Monday, January 31, 2011

Do we have a librarian in the house?

 ???
For anyone out there who grew up in the 80's and 90's, or anyone who thinks they can help, I have a question I NEED answered.  While growing up I read a book in 4th grade concerning a mummy, now I cannot remember what the book was called.  I don't want to list all the details as they are way too obscure and I don't want it to take over the blog page.  But once I get some people together who think they can help I would love to share the details and see if we can get this figured out.  Please please please let me know if you think you can help and we can all put our heads together and figure this mystery out.  PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
???
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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Weekend update.....

Sorry ghouls, had to do some "grown up" stuff this Friday and Saturday.  Tomorrow night (a.k.a. Sunday night) I will be reviewing "Frozen".  Also I will be updating you with this weekends trip to my favorite local bookstore that I have been haunting as of late.  I have also begun playing the original "Scratches" horror adventure game for the p.c. so look for that review soon as well.  After I finish "Scratches", I will play the directors cut version and compare the two.  I will also be playing the new bonus content and updating you all on that as well.  One other thing to look out for soon is an update on the reading adventure, a giveaway, and I will finally kick off the "Are You Afraid of the Blog" feature that I promised way back this summer.  So yes, it is going to be a very busy week here at HalloweenOverkill but a very exciting one!  I would also like to state that I am not a member of Fright Club.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Frozen....

Just watched Adam Green's "Frozen", and I must say I was pretty impressed.  Favorite horror flick from 2010?  Probably not.  However there were several cringe inducing moments, which come very far and few between in today's world of horror.  There were definitely some things I didn't like about the movie, but there were far more that I did like.  I will be fully reviewing this movie later tonight or tomorrow.  In the meantime let me know what you thought of the flick.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

A little late to the party.........

Had a few leftover Halloween images that never really made their way onto the blog, so I thought I would share a few of them with you ghouls.  So here we go with a little leftover Halloween action........Photobucket

That my creeps is one terrible thing about the Halloween season, seasonal allergies.  And there we have blown out optic nerves due to those wonderful allergies.

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This was the beginning of our pumpkin carving odyssey, and yes the kittens decided to show up to party also.  As you can see Dracula (one of our kittens for you new ghouls out there) just couldn't hide his excitement for pumpkin carving any longer.

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The night "he" came home........

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This was really bizarre.  If you look really close at the pumpkin it actually looked like it had a spinal cord made out of pumpkin seeds.  If you didn't notice it, scroll back up and look, totally freaky!

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After gutting the pumpkins I decided to break out the big guns this year, a dremel, yes you heard me right, A f'ing  DREMEL!!!!!  If that is not HalloweenOverkill, I don't know what is.  I originally got the dremel as a Christmas gift from my parents last year to use for different Halloween projects I had in mind.  Pumpkin carving was not one of the projects I ever considered using the dremel on, obviously as you can see though, I decided to go professional pumpkin carver with the dremel.

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The finished product!  Not something I would have even attempted with just a knife or some carving tools.  Aside from the dremel, I used a really awesome "Pumpkin Masters" pro carving kit I got as a gift from my buddy and his wife! (still didn't come out as awesome as I thought, but do they ever?  Oh well, as they say in Cleveland, "there's always next year".)

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This was my wife's finished product, which might I add turned out to look totally awesome.  I also would like to add that her pumpkin was carved with nothing but a single carving tool.  No knives, no cutters, and no dremel, just "the little seesaw thing" as she refers to it as. HAHA  As I am writing this my wife looks over at me and says, "I'm awesome, I went old school on that pumpkin."  I don't get into that new fashioned stuff"  HAHA Yes my wife is that awesome!

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The pumpkins next to each other.  We dubbed them "Jason and the survivor girl" (or Alice if you will)

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May I state again how awesome my wife is?  These creepy cupcakes she made had edible eyeballs!!!  Can it get any better?  Yes it can, see those severed fingers?  EDIBLE ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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More awesome Halloween Cupcakes.  Worms in dirt cupcakes, and the worms are the awesome sour neon ones that make your brain bounce into your skull walls after just two bites.

