BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 25: "STILL LIFE" HORROR SHORT

I think most people will agree that mannequins are or can be quite creepy. I think it's for the same reasons dolls are; they possess human features that are accurate and detailed, yet still aren't human and are therefore unsettling mockeries of humanity. That feeling of unease mannequins can evoke are part of the weird and ultimately shocking horror short, "Still Life."

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 24: "THE HOUSES OCTOBER BUILT!"

Here's a great idea for a horror film I wish I'd come up with: what if the seemingly-countless number of haunted houses throughout the country, set up to delight and fright folks during the Halloween season, harbor truly sinister secrets? That's the premise for the film "The Houses October Built." Parts of the movie were filmed in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It's a found footage film, but that genre can really work with the right creators behind it, and it looks like "The Houses October Built" is one that will work really well.

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 23: BEWARE "THE SMILING MAN!"

Grinning people have always scared me. I think it might be due to the fear of clowns I developed at an early age, but by the time I saw Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, I was no longer just scared by sinister smiles; I was fascinated. I myself have a smile that I've been told is creepy when paired with wide eyes. That said, the guy with the creepiest grin, who inspired the look of The Joker in 1940, was actor Conrad Veidt in his role as the clown Gwynplaine in the movie 'The Man Who Laughs." His grisly grin seems to be in the inspiration for a Creepypasta "true story" called "The Smiling Man," which inspired this short film of the same name. Enjoy, and beware anyone who smiles far too much and too long.

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 22: LOUISIANA SAFE IN ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

The travel site Trulia has released a fun image, a map of the U.S. showing which cities would be the most dangerous and overrun in a zombie outbreak or full-blown apocalypse. Trulia chose the cities numbered on the map by "highest hospital density, more congestion, fewer hardware stores, and higher walk scores." The only city in Louisiana that even shows up on the map is New Orleans, and it's second to last after Houston, TX.

Louisiana is a mostly rural state and features large swathes of wilderness, wetlands, and water. While those areas aren't completely uninhabited, they do present handicaps for the shambling, slow-moving undead. New Orleans is the largest city and the state, but it's the high walk score that really cripples the Big Easy. Once a few people are infected and move into the streets (or from the streets into buildings and homes) it's a rapid and practically inescapable zombie holocaust.

Thankfully, we here in south Louisiana would be in a good position to withstand the outbreak. Our more rural communities require vehicular travel, meaning the smaller number of zombies would have a harder time to find prey. I find this interesting in light of the sad fate of Lafayette in the excellent zombie novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Lafayette was revealed to be "overrun," along with Baton Rouge, in a sequence involving a downed pilot fighting for her life in the Atchafalya swamp.The other factor that would be a HUGE plus for us here in LA is the predominance of gun owners. While guns aren't necessarily the perfect tool for zombie killing, they certainly make things easier and quicker.

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 21: 30 SECOND HORROR SHORT: "JACK"

I've been finding these amazing horror shorts more and more, and each is truly amazing. To have the craft needed to scare someone in just thirty seconds or a few minutes is enviable. Here's one that plays on our familiarity with a toy that most of us don't necessarily find that scary outside of the "jump scare" it provides.

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 20: "LIGHTS OUT" HORROR SHORT!

One of the scariest feelings I experience (and I imagine most other people experience as well) is that feeling that there's something in the dark waiting for you. No matter the comfort and familiarity of the setting, darkness fills everything with sinister possibility.

"Lights Out," a short film from 2013, plays with this idea beautifully. We've all had that experience of something looking alien, looming, and terrible in the dark, only to have it turn out to be nothing when the lights are turned on. In "Lights Out," turning the lights on doesn't help, and therein lies the horror.

BRIDE OF 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN! DAY 19: EVERY PARENT SHOULD WATCH "TUCK ME IN!"

Uh, yeah. Not much to say about this one except, wow...good luck when you tuck your kids in tonight.Less than a minute long but will stay with you for much, much longer.