Ghostface [Tiny Mights/Ghostface]

I've been eyeing Tiny Mights for a while now. Their Scooby Doo and Batman sets never arrived at my Walmart stores like I had been seeing online and that was pretty disappointing. Earlier this year when their horror offerings were made known, I started salivating. Fortunately a recent trip to Spirit Halloween resulted in finding a box of their Ghostface series by the check out. Let's take a look at the pack I got. Tiny Mights like to pack their keshi in capsules that match the series. I say that regretting I didn't snap a picture of the Ghostface capsule mine came in, but you should check it out (not an affiliated link). It's great. There's 3 mini figures included and they're a great size. There's a multitude of sculpts and colors in opaque and translucent varieties to collect.

In my pack I got a a translucent yellow holding a scythe, a pink Dead By Daylight version in the classic Kinnikuman pose, and a solid black running with a machete. These look amazing and I'm having a hard time picking a favorite. The machete and scythe ones conjure mental images of Halloween costumes equipped with whatever weaponry Walmart had available. I've never played Dead by Daylight... but I love this version. Ghostface started out as a generic Halloween costume long before Scream came around, so seeing all these colors and variations brings back fond memories of the various versions and colors the masks used be in. I definitely need to pick up more of these.

Weekly Halloween~ A Good Car

One thing that always gets me in horror movies is that nobody ever seems to own a decent car. Don't get me wrong, I've had to make do with a few less than quality rides myself at times. However, most slasher movies star college kids from obviously wealthy families. Think those big group trips to a cabin are cheap? However they're all seemingly driving the most clunker ass car... I guess it's the same logic that nobodies cell phone ever has signal once the bad guy shows up.

Shin Halloween: Thrice Upon a time

What they're billing as the final Halloween movie (and this time they mean it) was released this weekend. I enjoyed watching it in the comfort of my living room on Peacock. Halloween Ends is effectively a narrative ending of the series. Or at least this most recent rebuild series that started in 2018. That movie picked up 40 years after the original and ignored the other sequels. While I really enjoyed that 2018 movie for the most part (not a fan of the ending), it's follow up, Halloween Kills, was a pretty big let down. 

To be fair, there was parts of Halloween Kills that I liked. It was just the muddled execution that overall resulted in a not so great movie. Halloween Ends picks up 4 years later after Halloween 2018 (Kills takes place in the same night) with Michael Myers missing and Haddonfield worse off for it. I'm not going into spoiler territory as it literally just came out. I liked this movie a lot more than Halloween Kills. I like the story, but it could have been told better.

If this really is the last Halloween, I'm ok with it. Despite it's flaws, the movie really does feel like a proper end. Usually these 'final chapters' installments are not much more than another entry in the series without much finality to them. I'm sure in time the series will receive another reboot. I could go for a sequel to Season of the Witch if so. For now though, I'm ok with saying goodbye this time. Saying goodbye never feels perfect and there's always those thoughts of how it could have been better. If it is goodbye, then at least I have closure.

Goodbye, Michael.

Halloween Thrill Kill

Code Orange- Seemingly out of nowhere, the trailer for Halloween Kills was unleashed upon us all. We're all a little better for it. One thing I've always enjoyed about the Halloween movies, is that even with the various restarts and reboots, they keep the world building going. Lonny's kid, the original kids whom Laurie babysat, all sorts of things just keep coming back. You know, as much fun as we had last Halloween, the pandemic still put a hampering on it. This trailer helps me feel like we're really taking it back this year.

Not As Brightly Lit: Five Million Fault's At Freddy's

Listen And Download Here!

A scary movie is a great way to have some spooky fun any time of the year. Though if you've caught yourself yelling 'what are you doing?' at the TV... your not alone. This week, Rob talks some of the silliness used to combat Freddy Krueger. Because seriously, a Dungeon Master?

Trick Or Treating With Michael Myers

While the bag of Chucky capsule toys was pretty great, the best of NECA's surprise offerings is the Halloween II bag. Not only because Michael Myers is better than Chucky, but also because they made a better set of treats. Literally the perfect bunch of prizes for Halloween. As it should. It's the name of the fucking movie.