For any of you ghouls out there who have followed HalloweenOverkill from the beginning remember when my wife and I got the kittens.  Well I thought I'd give you some more recent pictures of the boys.  For an updated pic of Dracula just scroll back up to the pic of him hiding in the pumpkins.  Below is a recent and absolutely adorable pic of Roxas sleeping in my palm after my crazy crazy black friday hospital trip. (about his name Roxas, yes, I am obsessed with Kingdom Hearts)

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And here is one more updated picture of them together!

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Monday, January 17, 2011

A treasure trove of horror purchases.......A.K.A. The longest blog post ever!

With the HalloweenOverkill readathon adventure 2011 currently going I thought it was fitting to show all you ghouls out there the wealth of reading treasures I found at a local discount book store.  Some of the stuff may seem like garbage to you all but I think all of these finds are worth a look or two.  First off we have........
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GOOSEBUMPS!!!!  The Headless Ghost to be exact, and yes it is one of the original with the raised goosebumps and all.
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Another Goosebumps book. I like to pick up any of the Goosebumps books that aren't from the traditional series, as I believe these are a little harder to find, plus I'm a sucker for anything with a hologram on the cover.
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Book 3 from the Demonata series. The Demonata is a series of books by author Darren Shan, yeah, the same guy who writes the Cirque Du Freak series. These are honestly some of the goriest young adult books I have ever read and some really good reads to boot! I would love to see these books turned into a series of films.
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  Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. The official sequel to Dracula, written by a member of the Stoker family and endorsed by said family as well. I heard it's not such a hot read, but I'll be the judge of that. Any book with the Count himself or any incarnation of him is usually good in my book!
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Less than a month ago I didn't even know these suckers existed, but now I officially own two of them. This is the second Twilight Zone graphic novel that I have gotten my paws on, and I cannot wait to dive in.

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Do I even need to explain why I bought this? First of all, you all know my obsession with anything "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" related, plus not only am I a sucker for hologram covers, but glow in the dark ones as well.
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These little guys are actually magnet bookmarks. Check out the amazing artwork on them (I left them giant size so you could really see the detail, sorry if I cut out some of the HalloweenOverkill stamp on the right sides)  and then realize how jealous you are that I have them and you don't haha. They are actually really neat though. You just clip them on the page that you want to save and there is no annoying bookmark sticking out of the top of the book.
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The Gates: A Novel, by the wonderful John Connolly. All it took for me to purchase this book was the first few lines in the dust jacket. Any book that takes place on or around Halloween is surely going to be read by this sites curious caretaker. Now if I could just figure out if Nocturnes is actually a horror novel or not!
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I was gonna save this sucker for a new feature I had in mind, but oh what the hell, here it is! Scream Play by, Douglas Soesbe, is a book that debunks the old "never judge a book by it's cover" theory. I call bullshit on that old theory for this one. I judged this book by it's cover and deemed it worthy to add to my collection. Now whether or not I was right is yet to be determined. Expect this book to also pop up in a new feature being added to HalloweenOverkill. (Curious to know what that feature is? Let's just say you don't find books with covers as awesome as this one anymore, do ya?)

