HalloweenOverkill Halloween Countdown 2012!

Here is your pumpkin centric logo for this year's Halloween Countdown!  I'm not nearly as proud of it as I am the last two years logos, however I'm sure the posts themselves are more important than the logo itself.  Between now and Halloween you may see days without posts, that goes without saying when you have a 6 month old scooting around the house.  But you may see multiple posts on some days, I promise not to sell you all short this year.  I wanted to use this post to debut the logo for this year, but look for a post later in the night as well!

FauxReal Zombie T-shirt!

Ever think Halloween can't come soon enough? Now you can don your zombie gear as early as you want, thanks to the FauxReal company! FauxReal specializes in photorealistic apparel.  The shirt that I have in my hands is known as Men's Zombie on their official website, and it is like nothing I've ever seen as far as t-shirts go. We'll get to the good stuff (what the thing looks like) in a second, but first I would like to say that this is no gimmick. The shirt is 100% polyester and by God is it comfortable.  I've found that polyester usually has that jersey feel to it and ends up making me sweat like a hog after about 3 minutes.  Not this shirt.  It is really comfortable, and almost has that soft vintage worn t-shirt feel to it.   My only complaints at all about the shirt are that the collar feels very fragile like it could fray after even one wash, however I think the collars are the way they are due to the high definition printing procedure that is going on here. Also the shirt itself is a short sleeve shirt but to give your arms that "zombie" look they have sewn in sleeves made out of extra tight material similar to those fake arm tattoo sleeves. This isn't as uncomfortable as it would seem, however my arms get extremely itchy from tight material so for me it is a slight inconvenience.  It wouldn't stop me from wearing it, though, because of how amazing looking it is! Now on to the good stuff: what does this thing look like? Well I will let my photos speak for themselves.  Another thing to take notice of is at the bottom of the shirt they actually have the faux "shirt/skin" overlapping a pair of jeans.  If I would have happened to be wearing jeans, they would have overlapped exactly giving the shirt an even more photorealistic appearance. I also really like how the knife pops off of the shirt in 3D style because of how flawlessly high def the printing is!  For those of you who remember my scoring system (which I am hereby re-instating), this product easily earns 5 Jolly Jack-O-Lanterns!!!  In other words, visit FauxReal and buy yourself one, NOW!

Click here to check out FauxReal's website!

Oh and by the way they have one other horror themed shirt but I don't want to spoil what it is.  Go visit their website to find out!

Hallmark Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Christmas Ornament!!

My wife and I have started collecting all sorts of nerdy related goodies for our newborn, as we hope he is into geek culture as much as we are.  These goodies are not limited to the Monster Fighters Lego series sets, Mars Attacks cards, and of course various horror collectibles.  What we didn't do however was include his grandparents in this obsessive collecting adventure because they had already expressed their displeasure in our forcing the little one to be a "baby geek".  They must have changed their minds however because as my wife and I pulled up to the house we found a package on the porch addressed to the little guy from my parents, and guess what it contained?  Some cute little shorts adorned in skulls and crossbones, two packs of Mars Attacks cards, and this little early Christmas treat!

So what this equates to is that instead of the little guy getting some cheesy "Babies First Christmas" ornament for the tree, he gets this badass "Magic" keepsake ornament as his first!  (I'm sure my wife and I will end up buying said cheesy "Babies First Christmas" ornament anyways.)

As soon as I opened this for the little guy I instantly became jealous.  Me a grown man jealous of a little 4 month old, and over a Christmas ornament no less!  Well you see, my mom has a tradition of buying me a Christmas ornament each year (even now my parents give me a new one each and every year) and I can assure you that although they have bought me some astoundingly awesome ornaments, none of them have ever done this...

This is an actual recording that I did to show how the audio sounds from the ornament, no audio enhancement was done.  Pretty amazing sounding isn't it?

So there you have it, an absolutely fantastic little gift from my parents to the baby, and one that I certainly won't mind playing with a little bit until he is old enough to tell me "Uh, sorry Dad but I believe that is MY Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Christmas Ornament!"

"Magic" means I know where you sleep at night......

Ghost Tits Movie Trailer Parody!

