A Septic Spiel of Spooky Scares, Super Heroes, and Strange Stories from Miles Beneath the Crud of New Jersey!
Whether you know me personally or you just enjoy reading the site, you know that I’m pretty serious about Halloween. Even before October arrives, I start looking at all the events and masqerades in our area and the costume making commences! Not since I was a kid have I actually purchased a costume at a store. I prefer to put together my costumes using my creativity. Miss Sexy Armpit and I tend to put a lot of time and effort into making our Halloween costumes. How do I decide on what I am going to be? Well, it’s 90% inspiration and 10% feasibility. If I’m overcome by a feeling about a character a couple of months prior to Halloween and pulling it off is within the realm of possibility, that’s how I arrive at my choice.
As a kid growing up in the ’80s, I loved villains. I still do. The 80’s had some of the best villains especially from cartoons. I was a fan of Real Ghostbusters, but I was also a huge fan of Filmation’s Ghostbusters. It confused a lot of my friends back then when we discussed Ghostbusters because you’d have to specify which one you were referring to. The thing with Filmation Ghostbusters is that it didn’t seem to have the same widespread appeal that Real Ghostbusters did, probably because it wasn’t connected to a blockbuster summer movie. It was popular for a short time, but I remember having the hardest time finding a Prime Evil figure (I still can’t find one unless I pay a fortune on eBay!).
Prime Evil, the main villain, was so cool looking and he was my favorite part of the show. The fact that I have such great memories of the show and the character reminded me of something out of horror movie, Prime Evil was my choice for Halloween this year. He’s been on my mind for the past few years, but I didn’t think I could pull it off without looking too cheap. Intensifying my inspiration was the fact that Prime Evil was the most elusive figure to me as a kid. I rarely went crazy looking for a specific figure unless it was from LJN’s WWF line or later in the Kenner Batman Dark Knight Collection line. He’s the one that got away! My goal this year was to base the costume off of the action figure that I never owned.
Usually, Miss Sexy Armpit and I begin working on our costumes in early September, sometimes even late August. This gives us ample time in case we run into any unforeseen difficulties while creating the costumes. This year was no different.
One of the biggest challenges I faced was finding the right mask to use. Creating one myself wouldn’t have been the best idea because it would’ve looked like shit. Early in the summer I started scouring the Internet for online stores that had a proper mask that could work as Prime Evil mask. I finally found a couple on Amazon and ordered both.
Neither mask instilled me with any confidence that I’d be able to pull this off. One was latex that flapped around and got all bent up in transit and the other felt like it weighed about 40 lbs and hurt like hell when I put it on my face. The heavy one, which was basically a Terminator Series 800 mask, didn’t cover my entire head, but it did have a cool feature: red LED eyes! Actually the eye lights were pretty lame because they blinked incessantly which isn’t an attribute of Prime Evil’s. There was no mouth or nose holes either, so I was able to eliminate that one rather easily.
Now, with the decision made on the mask, I began working on other aspects of the costume. At that point I didn’t worry about how I would doctor up the mask, I had a feeling I’d be able to bring it up to Prime Evil standards without too much difficulty and if I couldn’t it would just have to suffice.
In between working on her own JEM! costume, Miss Sexy Armpit lent her ingenuity to the creation of my costume. We picked up some red and orange material and cut it in a similar pattern as Prime Evil’s flowing red cape and gown. We used a picture of him I had on my iPad as a guide while cutting.
One of the most important aspects of the Prime Evil costume is his pale yellow and sometimes neon skin. Fortunately, Green Man from Always Sunny made those second skin costumes super popular and it was easy to find a similar color to the one I needed. The only issue with that costume is that there’s obviously no eye, nose, or mouth holes, so I had Miss Sexy Armpit cut the face open. The “skin” is a main component to the costume because it pulls it all together. It really did give the impression that I had neon yellow skin.
