Evil Vines Cemetery 2023

A personal favorite Haunt... An unholy cemetery with giant spiders, plague victims, and reanimated skeletons.  And gorgeous lighting.

More images and some videos at her wonderful IG.

Passover Cocktails For Each Of The Ten Plagues

This seems like a really neat goal:  Commit to making every single one of these Plague Cocktails.  

Here are some of the more interesting ones...

Plague 1: Blood

Cocktail: Red Nile

Ingredients:

2 oz potato vodka

4 oz tomato juice

1/2 oz lemon juice

1 oz Arak

1 tsp white horseradish

6 drops Texas Pete

3 drops Fee Brothers Old Fashioned Cocktail Bitters (no corn syrup)

Dash salt

Dash pepper

Carrot stick for garnish

Plague 2: Frogs

Cocktail: Paris in April

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz Cognac

1 oz green Chartreuse

1/2 oz Grand Marnier

4 oz Perrier

Plague 4: Beasts

Cocktail: Zion King

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz fig brandy

1 1/2 oz non-grain spirits gin

2 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

3/4 oz Chambord

Plague 8: Locusts

Cocktail: Desert Swarm

Ingredients:

2 oz white rum

1 oz non-grain spirits gin

1 oz RW Knudsen Organic Pear Juice

1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

1/2 oz fresh egg white

1/2 oz Domino Organic Blue Agave Syrup

2 dashes Fee Brothers Orange Bitters (no corn syrup)

Club soda (preferably fresh-made SodaStream)

Fresh parsley for garnish

Plague 10: Slaying of the first born

Cocktail: Pharaoh’s Lament

Ingredients:

4 1/2 oz very dry sparkling wine

1 oz absinthe

2 dashes Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Lemon wedge

Kosher salt

Thanks, Wren!  

My mini-bar won't know what's happening.

Click here for the rest of the Plague Cocktails.

Plague Of Justinian

 Image by One lucky guy. 

Evil Vines Cemetery 2018

There were many different medical and scientific explanations for the Black Death, ranging from stellar configurations, to bad lifestyle choices. Whereas modern day opinion would dismiss the idea of astrology, to contemporary audiences it was a well-known and well established fact, which physicians and academics were hesitant to ignore. The report of the Paris Medical faculty in 1348 states the belief that the ‘first cause’ of the disease was the configuration of the heavens. The frequent mention of the three planets of Aquarius, is also referred to by fourteenth century astrologer, Geoffrey de Meaux, who explains that the superior stars of Aquarius affect the lesser stars, which represent the ‘common people’ of society. He therefore concludes that the pestilence would infect them more so than those of a higher status. Simon de Convino of France also describes a celestial court case, in which the human race stands trial. 

Text source.

More images here.

Evil Vines Cemetery

June 7th.  This day I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon their doors and “Lord have mercy upon us” writ there, which was a sad sight to me.  Plague was so common that this would have been a common sight in London with the person seeing it simply feeling sorry for the family inside the locked house.  June 21st.  I found all the town almost going out of town, the coaches and wagons being all full of people going into the country.

-Diary of Samuel Pepys

More images here.

Evil Vines Cemetery 2017

Adieu, farewell earths blisse,

This world uncertaine is,
Fond are lifes lustful joyes,
Death proves them all but toyes,
None from his darts can flye;
I am sick, I must dye:
Lord, have mercy on us.

"A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Thomas Nashe

More images here.

Physician, Heal Thyself

Image by matrixmom.

Always Halloween

Another great tumblr...

More images here.

Necromancing

Beautiful work at the House of Marrow...

More photos here.

Black Death

Rented the film Black Death last night and loved it.

The score by Christian Henson is brilliant.
Click below for a track:


And here for the opening titles cue.

And click here for samples.

Bodies

I wonder how a haunt would go over if this scene were reproduced. And children had to walk to get candy through a little path between sheet-covered corpses. Add a wagon off to the side piled high with bodies and a few torches, and dress in a dark cloak with a plague doctor mask and you have yourself a Black Death yard haunt (and some complaints from parents).

Great scene from The Walking Dead. I'm really enjoying this series and the amazing effects featured each week.

More photos here.

Plague Avoided

I built this plague mask to be used on my PLAGUE scarecrow back in 2008. He was going to be cloaked and torn and weathered. It just didn't work. He looked more like a demented Plague Doctor than a scarecrow, so I ditched the idea and went with diseased bones and bandages.


Inspired by this peculiar plague mask design.