Caught this hilarious horror movie trailer parody online today.  It involves Olivia Munn and her disappearing breasts.  I think it's hilarious, my wife..... not so much.  Oh and by the way catch the hilarious link to the official website of said movie at the end!

HAHAHA! www.wheredemtitsgo.com  loved it!

Call me maybe parody - I'm a Zombie maybe?

Not bad, not bad. Still my favorite Call me maybe? parody is cookie monster's "Share it maybe". I caught this on Better Haunts and Gardens facebook feed today and thought I'd share it with any of you who didn't already see it!

Zombie Disney Princesses!

I was perusing around one of my regular web haunts today and found these totally amazing pics.  As you all know I have an unhealthy obsession with all things Disney.  I also have an obsession with the grotesque and macabre.  This is what happens when you mash the two together!

Zombie Snow White

Zombie Little Mermaid

Zombie Cinderella (My Personal Favorite!)

These amazing pieces of art are the work of DeviantArt user clocktowerman (video game reference much, I love it!)  Click his user name to check out his DeviantArt profile showcasing some of the other work he has done.  Perhaps we could also ask nicely for some more zombie versions of the Disney Princesses?

Please excuse the cobwebs....

I wanted to massively overhaul HalloweenOverkill with my renewed vigor for the site and in doing so I have created some rather ugliness about the blog.  Fear not for all will be fixed in the coming days!  Also, if you see anything you like/hate/love/would rather destroy/or simply want to give me input on the new look please don't hesitate to let me know. (Even if it's something bad!  I'd rather know than let it look ugly!)

Free Pumpkin Masters Patterns

Just happened to go to the Pumpkin Masters website (Zombie Pumpkins is still the best!) and found out that they have some free patterns that are available to download.  Check out the ones that they have up right now.

They're actually all pretty cool except for Flack Jack which seems pretty generic to me.  Also if you check out Pumpkin Masters facebook page and "like" it you can view an additional 6 patterns.  I won't spoil those for you so go check them out on facebook and see if there are any that strike your fancy!

Dark Shadows on Blu-Ray and DVD!

Got an alert in my inbox last night that told me to pre-order Dark Shadows on blu-ray!  Apparently it is being released on October 2, 2012!  I had no idea this was coming out so soon, but here are the covers for both the blu-ray and DVD.

Dark Shadows Blu-ray

Dark Shadows DVD

Here are some of the special features that are included with the blu-ray version (my preferred video medium)

-Maximum Movie Mode

-The Collinses: Every Family has its Demons

-Becoming Barnabas

-Welcome to Collinsport

-Reliving a Decade

-Angelique: A Witch Scorned

-Alice Cooper Rocks Collinsport!

-Dark Shadowy Secrets

-A Melee of Monstrous Proportions

-Dark Shadows: The Legend Bites Back!

-Six Deleted Scenes

-A bonus copy of the film on DVD

-A bonus Ultraviolet digital copy of the film

The blu-ray will also feature high definition video and audio as well.

I don't know about you, but even with some of the negative reviews that major sites have given the movie, everyone who I personally trust that had an opinion said the movie is definitely worth seeing.  I know I'll be picking this one up come October!  Will any of you be buying it as well?

Awards Update

Now that I'm back to blogging there are some awards that I'd like to post and give thanks for that have been sitting in my inbox for far too long.  First up is the iDig Your Blog Award, bestowed upon me by the most excellent Holly over at Holly's Horror Land! (sorry it took almost a year to thank you Holly!)

iDig Your Blog Award Procedure

1. Gratefully accept the award

2. Link to the person who you received it from

3. Post 3 interesting facts about yourself

4. Pass the award on to at least 5 other awesome blogs

5. Notify those blogs

1.  Holly, I'd like to thank you soooo much for this award!

2. Check out her amazing blog - Holly's Horrorland

3. Here are 3 interesting things about me

- Way back when I lived with my parents, I had a Halloween Yard Haunt for about 7 straight years, they were all Scarecrow/Cornfield themed!

- I have two cats, a grey one named Roxas, and a black one named Dracula.  Believe it or not I picked out the name Roxas and my wife actually picked the name Dracula for the black one!