As for the other details of the costume, I improvised. I found a reasonable long red cape with a big collar on a costume website. I don’t think it cost more than $20 bucks, which was great. As for the gloves, I found silver stretchy gloves that were probably meant for a woman to wear to some ritzy gala in the ’20s, but I got them because they were super cheap. When they arrived, I immediately cut the fingers off. I said “f*ck those fingers,” and bam, I had Prime Evil gloves. The mask took a few coats of acrylic paint. The yellow parts glowed in the dark too! Next I needed to create a fake oscilloscope for his mouth. I found a picture of Prime Evil online and opened it in Photoshop. I cropped and enlarged the sound wave in his mouth and printed it. I cut out a piece of cardboard that I bent on both sides. Then I taped the sound wave picture to the cardboard with black electrical tape. I finished it off by covering all the exposed cardboard with the black tape and pinning it to the mask. The red boots were actually repurposed yellow boots from my Kick Buttowski costume in 2011 that I spray painted red. Last but not least, a little black makeup around my eyes and my costume was complete!
Ultimately, our costumes were hits. Wearing the mask throughout the night proved to be quite a challenge, but provided much comic relief. I had to drink from a straw the whole night. This year’s outing was medicore at best and it definitely wasn’t the fault of our company though. We might as well throw a party at our place because we usually wind up having a better time just taking pictures, having a few drinks, and bullshitting before going out. I wasn’t able to eat with the mask on so I was starving by the end of the night. The best part of the outing was heading over to Hooters for a late night snack. By that time I had to take all my Prime Evil gear off because I wanted to eat without sucking my buffalo chicken sandwich through a straw. How the hell did Prime Evil eat? I wondered that while wolfing down my food. I didn’t really think that part through!
Last week it was reported that Universal Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure, a live show that’s been part of Halloween Horror Nights for many years, has been cancelled. The show came under fire for its apparent homophobic and possibly racial remarks. I haven’t seen the show myself, but from what it seems like after reading reports on various news outlets including this one from the Huffington Post, is that it’s nothing we haven’t seen getting joked about on TV. The show is supposedly geared toward an adult audience and features double-entendres.
To fill your Bill and Ted void this Halloween, please enjoy a comic I created using my action figures and a lot of gas to take me around the entire state of New Jersey. With advice from Mark and Mark over at Weird NJ, Rufus takes Bill and Ted on a WEIRD NJ Adventure for Halloween!
When reflecting on the Halloween season, the act of simply stepping outside and taking in a breath of fresh air could bring a flood of fall memories rushing back into your mind.
One memory that came to my mind was the time I headed down to Great Adventure during Fright Fest when I first got my license. I was actually still on my learner’s permit (shhh, don’t tell anyone). It was probably the first trip I ever took there on my own, so I felt pretty badass. Well, I wasn’t really on my own. I took my “girlfriend” at the time, Beth. At least, she was the equivalent of what teenagers considered a girlfriend at the time. We went to the mall and kissed in public. We thought we were cool. Taking her to Fright Fest though – that was the shit. If you asked me at the time, going there was my ultimate date night. Let’s pretend you’re Chuck Woolery and I’m the contestant on Love Connection. Here’s how the date went.
On the way down the New Jersey Turnpike I had the windows cracked and I remember there being a nice October chill in the air. Just cool enough for a light jacket, but still mild enough not to freeze our asses off. It was the mid ’90s, (I know, I’m old – fuck off) and the only entertainment in my car back then was the radio and a cassette player. Naturally, some people had CD players, but they were lucky bastards. Dopey teenagers hopped up on young love and Mountain Dew didn’t have the means for a CD player in the car, unless they were savvy enough to hook up a DiscMan to their car stereo, an enhancement that was still another year down the road for me. The stations get a little fuzzy as we get further south, so the only thing we had to listen to aside from the drone of the LeBaron and the awkward moments of silence on the 40 minute drive down was the cassette player.
If Beth had it her way she wanted to listen to Hot 97 the whole way down. To appease her and show her that I’m open to all kinds of music, including blazing hip-hop and R&B, we listened to it until Exit 9 and then I was called upon by the Gods of Rock themselves. There was no choice in the matter. It was time for the Holy Grail of mixtapes. THE ULTIMATE KISS MIXTAPE. Sure, back then it was fun to listen to The Misfits, Alice Cooper and White Zombie during October, but there was always something just as fitting about listening to KISS during Halloween time too.