This bag is specifically themed after Halloween II from 1981. Considering the 2018 film reset everything after the 1978 movie, it's nice to see the original sequel get some love. It may not be the most critically praised film of all time... but movies people actually like never are. 

As much as I love the original movie, it never quite feels like it takes place on Halloween. Despite a few looks at kids in costume, it could be on any day. They captured that feel of the spooky season much more in all the sequels and I've always really loved them for that. 

The capsules are orange and black again, but this time with the Halloween II logo molded on them. I can't tell you just how much I appreciate that. It's just a little thing, but they could have just did a sticker or nothing at all. Mold toolings are expensive, considering the two different capsule logos when they could have just been plain is impressive. Inside each capsule is an individually wrapped prize.

I got shoelaces, a lanyard, a magnet, an eraser, a pin, a keychain,a patch, and two mini masks. The masks and the patch are the most awesome. Most of the stuff has a general Halloween/Michael Myers theme. The eraser has the Halloween II logo, but the patch takes it a step further. It's the patch an employee of the Hadonfield Memorial Hospital would wear on their uniform. Super cool way to go a little more in depth of the bags theme. But the mini masks? Those are the absolute best part of the whole set.

There's Michael's mask perfectly recreated and the skull Silver Shamrock mask from part III. Despite the set being themed after part II, they threw in a little love for good old Season of the Witch. The little masks are REALLY great considering they're tiny plastic toys based on 40 year old movie props. 

The skull mask looks just like the Don Post mask used in part III. It's hollow, has eye holes, and even the little slit on the back that most masks have so you can fit it over your head. The Michael mask though was the best. The same real mask touches as the skull, but they NAILED they was it looks. 

NAILED IT. 

WITH A HAMMER.

For those who may not know and for those who just like hearing things they already know, I'll go over the history of the Michael Myers mask. When they were making the original movie, the crew had a hard time finding the perfect Halloween. Eventually they took a William Shatner mask, altered it a little and spray painted it white. Voila, scary boogie man mask. 

Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter Nick Castle) played Michael in the original movie (among others) and pretty much just shoved the mask in his back pocket when not wearing it. Afterwards, Debra Hill threw the thing under her bed after filming. There it stayed until the production of part II in which they used it again.

Now after years of being in a heavy smokers house and the rough handling during the first movie it was a little worse for wear. Not to mention, it fit differently on Dick Warlock. That's why it looks a little different in the movie. They captured the way it looks in part II perfectly.

A little more trivia, if you watch part 4, you'll notice a scene in the school where the mask looks weird. They gave Dick Warlock the mask after making part II and recreated it for part 4 with a few new William Shatner masks. Somebody grabbed a non altered one when they filmed that scene and the crew didn't care enough to fix the mistake. Hollywood magic.

 

Bag Of Chucky

I don't know who at Neca started reading Zone Base, but they made exactly the perfect thing. Upon first seeing the Chucky and Halloween capsule bags on Instagram I knew I had to have them. This lead to finding them just in time for Halloween! These bags contain 9 gashapon style capsules each containing a prize. I'm not certain if the prizes differ per bag, but everything indicates that each bag is the same.

Starting off with the Chucky bag and I have to say the attention to detail is great. The bag itself is in the style of a Good Guys package aside from the Chucky logo up top. A small touch maybe, but than appreciated one. This leads me to wonder if any later bag series will be themed to other Child's Play movies.

Tear the bag open and you get 9 capsules each with Chucky's logo molded onto the plastic. Another nice little touch.

 

Each capsule is orange and black leading me to believe these are a special release for the Halloween season. I don't recall seeing anywhere if they are or aren't. I'd think the Chucky balls would match his packing more if not. Each ball contains an individually wrapped prize matching the theme.

The bag contained one of each: shoe laces, lanyard, pin, eraser, magnet, key chain, iron-on patch, bracelet, and a Chucky pencil topper. Either directly featuring Chucky or based on Good Guy packaging. Honestly I really liked that. I've been required to wear lanyards at previous jobs and something cool but not completely obvious like this would have been great to use.

