Michael Myers Tribute

Love them or hate them, the latest Halloween trilogy films fit pretty well into this Myers tribute video.

Click below...

It's Time, Michael

When you finally buy that Myers mask that you've always wanted...

An Unholy Place 2024

Todd's Yard Haunt in Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

Always a dark treat.

Party City

Had a nice day of Halloweening.  Started out with some pumpkin spice coffee on the road and ended up at a Party City which was fully decked out for the season.  Ended the day at a cozy place in Lambertville, NJ...

B&W Halloween 2021

Halloween Ends

I've run from you. I have chased you. I have tried to contain you. I have tried to forgive you. I thought maybe you were the Boogeyman. No, you're just a man who's about to stop breathing.

- Laurie Strode

Remembering THE MASK

You might remember an old blog post where I talked about my first Michael Myers mask.

I recently found it in a box of old masks I had accumulated over the years.  I was really surprised to see it as I had assumed it melted away at my parents' house in some abandoned Halloween box.  But there it was, battle scars and all, staring up at me, with the darkest eyes... the Devil's eyes.

I had forgotten that I had painted the lips a weird brown color.  I was trying to achieve that amazing shadowy look from the HALLOWEEN IV movie poster, where the mask has never looked better.  It's such amazing film poster art.  Meanwhile, I essentially gave Michael Myers some lipstick (it looked great in the dark though!).

Nothing but the best memories of being in that mask and overalls with faux bullet holes, sitting on my parents' cold cement steps in the shadows on Halloween night.  Sitting on the steps, staring at a street; not seeing the street, looking past the street; looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger me off... to hand out candy.

Behold Don Post Studios' THE MASK.

And here's the HALLOWEEN IV poster that led to those horrid dark lips.

Halloween II

We watched this 1981 sequel recently and I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older or what, but the middle part, those slow scenes inside the hospital, no longer troubled me.  It felt slow, but not in a bad way.  It felt like the late hours of the night on Halloween, right before November 1st.  

The atmosphere and style were all there, despite not having John Carpenter as the director.  The story is still very interesting and elevates Laurie from someone who was randomly chosen by Myers to being way more significant.  I never had any issues with the fact that she turns out to be Michael Myers' sister.  From a sequel point of view, it really works well.  The classroom scene where Myers has done some exposition for the audience never bothered me either.  Writing 'SAMHAIN' on the chalkboard in blood was always such a strange element.  I used to try to picture Myers in that classroom.  Skulking around in the world he remembered back before he murdered his sister and was incarcerated.  It never felt out of character for him to write on the board...  we're dealing with a guy who dressed up as Bob's Ghost in the first film, who arranged a tombstone (that he plucked from a cemetery) at the head of a bed as he displayed Annie's dead body.

Then we get poor Ben Tramer's fiery death.  I might be obsessed with this character's tragedy story.  And of course we also get an amazing performance by Donald Pleasence.  In a lot of ways, this film is about Loomis and not Laurie.  Halloween II and IV are like love letters to Dr. Sam Loomis, and you feel his absence in every scene that's missing this wonderful actor.  (I forgive him for mispronouncing 'samhain.')

The production design really got it right when decorating the scenes with Halloween decor.  So many staples of the time, with some really great homemade decorations as well hanging in the hospital hallways.  

We loved revisiting this film and seeing it with fresh eyes, watching it late at night with glowing Halloween blowmolds and flickering candles all around.

Click below for the classroom scene, a personal fave...

Halloween In The 90s

Some old photos.

Second one isn't as cringe.  Myers in the middle is actually kind of spooky with all those shadows.

R.I.P.: Party Store

Found out that a local party supply store is going out of business at the end of the month.  It's been there forever, and it was part of the annual Halloween store checklist each season.  Sad to see it go, so I wanted to post one last photo gallery for posterity.