At the time, Beth had absolutely zero clue who KISS was. What was even funnier was that she had less of a clue that the title of one of their biggest songs bared her name. She didn’t care either. She really, really, really didn’t care. Every girl I seemed to like had no interest in the music that I listened to, which made my heart sink to the depth of the murky Arthur Kill. As I shoved the tape into the deck, I vividly remember the tape started playing in the middle of “Got To Choose” from Hotter Than Hell. I can hear that grungy riff and that funky bassline in my mind right now. In fact I’m going to pull it up on my iTunes right now. It’s amazing, this whole technology thing, isn’t it? Ha. You should put it on too (if you have it), to get the full effect of this story!
To a non-KISS fan not only was “Got To Choose” one of the least interesting tracks on my mix tape, but to make matters worse, side one of the cassette always cut off about three quarters into it. Just as soon as my mind is rocking out and vibing to the tune, it clicked off and the awkward silence returned. I knew she wanted Hot 97 on, but I didn’t care. I was being selfish, I felt like it was my turn to really enjoy this drive. It was a cool October night, my favorite time of the year, and we were racing down to Six Flags for one of the most fun things to do in Jersey during Halloween. I was feeling pretty awesome needless to say. I turned the cassette over and popped it back in. “Beth I hear you callin’…”
BLANK. _______. Beth was completely blank when I told her about the KISS song that was playing called, “Beth.” In the back of my mind I thought “Didn’t your father or your uncle tell you about this?” I was shocked that another person wasn’t as obsessed with KISS as I was. I had a hard time remembering that this was the mid-90s, not 1977 mind you.
As we got closer and closer to Exit 7, our conversation began to pick up and I lowered the volume to a reasonable level (except when “Parasite” came on, of course).
On a normal basis she pretty much laughed at everything I said, which gave me a little boost, but truthfully, she just laughed at everything that was remotely amusing in general. I could act like an obnoxious ass and she would just eat it up. I appreciated it because she genuinely found me funny. From there, we started trading anecdotes about our favorite rides in the park. Although both of us had been going down to Great Adventure since we were kids, we both felt the level of excitement building up. We were getting a rush before we even went on any rides.
Our time was running out. By the time we arrived, found parking, walked a mile to the ticket booth, and then bought tickets, we had about 2 hours in the park if we were lucky. And as I said, I didn’t have a CD player in my car so I wasn’t necessarily the luckiest guy in the world. This lack of time definitely weighed on my mind because when it comes to theme parks and vacations I’m like Clark Griswold, always trying to maximize the fun.
Our spirits were so uplifted, among other things, that our dumbasses wasted even more time before actually heading into the park. After the long trek from the car to the entrance, we stopped at one of the planters and parked half of our butts for a minute to take in the night…and of course make out. So dumb, so simple, soo had nothing to do with romance. This was about HALLOWEEN. I wanted the bejesus scared out of me and my endorphins were runnin’ wild. Like I said, high spirits, otherwise HOT 97 and KISS MIXTAPE wouldn’t have been lip locked to each other the whole night as if we were the only two people left on the planet.
What was the attraction with Beth? I wondered to myself as I stood staring a hole through a nearby tree shedding frail pale orange leaves. She was a natural blonde, she had a cute smile with dimples, and had big boobs. At the time, coincidentally, as stereotypical as it sounds, that was all I wanted out of life. What can I say? I was a product of the times. Baywatch was a highly rated show, OK? So, back at Six Flags, Beth and I managed to detach our mouths from each others and we walked briskly inside with a little bounce in our step.
It was dark, breezy, the trees were bare, and Fright Fest was in full effect. Zombies and ghastly characters roamed about trying to scare us. Beth genuinely got scared a few times and grabbed a hold of me, then we just got overly hysterical about it as if we just heard the funniest joke of all time delivered by the most smart mouthed comedian of all time. Despite what many people might think of the lines, the atmosphere takes center stage and it’s easy to forget the rest.
The macabre elements such as the fog, the bloody fountain, and the costumed actors jumping out at you when you least expect it, help to far outweigh any of the typical theme park complaints. Being there is the fun. In fact, Fright Fest is such a part of my Halloween celebration every year that it actually makes me get that nostalgic fuzzy feeling. I didn’t get paid for that so let me get back to my story.
Beth and I went on every ride we possibly could, stopping at any chance we could to hug, hold hands, or take part in some other cheesy public display of affection. It was the spirit of the season that was getting us all charged up. And yes, we even went on the freakin’ ferris wheel. Remember when Mikey from The Goonies said ‘It’s our time down here!” well October is our time and I’ve always felt that way. Just hearing the Misfits lyric “Bonfires Burning Bright, Pumpkin Faces in the Night, I remember Halloween,” DUH, of course I remember! I remember Halloween and all the memories come rushing back every time I walk outside and breath in the fall air or gaze into the colorful fall foliage.