 

My favorite prize was the Chucky pencil topper. It's a dead on head sculpt of him that can slip right on top of your pencil or pen. I really like how it's based on his Good Guy toy more so than the scowling expression it takes on when he's not playing possum. 

While I could see where somebody would prefer that or even his more popular sewn up appearance from Bride of Chucky, following series could be based on other movies. I also prefer the original the most. Not because it's the first, but because it's a great story.  

I like the Good Guy theme overall. It's not completely obvious and makes the prizes a little more varied than just a bunch of Chucky logos. Of course there is a good balance of direct Chucky stuff as well. Neca could have went the easy route with what's basically a novelty item. Instead they put some thought and followed a general theme. The original Child's Play had that level extra thought and that's one of the things that helped make it a great movie. Remember the ending song they originally intended?

Dammit Loomis

Halloween (1978) is a classic. One of my favorite movies of all time and without doubt a tradition for many to view at least once during the spooky season. I could and would normally shower it with love and admiration, but that's not what we're here for today. Today, I'm going to point out one of it's faults. Of course even with it's faults I still love it, but part of loving something is recognizing such things and loving it anyway.  The movie has it's faults, most are pretty easy to ignore. It's such a well made movie that you can look past John Carpenters cigarette smoke in one scene, crew members shadows and reflections in others. However the older I get, the more the most glaring error gets more noticeable.

In recent years I started noticing it more and more. I don't know if it's the millions of viewings or just getting older and experience starting to make me think more. What is it? Well, the movie is one part Laurie and her friends being stalked by Michael. The other part is Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett looking for Michael. The Myers house is like a block or so away from where Laurie is babysitting. Know all that yelling she does while running away from Michael? Loomis is literally standing outside just down the road.

In the beginning of the movie we see Laurie stopping by the old Myer's house to drop off a key for her dad. Tommy Doyle meets her along the way as their both walking to school. He meets her right after she leaves her house and they stop at the old house right after. Clearly it's not far of a walk from Laurie's right?  Later Annie picks her up to drive to their respective babysitting jobs and drive through town. Remember Tommy walking to past Laurie's house earlier? Admittedly this could have just been teens goofing around as teens do, they smoke a joint and we don't know if maybe they were stopping at the store or something. That's fair right? But it's established already that Tommy was in walking distance from Laurie's house and the old Myer's house.

Later that night Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett are waiting at Michael's old home expecting to catch him there. The sheriff leaves to respond to a call, but Loomis stays. He's outside, up front behind some bushes. Waiting for Michael to come home. Remember that one point where he hears some kids and it startles him? Clearly he's on guard. So during this time Michael kills Annie, Lynda and Bob. Mind you those were done pretty quietly... except for Annie honking the car horn the entire time he's killing her. Later when Tommy and Lindsey run away from the house screaming is when Dr. Loomis sees them and runs to help. One minute later he's upstairs saving Laurie. HE WAS A FEW HOUSES DOWN. He didn't even hear all that honking, neither did Laurie, but she was inside with some loud kids. A little later, Laurie is outside screaming bloody murder for somebody to please help her.  

LOUDLY.

People that are sleeping wake up, turn off their lights clearly thinking it's a prank. She's LOUD. I literally have to turn my TV down during this part. SHE'S SCREAMING VERY FUCKING LOUDLY. I can hear car horns in the front of my neighborhood and I live in the back. I can hear kids playing loudly in the nearby neighborhood on a quiet day. It was a quiet night. Did Loomis hear all that damn screaming a block or so down? While on the lookout? Nope, just digging in his ass.

The Devil's Video, Blockbusters Video

If it's one this I particularly miss about the bygone days of video stores, it's the horror section at the local video store. Nothing could beat those Mom and Pop stores with their cardboard standees of Nightmare of Elm Street faded from the sun next to the wall of VHS horror. When Blockbuster came on the scene, they outdid everybody. Bigger stores with bigger selections. Even their horror selection spanned a few aisles.

