There's nothing more Halloween than this old Disney cartoon about a bunch of skeletons dancing around a graveyard at night. All the classic spooky shit is on full display. Black cats, big spiders, a howling dog, an owl, and of course the skeletons. The ghouls dance around, playing each other as instruments (don't be weird), and having a grave old time. You saw what you saw. All hell breaks loose and the grim reaper gets served before sun rise. Which of course means it's time for the skeletons to rush back to their graves.
This week we're going to listen to an episode of Lights Out from
December 16, 1936. Poltergeist (also known as Gravestone) is the tale of
3 friends who discover the hard way that you shouldn't dance on graves.
It's a great scary story with an ending you didn't see coming.
From The Amityville Horror to Pet Sematary, ancient burial grounds have
long been the cause of haunted houses in popular fiction. Rob talks
about the graveyards he grew up around that are now the site of newly
built homes.
Everybody has seen The Skeleton Dance, which I posted yesterday. It's a classic. What many don't know is that it got something of a spiritual sequel. The Skeleton Frolic by UB Iwerks (whom was the primary animator of The Skeleton Dance) takes the same idea and delivers it again with improved animation and better overall presentation. All the classic spooky shit is back, but a lot more frightening this time around. The Skeleton Dance is a Halloween institution, but it's follow up is Halloween master class.
There's nothing more Halloween than this old Disney cartoon about a bunch of skeletons dancing around a graveyard at night. All the classic spooky shit is on full display. Black cats, big spiders,a howling dog, an owl, and of course the skeletons. The ghouls dance around, playing each other as instruments (don't be weird), and having a grave old time. You saw what you saw. All hell breaks loose and the grim reaper gets served before sun rise. Which of course means it's time for the skeletons to rush back to their graves.
Oh, yes, it's Friday Night and the Frights are right, it's Friday Night...Frights. Summer is a Spooky season, as you all are used to seeing by now, and as a spooky season that leads up to THE spooky season... there's some spooky shit to be had. What am I talking about, well, that was literally just filler. I have no clue how to start this.
*cough*
Back in 1991, The Ultimate Warrior was in a feud with The Undertaker. Which means all sorts of stuff filmed in a graveyard while Paul Bearer did that face thing... the hell was that? Did... did he poop himself or something? As The Ultimate Warrior was facing a dark evil foe, he needed the help of another dark and evil individual, Jake The Snake! If nothing says dark and evil in the early 90's it's a guy with a mullet in a silk shirt who owns a snake. Jake begins showing the Ultimate Warrior the ways of the darkness and to believe in a thing called love. Just listen to the rhythm of your heart, Warrior. Which beats the blood of the warrior.
We are then treated to various clips of Jake and Warrior in a graveyard doing such things as digging up bodies, closing the Warrior in a casket, and other spooky shit until the culmination in a shed full of snakes. It's a carnival haunted house come to life with SO MUCH HEAVY BREATHING.
I post spooky shit all year on this here site. In fact, part of making this whole Friday Night Frights was a way of working it in all year. The site is a Halloween blog as well as a weird site about robots and monsters... but it's not Halloween all year.. technically anyway. Summer preludes to Halloween with it being a Spooky Season all of it's own. Not to mention, it's like the appetizer before pumpkin spice time. I don't care what any calendar says, Memorial Day is the start to summer and the spooky half of the year is starting on Zone Base!
So yeah, it's spooky shit time every Friday night right?
It totally is! Since summer is a more mean spirited part of the spooky season, what better way to kick that off than with some scary ass shit? I mean... look, I'm not convinced this cartoon isn't cursed. Swing You Sinners is a 90 year old cartoon that's probably the most horrible thing made. Let me give you the run down. Bimbo (I didn't name him) goes to steal a chicken one night. The cops nearly catch him and he escapes into a local cemetery to hide. This is where things go full tilt fever dream insane. The spirits of the graveyard come out to punish Bimbo for his sinning ways and we're treated (damned) to the weirdest nightmare that you never saw coming.
It's time for another edition of Friday Night Frights here on Zone Base, a weird ass site about robots and monsters. This week we have a live stream from ghost hunters in a Chinese cemetery. The crew of Bajul TV manage to contact the spirit of a woman buried in the cemetery. *cough* It's TOTALLY REAL GUYS. Outside of the *cough* ghost, they had a pretty good video going on here though. Streaming from a cemetery late a night would have made for a good spooky time even without ghost hunting on the itinerary. It's a pretty fun time still and admittedly the effects aren't bad for such a small production.
It's October, it's Halloween. A nice time to turn the lights off, light a few candles, and watch some old spooky crap. This here is Magic Mummy, a cartoon starring Tom and Jerry as cops chasing down some spooky shit. If grave robbers and dancing skeletons are your thing... I didn't think ahead how to follow that sentence. Uh.... part 5.
This Urbex video reminds me of an old story. When I was in college some friends and I would regularly go looking around places we weren't supposed to be. Closed down buildings, graveyards way too late at night, even ran from security at a water reservoir one night. All sorts of stupid stuff we shouldn't have done. We weren't making videos or anything, but if we could have, we probably would have. One night we snuck into a closed cemetery just after midnight. We had parked his car on the street in the nearby neighborhood and just walked through one of the gates that got left open at closing time.
This place was huge. The kind of cemetery you'd drive to the site of your loved ones in. There we were without flashlights walking around completely lost. After what seemed like forever, we found what had to be an attached funeral home. It looked like a plantation house and was all lit up. There were people inside working. Either late night cleaning or possible embalming work. We knew we just couldn't ask someone in there for help, they'd likely call the police on us for trespassing. We also knew that we had to be even more careful as now we could clearly be seen. However, something compelled us to sneak a look through the windows. I mean, what exactly was going on in there?
We snuck around to the back where the lights weren't as bright and there would be more shade to hide in. We found a dark corner near a window and peered in. Not sure what exactly the people were doing, but in literally no time found ourselves face to face with an older lady who just popped into the window and looked us dead in the eyes as she yelled for help.
Sometimes you don't talk, sometimes instinct takes over and a pack mentality forms. That must be what happened because we took off running. We all seemingly found the exact same place to get over a section of fence and into somebodies neighboring yard. Without saying a word we found ourselves hiding behind tool sheds as police cars circled the cemetery with flood lights. Fortunately it was late at night, so nobody was awake to look out a back window and rat us out. Before long they gave up the hunt and there we were laughing in the street. That was close... hey... where the hell did we park?
