SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 26: ZOMBIES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM!

I was speaking with a co-worker recently about zombies. We're both fans of the zombie genre, especially The Walking Dead and the original Romero series that began with Night of the Living Dead. I said that I was very glad zombies aren't real, and he smiled and told me to look up "zombie bugs."


I did so, and have been disturbed ever since. The concept of organisms being "possessed" after death and then utilized for various purposes is one alive and well in the animal kingdom. (yep, I went there.)

This is one of the best articles on the phenomenon. What are we talking about here? How about a fungus that takes over the body of an ant and then controls the ant, even after the ant dies? Good stuff.

Visit the article for more info on zombified animals!

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 25: IS "HALLOWEEN" THE BEST HORROR MOVIE EVER?

Today's entry in SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! is a brief one, as today is my oldest daughter Ava's eighth birthday! We're about to have pizza and open gifts, so I wanted to get this entry up before the festivities begin.

John Carpenter's Halloween has long been one of my favorite horror films, if not favorite films, period. It was one of the first truly independent films, and the story of its creation is almost as engaging as the film itself.

The story is known to just about everyone: Michael Myers, age 6, kills his teenage sister Judith, and is then institutionalized. Fifteen years of being in a state of near catatonia, Myers escapes the asylum and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, and proceeds to stalk and kill more teenage girls. Myers' doctor, in the meantime, races against time to stop the bloodshed or, at the very least, keep it to a minimum.

So much of what makes Halloween work is found in this article, which prompted me to write this entry. If you've never seen Halloween, I think you'll want to after reading the article, which gives some of the background behind the film, including the intriguing origin of Michael Myers' fearsome mask, and other details of the film's production.

You can purchase the 35th anniversary edition of Halloween on Blu Ray now. It's also available on DVD for under ten dollars at Wal-Mart.

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 24: SMARTPHONE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

As I've mentioned in a few previous entries in SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN!, the costumes folks in my generation had to deal with as a kid were terrible. Really terrible. One of the best examples I can give you is a Star Wars costume I remember wearing as a child of perhaps five or six. The costume consisted of a vacuformed character mask (with an elastic string to hold it on) and a mylar poncho that didn't look like the rest of the character you wanted to be for Halloween. Oh no, that would be FAR too sensible! Instead, the poncho featured not only a photo of the character but also, the character's NAME! I guess costume makers of the early 80s thought we were too stupid back then to remember who we were without having two visual reminders outside of the mask. Either that, or they too realized how crappy their costumes were and that very likely, other people might need help in identifying who the hell we were supposed to be "in costume."

My mom was nice enough to send over a photo of a photo of me (age 4) and my brother Jarrod (age 11) from way back in 1980. He's Dracula, and I'm The Batman! Notice the weird, over-sized mask, the bizarre mylar costume, and worst of all...BATMAN written on the bat-symbol on the costume!



Sorry...rant over. I just get frustrated by those horrid "costumes" we were stuck with back in "the dark ages."

Times have most definitely changed. Not only can you purchase movie-quality costumes of just about any character you want to be these days, you can also use your smartphone to bring your costume to digital life.

I discovered these Digital Dudz costumes whilst doing my usual research for this blog, and I am absolutely floored by the fact that such amazing costumery exists. What a truly wonderful time we're living in, kids! There is a great variety of extremely innovative, smartphone or tablet-enhanced costumes available from Digital Dudz/Morph Costume Company, but I'm going to focus on my favorite: the "Flesh iWound."




This is one of those multimillion ideas so simple you wish you'd thought of it, yet at the same time, it took a former NASA engineer to bring it to life. Mark Rober, an ex-NASA scientist who worked on the Mars Rover, had the brilliant idea to link two iPads together and attach one to his chest and back, creating the illusion that a hole had been blasted through him. After this idea became a YouTube sensation, he created other concepts, the best of which is, in my opinion, the Flesh iWound.



It's simple: you buy the special latex appliance that fits over your neck, download the free Digital Dudz app, and then put your favorite button-down shirt on over the appliance or cut a hole in an on t-shirt and voila! You now have a simple yet digitally-animated Halloween costume, appearing to be a person who has survived a massive chest wound that has exposed your beating heart! The app provides both the visual of the beating heart and and the beat to go with it!

Watch the video below to see the Flesh iWound in action, and visit the Digital Dudz site to see what other digital wonders await!

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 23: EX-PIXAR ANIMATOR DELIVERS CHILD-FRIENDLY FRIGHTS!

It's rare to find a horror film that's truly appropriate for kids and yet manages to still be truly scary. There are a few films out there we could discuss that fit the bill, but I've never seen a short film that so brilliantly ramps up tension and suspense and then delivers the final scare in such a creepy way.


Alma is a Spanish short film produced by ex-Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas. The film gets its name from the main character, Alma, which is the Spanish word for "soul." Keep this in mind while viewing the film.

