thinking . . . flying monkey! I sort of want to start now, but she grows so freakishly fast (nearly 16 lbs. at 4 months - GAH!!!), it's impossible to tell how big she'll be in October. I'll include pics as the costume progresses.

I'm also wondering what etiquette is for trick-or-treating with very young children. She obviously won't be eating any candy at her age. In part, I want to show her (and my workmanship) off, although I don't really know the neighbors, so I guess I have no one to brag to. I may decide to go with some of the schenanegans of my youth and claim it's for a demanding older brother who's trying to maximize his candy haul. This lie was hardly ever believed when I was a kid, but pretty much always resulted in extra candy, anyway (usually with a knowing wink). As an adult, the scam is perfect - who's actually going to think I'm lying to them for a snack-sized Snickers?

Trick or treat!

reviewing haunts

This blog will have a few purposes. First, it's a place to ruminate about Halloween, the haunted attraction industry, and related matters (I've already done this a little). Second, once we get closer to opening a haunt, it will be a way to track our progress and give teasers before the opening. Finally, this provides a nice forum to review haunts, as well.

I should probably state my policy up front. I'm not in this to trash anyone, so I don't intend to write negative reviews. If I attend a sub-par haunt, I just won't write about it. (Or at the very least, I could write generalized "what to avoid posts" that amalgamate experiences from a few bad haunts without naming names or giving identifying characteristics.) After all, this isn't consumer reports - I don't feel that it's my duty to review haunts for prospective customers. Coming at this from a perspective of a future haunter, I'm more interested in ideas: What have others done well? How have they inspired me? What is it about the superior haunt that makes you leave saying, "DAMN! That was good!" The good haunts usually have quite a lot to offer in the inspiration department, and this is what I'm interested in writing about.

This year, due to the birth of my first child, I probably won't be able to attend more than a handful of haunts. But I've visited 50+ within the last few years, and so I could go back and write about a few of those experiences, as well. Are there any haunts in the Virginia/North Carolina area worth checking out? Do you have any haunt reviews you'd like to share in the comments section?

A crisis for Halloween

The Halloween of today probably isn't what you remember it being. They say that nostalgia often enhances the virtues and clouds the flaws of your memories, so I am trying to be realistic about how much of what I remember of the holiday is true and how much is wishful thinking.

But the way I remember it, it was an affair that lasted from when the daylight was fading (5ish) to when you could no longer convince people to give you candy (for me, usually about 10 - 11). The streets were usually packed with kids and most houses gave out candy. It wasn't always great candy, although there were those mythologized houses which gave out the full-sized Snickers, which were worth revisiting four or five times with different masks. My parents remember getting a lot of trick-or-treaters when I was a kid, and the number slowly declined as I got older.

Some areas of the country even have a bastardized version of Halloween, usually called Beggars' Night. They "celebrated" this in the small Wisconsin town in which I lived for two years. It took place on a Sunday (regardless of when Halloween actually was) . . . in BROAD DAYLIGHT! It was difficult enough for me to make my elaborately decorated house look cool in daylight. But it must have sucked to be a kid. No wonder the my friends' kids were all totally disenchanted with the concept of Halloween by ages 8 or 9 - it was pretty lame. All the sneakiness, the danger, the spookiness had been sucked dry. Removing the celebration from Oct. 31st (and renaming it) was also a subtle, quasi-religious attempt to distance the holiday from its roots - to "de-evil" it, if you will. My town wasn't the only one - Des Moines has apparently been doing this since the 1930's.

This is why I feel pretty strongly about a topic that most adults don't give a second thought to - a supposed "children's" holiday. But some of my fondest memories are of Halloween. I expressed more creativity and cunning in service of that holiday than all the other holidays put together. If some people feel compelled to fight when they feel Christmas is being encroached upon, why not do the same for a holiday that matters most to us?

What are your fondest memories of Halloween? What's it like where you live - still a good time or a shadow of its former self? Do you have to deal with Beggars' Night or something equally lame?

If this is your first time at Fright Club . . .

Hello. And welcome to Fright Club.

When I was a kid, I loved Halloween. There was something about being sneaky, dressing up, and getting candy which made me think that this was the best holiday ever. It was sort of like an evil version of Easter in which you actually earned your candy through DIY spirit (I usually made my own costumes) and pure chicanery.

I also loved how seriously some adults took Halloween. In particular, there was one neighborhood in which someone by the name of "the Doctor" would put on a yearly Halloween show for trick-or-treaters and on-lookers. One year, dressed as a mad-scientist, he turned his wife into a Frankenstein's monster. Great fun. It inspired me to craft my own neighborhood haunted house, which, due to unreliable friends and poor planning on my part, had to be cancelled at the last moment. It was a bit embarrassing to have to go outside and tell the line that I couldn't hold the haunted house. But at the same time, I felt a thrill because at least there was a line!

Flash forward to adulthood - I typically go to a few haunted houses a year (in some years, 4 - 6, recently a few less). Because I've moved A LOT recently (6 times in 7 years), I've gotten the opportunity to sample the best haunted houses in the Midwest and Southeast. I've been dreaming of what my own haunted house would look like, if I had the chance to go back and do it right. I've been slowly working on props and schematics and collecting print and web resources. I've been running the occasional low-budget haunted houses at local churches I've attended. I've done all of this with one goal in mind - to create my own professional haunted house and wow people like I was wowed all those years ago. I won't be ready to open one this year . . . or next . . . but eventually, I'll be able to return to that childhood haunted house of mine that never opened.

What are your Halloween stories? Why are you at this site and why do you love this holiday? What are your own dreams for the perfect haunt?