- Here's a two-fer, I asked my wife to tell me something interesting about myself and she says "I don't know, you have a unibrow, you like Coke (the softdrink haha)."  Yes that's how interesting my wife thinks I am.

4. These are the blogs iDig!

The Halloween Tree

The Shadow Farm

The Scream Queen

Spookshows.com Blog

Justine's Halloween

5. Going to notify them now!

The second award, and one that I was given a little more recently is the Liebster Award!  This award was graciously awarded to me by It Came from the Man Cave!

                                                        

Liebster Award Rules

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves

2. Each person must answer 11 questions asked by the person handing out the Liebster Award

3. Create 11 questions for the people you are giving the Liebster Award to answer

4. Choose 11 people to give the award to and link to them in the post (no tag backs)

5. Notify the award recipients

Here are my 11 things about myself

1. My favorite video game series of all time is the Monkey Island series (I'm sure I've stated this about a million times on this blog)

2. I am addicted to Coca Cola

3. I am obsessed with collecting books related to Halloween (among other things) and currently have quite the collection

4. I was born and raised in Detroit

5. My wife and I just had our first child and bought our first house all within about 2 months!

6. I am obsessed with the Olympics (I like the winter games better, but love both)

7. My favorite shows of all time include, Lost, King of Queens, Home Improvement, and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.

8. I'm two years into completing a Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science right now.

9. I love Terry Pratchett and his Discworld novels!

10. My favorite single food dish - Basil Friend Rice with Chicken (Green Mango in Monroeville!)

11. I was mortally terrified by horror films and horror characters especially Freddy Krueger (long story) until I was about 12 (quite the coincidence seeing as how I later became obsessed with the genre)

Here are my answers to the 11 questions created by It Came from the Man Cave

1. What is your favorite horror host?

Elvira 

(have to give a close second to Wolfman Mac another fellow neighbor from Detroit!)

2. If you only had 5 minutes to look at one website what would it be?

Lifehacker.com

3. Do you hold the door open for people?  If no, why not?

Yes I hold the door open for people, however the amount of rude people that will not reciprocate or say thank you makes me not want to hold doors anymore

4. Marvel or DC?

DC by a mile, better heroes, WAYYYYYY better villians

5. Favorite Halloween Special

Oh boy, where to begin.  Let's do it this way, as far as animated specials go, either The Halloween Tree or It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  For live action specials, I would say either the Home Improvement Halloween episodes, or the Roseanne Halloween specials.  But honestly there are so many good ones in general.

6. Meat or Veggies?

Easy one, Meat

7. What was your first car? 

1988 Chrysler LeBaron

8. Favorite movie of all time?

I am terrible with answering these single favorite questions.  My faves are Scarface (Pacino version), Wizard of Oz, Shaun of the Dead, Halloween...... the list goes on. If I had to pick one, I would have to say Halloween (1978)

9. Zombies or Vampires?

Tough one, I love them both.  If I had to pick one, I'd say zombies

10. What is your dream job?

Anything that would involve horror, the macabre, Halloween.... perhaps a writing job, a directing job, or even a creative consultant job for a Halloween haunt. (please contact me if you can offer me any of these jobs haha)

11. I think tattoos are gross, how many do you have?

0 - although I have some ideas (let's see what my wife thinks of these so-called ideas, haha)

Here are the 11 questions that you must answer for the winners of my Liebster Award

1. What is your favorite Halloween tradition/memory?

2. Halloween III - terrible or underrated?

3. Your favorite guilty pleasure film?

4. If you could meet any one horror icon dead or alive, who would it be?

5. What is your favorite holiday other than Halloween (assuming it is your fave, it is right?)

6. What is your favorite t.v. show of all time?

7. Is there a single horror movie or scene you cannot stomach to watch, what is it?

8. What is more exciting, a horrible thunderstorm or an insane snowstorm?

9. Who is your favorite fictional horror icon?

10. What is your favorite Halloween treat?

11. You can only watch one Halloween special/movie this year, what do you choose?

There you have it, have fun and go wild with those questions!