Blockbuster even outdid Mom and Pop stores with the holidays. Instead of a generic decoration or two, they'd generally have some sort of promotion. For a while you could get Blockbuster branded tapes of classic horror at Halloween time. You've probably guessed by now that I loved it. I still remember fall of 1995 and their specific release of Halloween. Truly a magical time.

Later they added more movies to the Halloween display, which didn't always have the branding, but had the sweet sale price. Friday the 13th for a few bucks, heck yeah! I wish pictures of their Michael Myers display were easier to find. You could see him peeking at you through the windows into the parking lot. Damn creeper.

The Bloody Pumpkin Is A Lie

Ever hear about that scene in Halloween where they find a bloody pumpkin with a knife sticking out of it? I used to hear about it all the time. That and how Michael Myers was based on a real guy. I'll get to the 'real guy' thing later, but for now I kind of want to chat bloody pumpkins and the Halloweens they weren't in. It's the weirdest urban legend as I never see anyone talk about it online. The Jason using a chainsaw thing? Yeah, I still see that occasionally. Bloody pumpkin? As offline as the official Bloody Pumpkin MySpace profile I planned on making in 2005.

It wasn't even that long ago my mom said it when I mentioned looking forward to the new Halloween (wait, that was 2018... ) and she said the original was 'so scary with that big knife sticking out of that pumpkin'. Clearly it's folks mentally combining imagery. Maybe just a little excited playground exaggeration from the one kid who's parents let him stay up and watch it mixed in.

See the commercial up above? It's an old school homemade spot for a local stations airing of Halloween 2. Homemade commercials used to be pretty common back in the day. Did you uh... notice Michael? Somebody got creative to make him look 'badass'. Making monsters look badass is a staple of Halloween and teenagers really into Ozzy Osbourne. Named Chet.

I think it's from some of these type of commercials where folks get that bloody pumpkin imagery. A bloody pumpkin with a knife sticking out of it isn't exactly rare at Halloween. I know I've seen one or two in the past. I've even poured fake blood over a pumpkin myself. Why not? Make it look badass.

Halloween Kills Delayed Until 2021

Like Ghostbusters and a few other movies, we'll have to wait until next year to see them. I was really looking forward to this, as were others, but safety first. At least with another year they can fine tune it and it'll now release on the 40th anniversary of the original part 2.

4K At Camp Blood

Running a marathon and camp, two beloved summer traditions that many take part in each year. While I've never ran a marathon, I used to go to a summer day camp when I was a kid and my brother went to a scout camp a few times. I don't know of many horrible things happening at marathons, summer camps though are often plagued by so many nightmares you often wonder why they're so popular.

Snake bites, poisoned wells, ghosts, and murder is just some of the urban legends surrounding the popular summer getaways. There's a million movies about masked murders at summer camps, but none more popular than Friday the 13th. Jason Vorhees, his mother, and even Roy have killed so many people... why do people even go to that camp anymore?

I would say it's a summer tradition to have a Friday the 13th marathon on TV. But to be fair, they'll do one at any point all year. Summer and Halloween time are usual picks. I remember in 2016 SyFy had one every weekend for the entire summer (with some Elm Street sprinkled in for good measure). But whenever there's a Friday the 13th throughout the year, some channel will have some sort of marathon on. Don't worry about the schedule, it'll only be part 5.

Enter the former cable station, TNN. I'm assuming this marathon ran after the channel switched from 'The Nashville Network' and during it's phase as 'The National Network' before transforming into 'Spike TV' (now The Paramount Network... I remember the damnedest things). Honestly it would have been a good choice during it's life as a country music channel. Carrie Underwood's got a bigger body count than Jason at this point.

I truly miss ads like this. Back in the day, channels would often have custom ads for their various programing. Either montages made from movie footage with some random song added for comedic effect or super serious narration. That or the original production as seen here. The original productions is often where odd urban legends like the bloody pumpkin in Halloween. There's not one in the movie, but there's a million blood covered pumpkins in odd home made advertisements. Jason with a chainsaw, same. Here Jason is chasing those foolish enough to have a marathon at Camp Crystal Lake to maim and murder. He's not getting revenge for his mother or his own death. Just can't take the 'runners high' talk one more minute.

