Home Haunter 2012 DVD Collection

The 2012 Home Haunter DVD collection is now available for pre-order!  This year, it is a 4 DVD set, featuring 62 haunts from around the world. 

The price is $20.00 domestic ($30 international), but if you contributed a video to the collection, it's only $15.00 domestic ($25 international).

Even if you didn't submit an entry, this collection is a real treat to any haunter or Halloween lover.  Not only is it really awesome to see other people's haunts, it's also a great source of inspiration.

Judging will probably begin after the DVD's have been shipped and then they will announce the winners! =)

In past years the contest categories have been:

Best Yard Haunt
Best Yard Haunt (Vanguard)
Best Indoor Walk through/Haunt
Best Indoor Walk through/Haunt (Vanguard)
Best Static Prop
Best Static Prop (Vanguard)
Best Animated Prop
Best Animated Prop (Vanguard)
Best Party Haunt
Best Video Production
Best How-To
Propmaster Award

Past winners can be viewed here:
Past Winners

You can order your video here:
2012 Home Haunter's DVD Collection Pre-Order

In case you didn't see it before, here's our 2012 entry:

Happy Haunting!!!

Belated Hoppy Easter

I know I'm a day late, but I hope that you all had a lovely Easter.

I know that we surely did!

A&E's Bates Motel Series Marathon

Curious about the new A&E series Bates Motel? Well, wonder no longer my dear Haunty friends!  Tonight A&E will air the first two episodes before airing this week’s new episode, so if you didn’t catch them the first go around, you can check them out tonight.

I think that the series is still too new for me to actually formulate an opinion on, but I will write a review once I feel like I have a full grasp of the series.

I do want to share that on the A&E website, there are production notes on how they achieved certain effects on the show, which is pretty cool.  It’s like pulling back the wizard of Oz’s curtain J  I especially like the production notes for the first episode.  You’ll have to read it for yourself, as it contains SPOILERS to the show’s plot. To find the production notes on each episode, click on Episode Guide on the main page.

You can find all of the Bates series information here: Bates Motel

Tonight’s 3 episode marathon begins at 8PM Eastern/Pacific and 7PM Central/Mountain time.

Haunter Spotlight - The House of Marrow

Once again, Marrow, of The House of Marrow has "wowed" me to the point of having to spotlight him on my blog.

He was recently featured on Bloody-Disgusting.com for his short film, 'The Woods Themselves', which he entered into a contest for films that capture the essence of the 1981 movie, The Evil Dead.

His film is very cool and his prop that he created for it, is insanely impressive!  Did I mention that he's only 15 years old?  Yeah, this haunter/aspiring haunty film maker, is going to be wowing us for years to come :)

Check out his film here: http://marrowhouse.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-woods-themselves.html

And his feature in Bloody-Disgusting can be found by clicking the Blooding-Disgusting link that I provided above.

Here's a picture of his amazing prop.  I'm completely blown away :)  Congrats Marrow.

(Photo acquired from The House of Marrow blogspot)

Happy Haunting!

Passover

Since today is the first day of Passover, I figured I'd share what comes to mind when I think of Passover.

Every year for Easter, I watch the 1956 movie, The Ten Commandments. As a child, I was always fascinated by the story and horrified by the brutality and the plagues the movie portrayed. 

For those who have never seen the movie, it’s about the Hebrew’s escape from slavery, by the Egyptians, via their leader, Moses.  It also portrays all of the religious miracles that helped aid in their escape.  Not all of the miracles were the warm-fuzzy feeling kind. As a matter of fact, most of the miraculous things that happen in this movie come in the form of plagues. 

Of the 10 plagues that are documented in the bible, the movie portrayed 4, which were: water turning into blood,  a fiery hail storm, three days of darkness and the final, most terrifying plague, death to all of the first born in Egypt. 

To avoid being succumbed by the angel of death, the Hebrews marked their door the blood of a spring lamb (which doesn’t work out very well for the poor lamb, I might add!).

The portrayal of this plague is the most spine chilling part of the movie.  As the Hebrews are preparing to for their first Passover of the angel of death, there is a shot of the night sky, with an eerie, green fog creeping slowly and menacingly, like skeletal fingers, across the screen. This green fog symbolizes the angel of death. 

 As it makes its way to the ground, it slowly crawls along the dusty streets and is followed by the moans and wailing of the families of the first born victims that it claims.  Only two deaths are actually shown and even though they are not bloody or overly dramatic, the angel of death fog and the fact that the Hebrews are shut up in their houses, just waiting for this thing to pass right out side of their doors, as they listen to the shrieks and moans of the dying, is fear and panic inducing!

Now, I know that this movie was not intended as a horror movie, but admittedly, it deals with some frightening concepts.

As a kid, realizing that I was the first born in my family, the idea of this plague REALLY sunk in and made me wonder where the heck I could get the blood of a lamb, if ever this plague came to my neighborhood!

Check it out.  It's a great movie and it really is quite creepy :)

Hoppy Haunting!
-The Countess

First Day of Spring - How to Halloweenify your Garden

Spring is the reverse of Fall.  The weather is warming, instead of cooling, plants are bursting forth with new growth, instead of sheading their leaves.  It's a beautiful time of year.

I've been itching to get my garden into shape again.  It needs a lot of TLC, since I deprived it most of the winter.  Of course, I love to pair my love for gardening, with my love of all things Halloween and I've found quite a few ways to do this :)

First of all, I've collected quite a few intresting and dark plants over the years.

Black Calla lilies

 Black pepper plants

Black Crype Myrtle

I've also collected some pretty cool garden decor.

Old, weathered looking cross.  It didn't come with the crack, but after having fallen over a few times, it developed one, which I think gives it even more characeter :)

Frankie, the gargoyle.  I just absolutly love him :)

I've even tried my hand at growing pumpkins, but I've always been defeated by vine boarers =(  I did get a few small ones :)

A quick online search for gothic garden decor, can be very dangerous for my or any other gothic/Halloween lover's check book!  There are a ton of cool things out there :)  Here are a few that I found:

Found these cool guys on Etsy

I think they'd look neat sticking out of some ground covering vines :)

Garden Skull Fragements

These are on Etsy too.

Very fun!

Zombie Garden Stakes

(This particular shop is full of fun gothic garden stuff)

Toscano has a bunch of gargoyles and other great fatasy type statues.  Prices are varied and depend on the size of the statue.

 

 

Toscano

And then there are always the DIY projects floating around on the web.

Here's one that I really want to do :)



Herb Graveyard

One could always put a whole skelly in their garden, like Chris Davis, of Davis Graveyard.  I just love how the vines weave their way through the skeleton's frame.

 

 

 

 

For year round gothic garden ideas, you can always follow

The Haunted Gardens blog, which is updated year round with interesting plants and other haunted garden ideas :)

 

Now get out there and get your hands in the dirt!

 

Happy Garden Haunting!

 

 

 

American Horror Story Season 3: Coming to New Orleans!

I am BEYOND excited!!!!  Where do I sign up to be an extra?!?!

American Horror Story is Coming to New Orleans