The 11 people I choose to pass on the Liebster Award are:

HalloweenWitchesFlyinMachine

It's on Random

Dr. Blood's Video Vault

Full Moon Reviews

Ghost Hunting Theories

Holly's Horrorland

Guardians of the Genre

Hallowdean Hollow

Hook's Haunted Hollow

Kweeny Todd

Mandy's Morgue of Horror

There you have it, I will be letting those 11 know that I passed the Liebster Award on to them!  I'd like to thank Holly's Horrorland and It Came from the Man Cave for my awards!

Yeah cause he's back!!!! (he's the man behind.... you get the point!)

Welcome back Ghouls!  Now that our little newborn zombie is 3 months old and we've settled into the new crypt (we bought our first house!) I think it's high time I get back to doing a little blogging!  What better way to re-open HalloweenOverkill than with my advice that you leave this blog right now!  How in the blue hell can that help me re-grand open the blog you ask?  Well, normally it wouldn't but where I am about to send you makes it totally worth leaving your favorite cozy little Halloween home on the web.  Where you ask is it that I want you to visit?  None than the infamous Myers house!  No, not that Myers House, but the one in North Carolina!  What, you didn't know there was a Myers House in N.C.?  Well you don't need to actually drive there tonight to see it, but if you head over to the Myers House N.C. website you are in for one fantastic surprise!  For the uninitiated I won't spoil the surprise of the site, but lets just say my man Kenny (The cryptkeeper of the Myers House N.C.) is the biggest Halloween fanatic you've ever seen!  He is such a big fanatic that he actually........ well like I said go check out the site and see for yourself!  After you head over do yourself a favor and check out the merchandise section of the site, for right now they are selling some limited edition kick-ass t-shirts and posters that you cannot get anywhere else!  The shirts are limited to only 72, and since I know each and every one of you are going to buy one, these suckers are going to go quick!  As far as the posters go, these are also limited edition pieces, in fact there are only 50 of these bad boys and for only $13.50 (that includes shipping) you can own both of the limited edition posters available.  Check out the shirt & poster designs after the break and please do yourself a favor and pick these items up before they are gone!  If you see Kenny creepin around over there tell him the Halloweenman sent ya'!!!

Tell me this shirt isn't absolutely mint!

For the love of god, please plaster these suckers all over your horror room walls!!!!!

Leprechaun Reboot?

So it would appear that the Leprechaun series is going to get a reboot courtesy of........ The WWE??????  How about WTF?  Does this seriously need to be rebooted, wouldn't another sequel be just as well?  And the WWE, seriously?  I swear on left thumb that if they use that leprechaun asshole from the WWE that I will, well shit I don't know what I'll do but it will involve plyers, needles, and my eyeballs.

"fuckswaggle" isn't that his name?

I honestly don't have a problem with the series and the horror/comedy route that it has taken, like I said I'd just be fine with a well produced sequel to be honest.  What are your thoughts on this, should we get a reboot, a sequel, or just leave the series as it is?

Finally Created my "random news" blog!

Sorry for missing the Vampire's Day Soiree.  In the crazy haze of taking care of the upcoming baby and finally beginning to look for a house I have let this blog lag again, I know I'll lose some readers because of this but priorities come first.  In the mean time I have created another blog where I have created an outlet to share all the non-horror interesting and weird news that I come across.  I know you're asking if he can't keep one blog how can he do two.  But hopefully this will allow me finally blog about all the things I want to without having to cram them into some horror related story.  Check out the new blog and keep checking back here for updates as well!

I Eat My Own Dandruff

(you'll understand the title once you visit!)

Obligatory Post Super Bowl Update

With all the water cooler talk today about either Wes Welker's dropped pass (still one of the most reliable receivers in the league, I'd take him on my team any day!) or everyone's favorite commercials, I figured I'd add myself to the list of the 10 million other blogs posting about last night's events.  Here are my top 3 favorite commercials from the big game last night! (Not sure why, but you have to hit stop on each commercial after it ends of it will endlessly play a loop of the commercials from last night's game, blame HULU for that one!)

