A-Z Blogging Challenge Day 10

April 12th

J is for Jack-O-Lantern

Wow, where do we even begin with this one?  Jack-O-Lantern's have long been a tool of the trade for many o' horror characters.  Rather than give any lengthy description of each film I'll just post the covers for each film.

Do I even need to desribe this one?  The funny thing is the story kind of changes in different iterations of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", so it's hard to describe exactly how the JOL is used.  In some of the versions it is actually declared as Brom whom throws the jack-o-lantern as a prank to scare poor Ichabod, and in others it is the horseman who throws the jack-o-lantern at the end of the tale.  (Though it has long been debated that in the version of the tale where the horseman throws the JOL it could have been Brom who was dressed up as the horseman to begin with)  Here are even more variations of the classic "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" tale, all of which use a "Jack-O-Lantern" as a tool of the trade.

And the list goes on and on...... There have also been several other t.v. shows and cartoon specials that have used "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as inspiration, all of which include some form of a jack-o-lantern used as a weapon or prank.
Another movie that featured a Jack-O-Lantern was the campy horror classic Jack-O.  I haven't seen this movie in about 10 years so forgive me for not being able to provide ample information about the film.  I'm also sorry about not being able to give an actual screenshot of the demon because I don't own the film, so the cover will have to do for now.

 This is the cover for the 10th Anniversary DVD Edition

This was the cover for the VHS version of the film

So again, the jack-o-lantern wasn't actually used as a weapon but was used as the head of the demon so, does it technically fit the theme?  I doubt it, but I guess you could debate it.

The Halloween Tree, an absolute essential for the Halloween season.  How you ask, are Jack-O-Lanterns used as "tools of the horror trade" in this classic.  Well as you can see above the Jack-O-Lanterns are hung from The Halloween Tree on Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud's property and used as vessels for the souls of the dead.  When the pumpkin's glowing light goes out, so does the soul of the mortal attached to it extinguish as well.
Of course this is not an all exhaustive list, and to claim so would just be plain fraud.  Soooooo, I'll leave you with these last three movie covers in which a Jack-O-Lantern was used by the villain or villains as a tool of the horror trade.

Jack-o-lanterns in cinema

I'd like to thank Melissa over at Little Miss Zombie and Jeremy over at iZombie-Lover for tagging me in the new horror picture blog meme.  My task was to find pictures that all share a common theme.  The theme I chose, Jack-o-lanterns.  Some of these pictures feature very subtle Jack-o-lanterns, some very "in your face", some hard to find, and some not so hard.  Some are plastic and some are real but in every pic below you will find a jack-o-lantern.

As I was capturing these and posting them I thought to myself "These are not going to be fun to tag" so instead of tagging and labeling them all I challenge you ghouls to figure out what pictures are from what movies. Now not every pic featured here is from an actual motion picture, some are from Halloween novelty videos, others from cartoons, and even one from a documentary.  There are also a few from t.v. shows.  Even though they aren't all from actual movies I feel the "hardcore" halloween fans will be able to guess at least 20 of the 25 photos featured here. Up to the challenge? List your answers in the comments below. And no, there are no prizes for this, I just thought it would be a fun time. Hell you can even team up for this one and just list one at a time and the next person in line can name the next picture, that would be acceptable also!