Ted From Friday The 13th Part 2 Went On To Live A Normal Life

It's Friday the 13th! If you're superstitious, this is a very unlucky day! If you're at summer camp, you're probably gonna get murdered. Though for the rest of the world, it's a little mini-Halloween that randomly pops up during the year! There's probably a horror marathon or two on TV tonight. A bunch of Jason Vorhees memes getting shared on Facebook. Just a little spooky fun inserted into your routine. Did I say a mini-Halloween? You're damn right I'm running with it.

Friday the 13th part 2 is probably one of the better entries in the series. As a direct sequel to the original movie, it continues the story and keeps the same general vibe. It takes what made the original good and adds to it. One of the more cool aspects of this part is... several counselors live. I know, I know, but here me out. Jason (whom is somehow alive now because I guess) is killing attendees of a counselor training camp being held across the lake from the now closed Camp Blood Crystal Lake.

The camp has quite a few attendees as during the time summer camps were big business. So, the head honcho takes the group out for a night of fun before the hard work begins. Well, he takes out those who want to go out that is. The rest stay at camp and that's where the bulk of the murder happens. Aside from said head honcho and main girl who return to face Jason, the rest just stay and don't get killed horribly. One survivor is camp prankster Ted... who you pretty much wanted to see die.

Now, what happened to the survivors after? Well, they got off pretty lucky. Not only did they survive, but they didn't have the ordeal whatsoever. They just found out what happened the next day. Horrible sure, but you don't go Laurie Strode crazy after finding out some people you just met died while you were at Applebee's. Wait... Laurie Strode... mini-Halloween?

What we have here is a Halmark Halloween commercial from the late 80's. I'd give an exact year, but they reused it for awhile. This version with an added spooky sounds tape bit added on is from 1989, which is like eight years after the movie took place. I chose the picture above of Ted to help you all out, but if you didn't notice at around :25 there he is rocking a 'this is my costume' shirt. Not only did Ted survive getting killed in a slasher movie, but he chose to wear one of those shirts on Halloween. Because, he's funny, get it?

Freddy can boost store profits!

Unless you're a lot younger than I realize, I don't have to remind many of you of the joys of a video rental store. While I usually stuck around the horror section in those golden VHS days, come Halloween time, that was the most popular location in the store. Everybody wanted something scary to watch Halloween night while eating a Tombstone pizza. It's just an ideal way to spend the evening while trick or treating the kids. Usually people went for the heavy hitters, Michael, Jason, Leatherface, and of course Freddy.

Well, did you know Freddy was a very profitable character? Not just in theaters, but especially on home video? In the case of the video above... well, Freddy is a smash hit money maker who's the talk of the town. You can count on his movies making your store a TON of money... especially at Halloween.

Friday on the 13th is some spooky shit

Friday the 13th is like having a mini Halloween randomly during the year. Though when a F13th is during the Halloween season it's extra special! There's all that great spooky stuff on the shelves and those dollar hockey masks everywhere! So when you get some great scary edition snacks sure to make your next bowel movement extra colorful and sit down to watch that horror marathon. Make sure to find whatever channels playing Friday the 13th instead of Wishmaster because seriously FX ... not cool. The hell even.

There's universal rules. You don't spit in the wind, you don't put metal in the microwave, and it's always Friday the 13th part 5 on tv. The listing said part 7 is on now, but it's going to be part 5. It's always part 5. The entire marathon is just part 5. You know, the one with the fake Jason... Roy. Part 5. Now that's not a complete negative, Roy's mask had cool blue stripes and he kills a guy while he's on a porta potty. Part 5.

After Reggie visits his brother Demon, Demon realizes he must visit the euphemism. Like Euchariah, he's on fiya. After an Oscar worthy recreation of your mom after Thanksgiving dinner... I can't even... like his girlfriend and him start singing and... just watch. Yes, that's Juwanna Mann.

The movie is not all about dying whilst pooping, it's also about... so yeah dying on a toilet. Part 5. Oh yeah, it has this awesome song in it! Somebody dies while it plays. Kinda what happens in these movies. Whole lot of murder.