Halloween moments are the most memorable ones in my life. I can’t help but think that each of those moments wouldn’t still resonate today if they took place during any other time of the year. Intertwined in the calm and colorful fall backdrop are so many memories waiting to be conjured up. Be inspired. Go outside, close your eyes, and let yourself recall all that is spooky and sentimental to you.
Let’s just say, I’d never get matched up with Baseball on eHarmony.com. Although, there’s not a single doubt that I’d get hooked up with The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone always offered up some eerie story that satisfied my needs of horror and the unexplained. Then, there were some episodes that were just plain goofy and lighthearted. Surprisingly, one of these episodes involved the Garden State.
Filmed in L.A, but set in New Jersey, this episode aired in June of 1960, “The Mighty Casey” is a favorite of Twilight Zone fans who also love baseball. This episode is more comedic than spooky or scary, but it still has that signature twist that TZ is known for.
A ragtag baseball team, The Hoboken Zephyrs, were abysmal. They were the biggest disappointments in the league. Their manager, Mouth McGarry, was beyond embarrassed by them. Until the day that a man came by the field during practice to show off his star pitcher. McGarry had never seen pitching skills like this before. The pitcher was whizzing balls to the catcher so fast that he was making the balls smoke. He was zig-zagging and screwballing, and doing all kinds of stuff that McGarry and his team hadn’t ever seen before.
It turned out that Casey, the seemingly inhuman pitcher, was in fact…a robot! Once the league got wind of the fact that there was a robot in the league, they put a stop to it because it was required that all players are actual men. Using a loophole, Casey’s keeper, Dr. Stillman and McGarry both wondered if the league would reinstate Casey if they implanted a heart in him. The league indeed granted Casey back into the league once he had a heart put in, but, ultimately, receiving a heart removed all of Casey’s incredible pitching skills.
It’s not the worst Twilight Zone episode ever, but not really one that I ever go back and watch. It’s great for baseball fans, and fans of obscure fictional sports teams based out of New Jersey. If you Google the Hoboken Zephyrs you can actually buy a replica of their jersey! Now that’s geeky, and awesome.
*At the time this post was published, this episode of The Twilight Zone is streaming on Netflix
Although I enjoyed going to Wildwood immensely, I think I took many aspects of it for granted since the majority of my attention span was spent on daydreaming about Castle Dracula. Then, once I was actually on the boardwalk and in close proximity of the sinister fortress, I’d spend the next few minutes walking slowly toward the ornate Castle, spending every moment in awe of the dread it beamed up and down the boardwalk. For me, Castle Dracula was a mecca.
Aside from some funny stories at the local restaurant The Captain’s Table with my sister and my cousins, my main memories are of anticipating, and finally getting to go into Castle Dracula. When my sister was younger and more brave, she would come with me as we both had a blast getting the bejesus scared out of us. Of course there was boardwalk games, prizes, ice cream, and boogie boarding, but none of it was ever high on my priority list.
Once inside that Castle, my mind was in utter disbelief that I was actually about to experience my favorite haunted attraction again, and it was all located right in Jersey. Although I loved Disneyland and Disney World, I didn’t need to, nor did I get the opportunity to go to Disney every year like some of my friends. A lot of them seemed like they didn’t truly appreciate how grandiose their trips seemed to other kids who weren’t as lucky. Now, I’m so not implying that I was “less fortunate,” because that would be ri-f*cking-diculous. I was overjoyed to walk the boardwalk, fantasizing about one of the greatest dark rides the Jersey Shore has ever offered. It felt like it was there for me, and it was…for a long time.
Castle Dracula burned down in 2002.
We lived our characters. If we “played Batman,” we had costumes and props and if we “played Back to the Future,” my buddy wore his down vest a.k.a his “life preserver.” Aside from Masters of the Universe and Super Powers, one of the earliest memories I have of doing this was the day I became a Ghostbuster. This was way before being a Real Ghostbuster was even possible because it was right after my mom took me to see the original Ghostbusters at Movie City 5 in Iselin, NJ in 1984.