3. MetLife: Everyone

This might not have been the funniest or the most eye catching commercial to most, but for those of us who grew up in the 80's it was a delightful trip down memory lane with some of our favorite cartoon characters.  Seeing He-Man come roaring in on Battle-Cat was pretty ridiculous but nostalgic all the same, but the icing on the cake was Voltron.  Yes F*N VOLTRON was in a super bowl commercial!

2. Audi: Vampire Party

Hilarious riff on the current obsession with "trendy" vampires.  I like how the guy hiding behind the log gets it in the end as well also.  Loved the usage of "The Killing Moon" from Echo and the Bunneymen!

1. Kia: Optima - A Dream Car.  For Real Life.

The best commercial of the Super Bowl by a longshot.  A nice mix of zexyness and hilarity as our husband and wife roam through their respective dream-worlds.  Favorite part, besides the obvious, is Chuck Liddell kicking the head off of his competitor a-la Mortal Kombat!  Another shout out for one of my favorite 80's bands as well with the appearance of Motley Crue!

I would also like to give an Honorable Mention to the Chrysler: Halftime in America commercial.  Not only was it pretty moving, what with all of the unfortunate job loss in America, but also for it's ability to hit home with me.  I am proudly from Detroit and have had both my father-in-law and my own father lose jobs because of the state of the automotive industry and economy there, and keeping in the tone with the commercial neither of these men blamed anybody, nor did they whine, complain and give up, they pressed ever onward and continued to do what they had to do to support themselves and their families until things started shaping up.  I know this may sound cheesy but for those from Detroit or those affected in any way from the loss of a job know this stuff hits home.  I could have done without the cheesy Super Bowl reference at the end of the commercial but none the less I'd like to say bravo to Chrysler (also the company both of my Grandfathers worked for!) for airing such a passionate and moving commercial.

 

OK, let's move on to some lighter fare now, as we discuss the worst of the worst.  In my eyes the biggest bust of all of the Super Bowl commercials was probably Danica Patrick's in the GoDaddy Commercial, I kid, I kid! (see what I did there?)  Seriously though, the worst of the bunch other than the pathetic GoDaddy commercials (isn't time they gave up on their marketing tactics of old, it's just getting awkward now) was the Matthew Broderick commercial.

Yes I understand that it wasn't supposed to be Matthew playing a day in the life of Ferris Bueller but Matthew playing a day in the life of Matthew, however it just wasn't funny.  I love Ferris Bueller's Day Off just as much as the next 80's kid but did anyone actually enjoy this commercial?  I just thought it felt really forced and could have been done differently I suppose, but I guess that's why I'm a student and not writing commercials for the Super Bowl that cost 1.3 billion dollars per microsecond.  Although the more I think about it, I suppose it wasn't the worst commercial but the biggest let down of a commercial.  I guess I just wanted to be taken back to that amazing time in the 80's when Ferris was still relevant, but it just didn't do it for me.  And last but not least I'd like to present to you my favorite movie trailer of the Super Bowl and no it's not for "The Hunger Games"! (I'm trying to stay as far away from that trailer as possible so as to not go into movie theaters with the jaded mindset of seeing a much too amazing trailer and then being let down by the film itself, and yes I loved the book)

Favorite Movie Trailer of the Super Bowl

Anybody disagree with my faves or just want to share their opinion on any of the commercials up above,  get the discussion going in the comments!

New Design?

Anyone out there an expert on Blogger templates or designs?  I have a few major burning questions that I'd like to ask so that I can cosmetically change a few things on my blog.  If so email me or leave me a comment here so that I can contact you.  I'm usually pretty good at this stuff but just can't figure out these few things I want to change.

Is this thing still on?

WOW!  After some crazy life events of 2011 I just couldn't keep up with the blog anymore.  However things seem to have stabilized, at least for now (the baby is due in 3 months!) and I am just itching to return the fabulous blog world that I used to contribute to.  I really miss all my blog friends and reading your comments (my favorite part!) and hearing your opinions on my thoughts.  I also miss regularly reading YOUR blogs and vow to return to regular commenting on them starting today!  So if anyone out there still has any love left in their bloody hearts for HalloweenOverkill let me know in the comments, or if you're new and just want to cheer me on, that always helps as well!