Now are some of the non genre related items I picked up on the cheap as well.....
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Not much to be said here. Some may call shenanigans on Mr. Brown, but I beg to differ, I love his style with the short chapters, and the mystery of his books, whether total bullshit or not, keeps me coming back for more.
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Everybody remember this book from Kindergarten and beyond?  No?  Well I do and it was a doosy!!!  As you read through the book there are hidden images to find in each picture and each of those hidden things in the picture all add up as clues that help you solve the book's main mystery.  Sound like too much?  Well it is and it isn't, you just have to have read it to understand.  I picked this one up mainly to revisit my childhood yet again (see a recurring theme here?) and also to pass on to my own little ghouls one day. 
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This book sounds crazy creepy, but in more of a retro reliving my childhood kind of way (so wait, reliving your childhood is creepy, one might ask? No, but you know what I mean). A young boy looks at himself in a mirror and is transported to a whole other world filled with wraiths, Alice in Wonderland, Nostradamus, and even some elements of advanced physics!!! Can't wait to read this one!
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Ahh yes, the old days when "point and click" adventure games were actually awesome. Now that's not to say there haven't been some good ones since, but everybody remembers the good old days of "Monkey Island", "Zork", "Myst", "Gabriel Knight", and of course "The Dig"!!!! I just had to add this to my enormous collection of old school pc adventure games!
So basically everything you just saw was purchased for wayyyyyy south of twenty bucks. Tell me that isn't amazing?
These next few items need a small intro to explain themselves. My wife and I are planning to buy a house sometime in the near future (or decade) and I (not my wife) plan on turning an entire room or hopefully the basement (if there is one) into a giant shrine/theater of all things horror. To help with this task I have been collecting any and everything that I would consider a collectible or something worth showing off in the future horror cave. I plan on plastering the walls with genuine movie posters that I have acquired and any other horror/Halloween ephemera/trinkets/stuff that I have deemed worthy (any one want to donate, let me know! haha) Well something that my wife found at the local Blockbuster going out of business sale were the plastic backers that they use in place of the movie case when it is rented out (they are a little larger than the front of a dvd cover). At first I didn't think these would be useful, but then EUREEKA!!! It hit me, I could use these bad boys as little mini posters to put on the wall of the "Theater of Blood" as it has been deemed (once they are framed you won't be able to see the little annoying bar codes and such that you see below)  Here are the pics of the horror ones we chose.
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Not all of those little posters represent my favorite horror movies of all time, but each of them at least have very cool and iconic covers, even if they are piece of shit movies. (cough Nightmare, cough Friday, oh what the hell let me just say it, FUCK remakes)  Oh and by the way if you were wondering how much I paid for these little wonders, a whopping two dollars, that's right, $2, for the entire set of these!!! (There were also several other non horror ones that we picked out as well, but we'll leave those out for now.)
I'd also like to point out that yes there are probably several grammatical/spelling errors throughout this post, but as it was a very long day and I am very very late to crawling into my coffin for the night, there is no way I am proofreading this monster of a post.  Sorry ghouls!!!  C ya tomorrow for a late Halloween picture post and I hoped you all loved the treats that I found this weekend!!!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

HalloweenOverkill Readathon Adventure 2011

Where you at ghouls?  So far all I have participating in the readathon is myself and Melissa over at http://littlemisszombie.blogspot.com/.  I'd really like a few more people to make this a really fun adventure, however if it is just myself and a few others that will be fine as well.  I will be creating the Readathon page this weekend so you can keep track of what has been read for what categories.  If you wanna see what Melissa has chosen for her books head over to http://littlemisszombie.blogspot.com/ and check out her picks.  Below are the picks I have made for the categories.

1.  Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.
     A book concerning time travel.
    My book: Slaughter House Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
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2.  Is the book better than the movie?
     A book that was adapted into a film.
    My book: Something Wicked this way comes, by Ray Bradbury
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3.  This thing is a paperweight!!!
     A book that is over 500 pages.
     My book: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
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4.  A tribute to the Prince of Darkness.
     A book with Dracula as a character.
     My book: The Dracula Dossier, by James Reese
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5.  Trick or Treat!!!
     A book that takes place on or during Halloween.
     My book: Dark Harvest, by Norman Partridge
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6.  Just collecting dust.......
     A book you've owned for more than a year that has yet to be read.
     My book: Gil's All Fright Diner, by A. Lee Martinez
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7.  Next year is gonna suck.
     A book concerning the apocalypse or the end of the world.
     My book: The Island at the end of the World, by Sam Taylor
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8.  Stranger than fiction.
     A non-fiction book concerning horror in some way shape or form.
     My book:  Sundays with Vlad, by Paul Bibeau
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9.  Old school master of horror.
     A book written by Stephen King.
     My book:  The Mist, by Stephen King
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10.  New school master of horror
      A book written by Brian Keene
      My book: Castaways, by Brian Keene
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11.  This stuff isn't just for adults.
      A young adult or teen horror novel
      My book:  The Hollow: Horseman, by Christopher Golden & Ford Lytle Gilmore
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The cover images I used above obviously belong to the respective copyright owners, but I thought I'd show the actual covers of the versions I would be using in case any body else wanted to read the exact copies I own. Thanks and let me know if you're interested!!!!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Grab your bookmarks............HalloweenOverkill's 2011 Readathon Adventure!!!