After seeing Ghostbusters, my path in life was revealed to me. Although, that same summer I also wanted to enter a karate competition and get a black skeleton body suit, but the Ghostbusters gig actually came in handy sometimes.
Some kids are fearless. It would be unnatural to say I wasn’t scared of anything back then, but as a little tyke I was really only scared of Michael Jackson in Thriller when he had those yellow eyes. Nothing was creepier to me. But when it came to the supernatural and ghostly activity, I loved it. I wanted to be around the supernatural as much as humanly possible. Even before I ever saw Ghostbuters, my favorite attraction in Disneyland was the Haunted Mansion. After my first trip there ever, all I talked about was that ride. My parents still tell me how enthralled I was with seeing the hitchhiking ghosts and how supremely amused I was at having sat by an actual ghost (or so I thought) in our Doom Buggy as the ride came to an end. I was the type of kid who loved all the stuff that scared the crap out of all my friends. It may have been all this conditioning that prepared me for my first ghostly experience.
It’s not often that I have to do much in the way of investigative work to formulate a post for this site. Once in a while though, it helps to return to the scene if details in my brain are sketchy. In preparing to write this post, I felt that I needed to jog my memory since what I’m about to let you in on happened so long ago when I was very young.
First, the back story. When I was a little kid, my older sister had a close friend who we’ll call Mary. It was no big secret that I had a major crush on the angelic Mary. Although I would get all weird and uncomfortable if anyone asked me about my dreamy, dirty blonde maiden or mentioned my infatuation for her in conversation, I still didn’t mind advertising the fact that I adored her, it just had to be on my own volition.
Mary’s appearances were rare. Only getting to see her maybe a few times a year amplified the occasions that I did see her. The only sucky part was that she wasn’t there to see me, she was there to hang out with her pal, my sister. When the time came that the two of them would get together, I knew that the time I’d get to be in her presence was limited. And yes, I was the annoying little brother, but I complied when I was told that they needed to hang out by themselves with no interference.
Once in a while, when the situation presented itself, I was invited to hang out with them. Those times were few and far between, but I savored those moments. And it wasn’t just to be able to hang out with the object of my desire, I also loved being able to hang out with my sister too.
Early on, Mary lived fairly close to us, but she moved about 1,400 miles away due to her father’s job. You can imagine how much more rare her visits became. Fortunately, Mary’s grandparents used to live in an old house a few towns away from us, and when she did come to visit, maybe once or twice a year, she’d stay with them. Their development was filled with giant houses built around the turn of the century. As I eluded to, I’m not sure why, but I was invited along with my sister to go to Mary’s grandparents house one day when she was visiting.
When we pulled up to the house in my Mom’s early ’70s Chevy Caprice, a car that felt like a 2-door Peacekeeper missile to a preschooler, I was in awe of the “mansion” that towered before us. It wasn’t an actual mansion, but to me, it sure looked like one. With an imagination as wild as mine was, this place could easily have had 37 bedrooms inside for all I knew. My house had 3 and I thought that was a lot.
Just like plenty of houses built during the same time, the interior seemed to be made of some kind of expensive wood. I’d never been in a house quite as stately before. We were in a middle class town, so the property wasn’t exactly built on a sprawling estate. My feeling probably stemmed from the fact that I was a little kid and it all seemed so grand at the time and different than what I was used to.
Perusing the inside, I noticed the seemingly never ending staircase, which immediately reminded me of the scene in Ghostbusters when they took the emergency stairs to the top of Dana Barrett’s apartment building. Thinking back, the staircase reminds me more of the one in the Bates house in Psycho rather than the scene in Ghostbusters, but I hadn’t scene Psycho yet.
It didn’t take more than a few milliseconds before my curiosity took control of me and launched me up the stairs without any regard for the inhabitants of the house. I sped up the stairs with reckless abandon. What if I’d be walking in on someone getting out of a shower, or waking someone up who was taking a nap? I didn’t care and I finally made it to the first landing. There was an open window adorned with white drapes that were slowly lifting by themselves (or so I thought) due to the incoming breeze. There was something so haunting about the silky, white, almost see through drapes, especially on such an eerily calm day. It was cloudy, warm, and comfortable, but not hot or humid enough to need air conditioning. In fact, it looked like it might storm later that day. As I toured one of the upper floors (there were at least 3 levels and an attic) I noticed that most of the other windows in the house had a similar drape situation as well.
