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

More Rougarou pictures

I had the pleasure of visiting the zoo again this past weekend and while I was there, I snapped a few more pictures of the Rougarou.

Enjoy!

What Do Zombies Do When the Apocolypse Doesn't Happen?

They go to Mardi Gras of course!

The zombies were out in full force this year,which should be no surprise since their big day of the year didn't work out.  I guess they figured since they were all ready out of the grave, they'd have a little fun before they returned to their crypts to wait for the next apocalypse.

The first zombie group that we ran into, were being regulated by a team of Steampunks. 

They had a really cool horse.... um... Steampunk drawn hearse.

The zombies even had their own motorized transportation.  I guess that the Steampunk crew had trained them.  Who knew zombies could be good drivers?  This could of course blow up in our faces one day as this is a way quicker mode of transportation than shambling.  Luckily, these guys were in good spirits and of course, they had Steampunks keeping a very watchful eye on them.

But then they stopped and the zombies were quickly amused with all of the fresh brains around them.  The Steampunkers loudly announced to keep away from the zombies...unfortunately, the zombies weren't given any instructions to stay away from the people. Epic fail Steampunkers!



One of these zombies got VERY close to us, but apparently, the Steampunkers had them under some kind of sedation or Jedi mind control, because the zombies didn't really seem all that interested in our brains. Just to be safe, we decided to move along to enjoy more Mardi Gras festivities and to have lunch.

 We found an empty bench near Cafe Du Monde. As we sat eating and enjoying the sights, my Mom barely escaped an encounter with a zombie who had been part of law-enforcement before he was infected.  Fortunately he bought my mom's story about not having a brain and kindly posed for a picture with her ;)  Zombies really aren't very intelligent.



We seemed to be in the clear as we were finishing our lunch, until a man in a kilt told us that we had front row seating to free entertainment and he wasn't joking!
A whole band, literally, of zombies came shambling and dancing and playing instruments right in front of us and proceeded up to the river front.

 



Apparently this guy has a new strain of the zombie infection.  He wanted brains or... well... take a look...

Only in New Orleans ;)

After the zombie parade had cleared, it looked like we'd make a clean get away with our brains still in tact.  That is, until we noticed this really cool shopping cart that had been turned into a zombie wagon :)  I was commenting that I thought they left it and that we should take it, until....


This guy, came out of the blue!!!

BBBBRRRRRAAAAAIIIINNNNNSSSS!!!!!


And tried to eat Mom's brain!!!


 Luck for her, zombies really don't like the taste of hairspray.  So, he kissed her on the cheek and wished her a Happy Mardi Gras instead :)  What a nice zombie!

See, zombies were people too!  And they can have fun without the stupid apocalypse ;)

Happy Haunting!!!
-The Countess

The Rougarou

After discussing this past weekend's episode of Finding Bigfoot with a friend, we started talking about a local monster known as the Rougarou.

The Rourgarou, sometimes called the Loup-garou (french for werewolf) is a creature that is claimed to have a wolf's head on top of a human body. The legend was popular among the French-Acadian decendents (known as Cajuns) of Louisiana. Rumor has it, that the Rourgarou lurks in the backwoods and swamps of Louisiana. 

Some of the Rougarou legends were used as tools to inspire obedience.  Cajun elders would tell the story of the Rougarou to the children, in order to keep them from staying outside too late or wandering too far from the house, for fear that the Rougarou would "get them"! Another fear inspiring variation of the legend claims that Catholics who did not follow the rules and traditions of Lent would be tracked down and killed by the Rougarou.  By the way, to any of my fellow Catholics out there, the Lenten season is upon us, so I wouldn't be eating meat on Sundays if I were you, unless you want to meet the untimely demise of an angry Rougarou!

Other stories describe the Rougarou as having werewolf like qualities.  These types of legends state that the Rougarou is actually a cursed human, that takes on a human form by day and the form of the Rougarou by night for 101 days.  At the end of the 101 days, the Rougarou must bite another human, thus transferring the curse from himself, to the victim.

Interestingly, the Audubon Zoo in my home town of New Orleans, has devoted a whole display to this creepy and elusive creature, in their Swamp Exhibit.  I remember approaching the exhibit with caution, as a child.  The creature was creepy, there were strange sounds coming from the exhibit and to top it off, skulls and children's shoes were scattered at it's feet. It fascinated and terrified me.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it.  I mean, it obviously ATE children!  Why else would children's shoes be lying at it's feet?  Unless it was some sort of weirdo monster that had a children's shoe fetish, but my young mind wasn't aware of that option, so being eaten by the thing was more likely than it just stealing my shoes.

Of course, the creature in the display is a paper mache looking creation, as the "real" Rougarou is so elusive, that one has never been contained. ;) It's construction reminds me very much of a homemade Halloween prop. The one that is currently on display is the 2nd one that I've seen in my life-time and a lot less scary than what I remember of the first one.  Every time I see it, I imagine redoing it and bringing it to the zoo to replace the one that's there now ;) That wold be a really cool contribution, basically paying homage to something that scared and intrigued me as a kid and I'm sure had something to do with my love of monsters today :)

Here is a picture of the current Rougarou.  I need to see if my parents have a picture of the original one, because I haven't been able to find one online.  I'll update if they have one.

Black Licorice Cupcakes

I've been in full swing baking mode lately.  I mean, who can blame me after getting my super-duper ORANGE Kitchen-aid mixer for Christmas? ;)

Usually, I'm a cookie kind of gal, but lately, I've fallen into the cupcake craze. While randomly reading recipies on a cupcake blog, I came upon a link that made my baking and Halloween senses tingle!

Paula Deen's Black Licorice Cupcakes!  How have I not stumbled upon this delightful treasure before now?

The licorice flavor comes from anise extract in the cupcakes and in the icing.  The addition of orange in the icing has really got me excited about trying this recipe.  I LOVE anise cookies, so I can imagine, that this will be equally delicious :)

I'm hoping to whip these gems up within the next few weeks.  I'll do a review when I do.  In the mean time, if you'd like to try them out yourself, you can find the recipe here: Paula Deen's Black Licorice Cupcakes

(Photo from the Paula Deen Website)

Happy Haunty Baking!!!

-Countess