There is no violence or gore in Alma, and it's silent except for music and sound effects. It is nonetheless effectively chilling and might be too much for some kids. Be sure to watch first to decide if you want to show it to the children in your life.

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 22: DEAD YOURSELF APP!

Have you ever wondered what you'd look like as a zombie but without, y'know...the whole dying/reanimated part?

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can now rock a zombie look without having to be bitten. The Dead Yourself app, courtesy of The Walking Dead, allows you to upload a photo which you can then apply various "undead filters" to. Once you're satisfied with your "make-over," you can save the photo and then post it to Facebook or other sites of your choosing.

Think of it as an apocalyptic, undead version of Instagram.

The app does take some tweaking, but after just a few minutes, I decided to go with this "first draft" as an example of the app's features. Creepy, huh? And I thought my high school yearbook photos were gruesome!

Feel free to share your photos with me in the comments section below, and happy zombifying!

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 21: THE ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN APP!

Okay, forgive me for a little false advertising in the headline there. "House of Horrors" is not a Halloween app, technically speaking.

It is, however, one of the best apps I've ever seen and perfect for the Halloween season, or just for those times before and after Halloween, when you want the horror to live on.

"House of Horrors" is an app available for both Android and Apple devices that allows you to watch up to 150 classic horror films that are all in the public domain. We're not talking some of the modern crap that's out there these days on Netflix and Redbox. These are true gems from days gone by, some in color and some in gorgeous black and white (my daughters hate black and white...what's wrong with them?!) but all well worth the time and the price of the app.

Screens from "House of Horrors"

We're talking truly classic horror stuff, though those of you who aren't horror movie fans might not have heard of some of them; films by directors like Hitchcock, Corman, Romero, and even Coppola are available on "House of Horrors." Here's a breakdown of the ones I think are well worth your time if you've never seen them:

Night of the Living Dead (the original and the one that gave birth to the current zombie craze we're currently experiencing!) Strangers holed up together in a farm house as hordes of the cannibalistic undead close in for an all you can eat buffet! This film still terrifies me today, as it implies much more than it actually shows and builds tension and dread like few films since have.

Carnival of Souls: a very creepy, yet also tragic film featuring "ghouls" that influenced the look of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. The ending is straight out of the Twilight Zone or an M. Night Shaymalan flick, though this film proceeded both.

Dementia 13: Francis Ford Coppola's mainstream directorial debut, which debuted a few years after Hitchcock's masterpiece, Psycho. The Gothic atmosphere and axe-wielding precursor to the Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees of the future makes this a must-see.

House on Haunted Hill: one of the many Vincent Price classics available through this app, this movie features Price as a millionaire who offers five people $10, 000 (this was the 60s, mind you) if they can spend the night in his "haunted" mansion.

Nosferatu: Last but certainly not least is the 1922 German Expressionist masterpiece "Nosferatu." This is a movie I believe anyone who loves movie should see at least once, and it's always featured as a part of the "ambiance" at our annual Meauxloween parties. It's a silent film that adapts the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula, albeit with differently-named characters to avoid lawsuits from Stoker's widow. Actor Max Schreck's performance as Count Orlok remains one of the most unnerving and creepy performances in the history of cinema. I love this movie so much that I will often watch it on my Netflix app on my phone when I have time to kill and am I'm not near a computer or TV.


So how much will these grand collection of macabre masterpieces and terrifying treasures cost you? Only a paltry .99 cents! House of Horrors can be found in the iTunes app store and Google Play. If you have an iPad, you'll pay a dollar more, but it's well worth the price.

SON OF THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 20: REVENGE OF THE CEREAL AISLE MONSTERS!

One of my fondest Halloween memories as a kid was getting the General Mills Monster cereals. They were discontinued in 2010 as year-round offerings, only being made available during the Halloween season thereafter.

The three most well-known were Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, but there were also two others monster cereals that did not have the same longevity as their monstrous brethren: Fruit Brute (which eventually came to be spelled "Frute Brute,") and Fruity Yummy Mummy. Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy haven't been available for twenty-five years, and their boxes, along with the other monsters' boxes from days gone by, fetch quite a bit of money on eBay.

Vintage and modern box designs together for the first time!

Not content with simply resurrecting the Monster Cereals themselves, General Mills has also brought back the vintage box designs, which are only available in Target stores.

So far, we've gone through a box of Boo Berry and a box of Count Chocula, but I'm planning on hitting up Target before Halloween to grab the vintage boxes. If you've never had these cereals before or you haven't had them since you were a kid, or if you just want to grab them again this year, now is the time to get your paws and claws on 'em before they disappear back into the night. In other words, until next year.

Click here to read more about the Monster cereals and their impact on the "old fogies" of our generation.