The breeze moving the drapes made me feel like this place had to be haunted. I ran back down the stairs to make sure my sister and Mary were still there. Oblivious to the fact that Mary was standing behind one of the drapes, she jumped out at me and thought she scared the living crap out of me, but little did she know that it was merely a matter of a day or two since I’d seen Ghosbusters so instead of getting scared, I just got excited. “This could be my first job” I thought to myself. Next thing I knew, I was pretending to bust ghosts while upstairs in her grandparents house.
We couldn’t find my sister but I assumed she was hiding to try and scare me too. As Mary and I descended the stairs, my sister seemed to have come out of nowhere before us. That’s when they started getting serious. Keep in mind, the girls were only a few years older than me, but we were all very young at the time. They started telling me that they planned on trying to scare me, but instead they began telling me all about the ghosts that they believed haunted the house. Just as I expected. Janine, don’t worry about ringing the buzzer, I got this one. Sorry about the bug eyes thing, I’ll be checking out Mary, uh, I mean Mary’s grandparent’s house.
It did cross my mind that if this house was haunted, that’s precisely why I was asked to join my sister – to bust some ghosts! Of course! I listened intensely to Mary and my sister describe the array of mysterious occurrences that happened in the house. Mind you, these are stories that were actually reiterated by her grandparents to my own parents, meaning this was the real deal, not just a couple of ball busting kids trying to scare the youngest one.
I heard all about bedroom doors that slammed by themselves and the aforementioned drapes on the windows continued to ripple even after the windows are closed. I knew something was up with those damn drapes. They went on to describe hearing people walking up the creaky wooden stairs, but no one was ever seen.
I believed ALL of it, and I was taking detailed mental notes as if I just accepted a job to eliminate a focused non-terminal repeating phantasm or a class 5 full roaming vapor at the Sedgewick Hotel. I would’ve given off a more professional vibe, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that Kenner marketed an actual Proton Pack and Ghost trap toy. Armed with nothing but an imaginary proton pack, I swore I would protect the girls if anything happened. It wasn’t about showing off or being brave in front of my princess. It was now about defeating evil spirits who may not have liked us being in their old dwelling playing around. I knew how things worked, even back then and I didn’t need Tobin’s Spirit Guide either.
The fun didn’t end after the girls kept trying to freak me out. That didn’t work because I just kept getting more excited. Another kid might’ve cried and begged to go home. I wanted to stay forever.
As if the day wasn’t overwhelming enough, Mary asked if we wanted to go try on costumes. When the hell could any kid refuse a good cosplay session? I’ve always loved dressing up for Halloween so this was a super appealing suggestion to me. We made our way back up several flights of stairs and then it was time to go into the attic.
The attic was huge. It was a quintessential attic that you’d see in a movie. It was filled with dusty old creepy paintings in ornate gold frames, seasonal decorations, ancient photos, and boxes of random knick-knacks. The Goonies hadn’t been released yet, but if you remember when Mouth, Chunk, Brand, Data, and Mikey were all up in the attic discovering all the cool artifacts up there, this was very similar. There were big old wooden trunks filled with costumes and masks that we tried on. My sister and Mary wore beads and put on crazy hats while trying to act glamorous. I wasn’t part of their little costume party since there was mostly just girl stuff and I was on important business to take care of. I was concentrating on locating the evil spirit and locking it away indefinitely.
My endorphins were off the charts and I didn’t think my imagination could get any crazier at that point, but it did. We left the attic and Mary and my sister brought me over to a small compartment in the wall outside a couple of the bedrooms. Mary opened it and told me it was a trap door. Where the hell was I? This was a haunted house! It was actually a dumb waiter! I thought a dumbwaiter was a secret elevator for kids. Other than Webster, I personally never knew of anyone rich enough in my limited circles during that time to have one of these. At that moment it was so cool and mysterious. In my mind, it very well could’ve been a trap door.
It really felt like it was just the three of us. As I made my way up the stairs even further, I remember the house being virtually empty except for “the spirits,” that my sister and Mary told me about. To you, the reader, it sounds logical that my sister may have informed Mary that we had recently seen Ghostbusters and they devised a plan to try to freak me out. A game of “hide and scare,” if you will. Little did they know that I was on my way to becoming an official pint sized junior Ghostbuster and it would only enhance my experience “playing Ghostbusters.”
