Burning up Shropshire or The Burning of Guido Fawkes

This looks like it was a fun Guy Fawkes Night celebration.  Photos by Fergus Jackson, 2007

Now I want to visit a small family farm in the English countryside and watch the locals burn a traitor and drink booze.

"Before the fire"

"Guido"

"Ready to burn"

"Peroline and Laura mourn the impending doom of their 'husband' the guy"

"Soon to be ex-guy"

Certainly looks like a fun time. View the rest of the album here

Begging For Candy 7/24/2015

Begging for Candy                                                                                    by Pumpkinrot

I always appreciated the musings of this little pumpkin-headed trick-or-treater as he and his friend beg for candy on a perfect, perpetual Halloween Night.

Synthetic Mask

 Incredible masks by Synthetic_Mask (@kirill_zherikhov.art). Check out their Instagram for more.

Wraith scarecrow

Prop by indrid fear on HalloweenForum

It's time to send in those letters

Drawing For a Scarecrow

 by Vassils Patmios

Now Watching: Early to Mid 2000's Halloween Home Videos

A simple pleasure of mine is watching videos of people's Halloween decorations, parties, or trick-or-treating, specifically from the early to mid 2000's.  These videos scratch a very precise nostalgic itch of mine.

These videos also tend to disappear from YouTube.  Many of the ones I watched regularly (don't judge me) have been deleted, or have vanished after the original account was terminated.  It really makes me sad.  I wish there was a huge archive just for videos like this.  

It disheartens me to wonder how many Halloween home videos have been erased from the web...  how many wonderful October memories have been lost... I've even contemplated buying a larger hard drive just to download and preserve this kind of media. 

I swear, I'm going to turn in to a digital hoarder... 
*pours booze*

Wendigo

Badass wendigo prop by Jesse Buchholz (@reverie09). The fact that it's casually dragging a human corpse makes it so much more intimidating (and so much cooler!)

See more pics (and a daytime video) on his original post

Opi Rubrum

 Paintings by lilibat on DeviantArt

Now Watching/Listening to: Fallulah - Out of It

Catchy song with a witchy vibe by indie pop/art rock/folk artist Fallulah. I first discovered the song when a favorite artist of mine, John Kenn Mortensen (best known for his "sticky-note monsters") announced that he had collaborated with Fallulah to design some monsters for the Out of It music video.  

Click below to give it a watch/listen

Now Watching: Rot's Basement

After seeing many of Pumpkinrot's basement photos, I was reminded again and again of the basement scene from Mr. Jones.  I (half) jokingly commented that I'd love to see a found-footage-style walkthrough of his basement... and to my pleasant surprise, Rot delivered!

Click below to watch the little eight second clip he filmed.  It's exactly what I had envisioned!

Old Ghost

Photos by @the_old_ghost777

Remeniscence

"Man, I love Halloween.  It's the most incredible and bizarre holiday.  Strangers visit strangers for candy, and hopefully a scare.  We mock death by putting out fake tombstones and corpses.  We hang ghosts and witches and fake spider webs.  We hollow out pumpkins to greet our guests with flickering features.  We create tiny worlds on our lawns and porches.  And we laugh when we hear the screams.  And the screams always turn into laughs."

-Pumpkinrot

Relationship goals

"Pumpkin Lovers" by Sarah Pagliaro of Spooky Moose Studio LLC (@_spookymoose_)

Tall Scarecrows

I discovered this photo years ago while scouring the web.  It's from the (now defunct) Garage of Evil network.  

I really like the idea of towering scarecrows/props.  To be clear, I don't mean props that are just large in scale, but regular scarecrows on extremely tall pikes.  

I imagine being able to see this scarecrow from a great distance, solemnly elevated above a field.  And then being beneath it, looking up, not quite able to make out all the details, so your mind fills in the rest (which is, of course, all the more unsettling)

Now Drinking: Sleepy Hollow

Been meaning to try this cocktail for a year or more now...  Just tried it out for the first time last night.  Pretty good! Smokey and spicy (and boozy).  Definitely my kind of cocktail.

Ingredients:

¼ ounce absinthe

2 ounces mezcal

1 ounce St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Rosemary sprig, for garnish

Directions

Pour absinthe into a rocks glass; swirl to coat, and discard liqueur.

Fill a stirring glass with ice, then add mezcal, St. Elizabeth, and 2 dashes of Angostura bitters. Strain cocktail into a rocks glass over ice. Light rosemary with a lighter or culinary torch until smoking and place it in the glass. Serve immediately.

Image and original recipe source

Listening to: Loneliness #3 (Night Talking)

from the Her OST, by Arcade Fire. Click below

Image by @visionsoflightandday

Now Watching: Drive

"The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time."  -Frank Miller

Finally got around to seeing Drive (2011) starring Ryan Gosling.  It was a lot grittier than I anticipated, a great neo-noir that I had somehow looked over.

The trailer doesn't really do the film justice (which is probably why I never watched it until now), so click below to watch the opening credits scene... it really sets the tone.

Click the image to watch the opening scene

Halloween 2017: Crowscares

In 1971, a group of hikers made a horrific discovery. Surrounding an old cabin in the middle of the woods, were dozens of bodies, strung up like scarecrows. 

They called the local authorities, who came and raided the cabin. 

As it was later revealed, a secret cult, gathering in the cabin, had been kidnapping and sacrificing lonely hikers, then displaying them in a grotesque fashion: Bolted to a t-stand, with old cloth draped from the arms, and a ritualized, cone-shaped mask fused to the face of each individual. 

In psychological interviews with members of the cult, they explained that the bodies were set up as what they called "Guardians", meant to ward off spirits that would otherwise hinder their agenda. 

However, due to the dry, black, rotten coloration of each corpse, the feathery cloth, and the particularly beak-like ritual masks, the townsfolk had a different name for the gruesome display... 

"Crowscares"

While I consider Halloween 2021 to be my first official yard haunt as Tjalgahorn, 2017 was technically the year I began experimenting with decorations like these. I only made two: A couple of creepy crowscares to guard the gate to my old house. 

Needless to say, the House of Marrow and Pumpkinrot inspirations are pretty apparent here. Specifically, I think Scarecrow Country and His Last Halloween were subconsciously emulated in my design (obviously not as masterfully as Rot or Theo).  I think it's natural to imitate your biggest inspirations as a jumping-off point when beginning (as long as credit is given!), but now I get to take that and develop my own style off of it.

Speaking of which: Halloween 2022 fabrication has begun!

Only 180 days to go... and already I feel so behind

"I think we're on the wrong trail"

 

Photo/Prop by Dustin Drerup @beastcraftprops

PumpkinHead stalkabout costume

 by KdF Creative

Click Here for a video if it in action