So the themes I decided to choose for our little book adventure are as follows.  You are tasked with reading one from each.  I have picked 11 different themes which shouldn't be too hard to do, but if we all finish this soon enough maybe we can pick some new themes and go for round 2.

1.  Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.
     A book concerning time travel.

2.  Is the book better than the movie?
     A book that was adapted into a film.

3.  This thing is a paperweight!!!
     A book that is over 500 pages.

4.  A tribute to the Prince of Darkness.
     A book with Dracula as a character.

5.  Trick or Treat!!!
     A book that takes place on or during Halloween.

6.  Just collecting dust.......
     A book you've owned for more than a year that has yet to be read.

7.  Next year is gonna suck.
     A book concerning the apocalypse or the end of the world.

8.  Stranger than fiction.
     A non-fiction book concerning horror in some way shape or form.

9.  Old school master of horror.
     A book written by Stephen King.

10.  New school master of horror
      A book written by Brian Keene

11.  This stuff isn't just for adults.
      A young adult or teen horror novel

Are those themes pleasing to the brain or should I pick new ones?  For all of the ghouls who plan on participating in this book adventure with me, please email me once you complete one of the themes.  Let me know which theme it was that you completed and which book it was that you read for that category ( the author will also help ).  I think this is something that can be really fun for all of us.  Not only will it give us a reason to use our brains and read but I think it will be interesting to see how many of us choose the same books and give us inspiration to read some books that we have never read before that we never knew existed until our fellow ghouls introduce us to them.  As long as you ghouls email me with your participation I will be creating a side page that will be accessible for all to see so that I can track each participating members progress!  Let the games begin!!!!!!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Anybody like to read?

So I was thinking something fun we could all do during these long, cold, dark, winter nights was to have one of those fancy reading adventures? Any takers? If you don't know what it is, don't worry I didn't either until last week. How it works is I'll put up a bunch of categories for different themes on books to read such as; read a book by an author that starts with the letter b, read a book that takes place on mars, read a book with an animal as the main character, so on and so on. I see these sort of things taking place across many a literary blogs and forums and I thought it might be fun for us to participate in our own. Let me know if this is something any of you ghouls would be interested in and I'll whip up some categories tonight or tomorrow.
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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Rising from the grave........... for real this time!

Sorry about the lengthy vacation ghouls.  I promise I'll never be gone for that long again!  I figured I'd take baby steps in getting this blog back up to speed, so for today I just wanted to show off some of my horror/genre related Christmas gifts.  First up we have an amazing gift from my sister, "Piece by Piece".  The book is an exploration into the thriller genre that Hitchcock mastered.  It also examines several times from his personal life.  The cool thing about the book is that it has removable memorabilia from the Hitchcock family archives.  A review is forthcoming
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Next up is a graphic novelization of one of the best "Twilight Zone" episodes of all time, "The Monsters are due on Maple Street."  This was another sweet gift from my sister and her husband
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Here we have a special collector's edition of Monopoly that we bought for ourselves at Borders Books during one of their holiday special sales, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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While we're on our little "The Nightmare before Christmas" kick I'd like to show off another gift we got in the form of everybodies favorite classic dice rolling game. YAHTZEE!!!!!!
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Sorry I had to photoshop in a sixth dice picture ( is it die or dice?  who cares), but I wanted to show off all of the artwork on the dice themselves. I'd also like to point out that the Jack Skellington head you see in the backround is what you store all the dice and scorecards in!
Since my Wife and I are all about saving the environment, (even horror fans can be environmentally conscious)  we decided to add another reusable shopping bag to our collection, and yes this was picked up during another holiday sale.
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And last but not least another gift to ourselves this Xmas season. Matching Jack & Sally Coffee (or in my case hot chocolate, coffee is nasty) cups! Again pictures speak louder than words, check these m'fers out!
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HAHA I just realized some of my introductions to those pictures sounded like a "Price is Right" prize description. Anyways I'd like to apologize again to all of the readers of this blog for my extended visit to no update land. I promise this time I'm back for real and hopefully HalloweenOverkill will be better than ever!