If you ask my sister about this, she’ll remember the day, but not the details. That’s most likely because it wasn’t as monumental of a time for her as it was for me. Coming off seeing Ghosbusters for the first time ever and getting to hang out with Mary, I was pretty much on a high that whole summer. A young boy let loose in the immense antique abode in the early ’80s, just call me Danny Torrance. Only I was a kid turning the corners of the halls of the house in an imaginary Ecto-1, not getting scared by the Grady Twins, but my big sister and her friend…my first crush.
This season so far, not only have we seen the Monster Cereal blitz in full force including the retro packaging and the return of Yummy Mummy and Fruit Brute, but there’s also been such a bevy of Halloween themed products lining store shelves that are pretty fantastic. Buying “stuff” to enhance the spookiest Holiday is always part of the fun. How can you live without pumpkin shaped cheese balls or a skull shaped bottle of margarita mix? C’mon, these are necessities!
Halloween isn’t only about dropping wads of hard earned cash on gimmick product variations though. The season wouldn’t be the same without heading out to haunted attractions, or going to masquerades. I hope you are all able to fit at least of a couple of these into your October calendar. If you aren’t invited to any, crash one.
What’s on TV is also an important aspect of October. Thankfully, AMC has been running a shit ton of horror movies nonstop, and speaking for those of us who get that channel, we appreciate it! There’s even a Toy Story Halloween Special airing tonight. With all this great programming, you still can’t just rely on TV alone to provide Halloween entertainment. October is the best time to whip out your DVDs and fashion your own horror movie marathon. Your marathon doesn’t even have to include horror films if you’re a scaredy cat. You might want to compile a list of movies set in the fall or a movies that feature fleeting shots of a pumpkin. That will be incredibly less fun, but to each his own.
Back in the old days, movie theaters showed cartoons, newsreels, and short serial adventures before the feature film. Now we’re bombarded with ads, Friends trivia, and more trailers than you will ever want to watch consecutively in your life.
What am I getting at? Well, if you’re new to The Sexy Armpit, I have this little Halloween Special from 2011 that I’m not sure if you saw. If you have seen it, I’m asking that you might watch it again to prepare you for our 2013 special that is on it’s way to YouTube! The 2013 Halloween Special is a direct sequel to 2011’s since Hurricane Sandy really brought the mood down last year. Since this year’s special is a little out in left field, it will certainly help if you’ve seen the first one.
Honestly, I don’t like asking people for things, but in this case, I feel it’s worth bothering you about. So, if I may, I’d like to be a part of your marathons and Halloween celebrations. I’m not just asking you to watch our upcoming 2013 Halloween Special, I’m hoping this ridiculous mish-mosh of pop culture will serve as an intro to your horror movie viewing in the same way that cartoons and serials were presented before feature films back in the day.
With all this modern equipment such as smart TVs, smart phones, X-Boxes and iPads, you might even have a way to watch it on your TV right before your annual viewing of Trick r Treat or Halloween! That would be optimum! We’re very anxious for you to see this year’s special and we’re hoping it will hit by Friday if nothing catastrophic happens. Please Mother Nature, no hurricanes this year.
Fright Fest is an annual thing for us, but we usually wind up getting on one ride if we’re lucky. The lines are super insane during Fright Fest, and the park is probably even more packed than it would be in the middle of the summer. Difference is, that it’s nicer to wait in lines and get on rides when it’s not a sweltering 97 degrees in the shade and over one hundred percent humidity.
Weather-wise, Saturday night was perfect. I was with a bunch of great people and even though we only made it on one ride, we had a blast. I’m sure it would’ve been more fun if the lines for the actual Fright Fest attractions weren’t as long. Even the average wait time for a roller coaster was an hour. While waiting in excruciatingly long lines, it helps to cling to the hope that the ride actually doesn’t break down before you make it to the last section of the line queue.
Fortunately, the ride we did decide to wait for went smoothly. Skull Mountain didn’t take that long to get through the line, probably because it’s one of the tamer rides, so we were patient. It fit into the Fright Fest theme as well. For an older, less face melting type of ride, this one still holds up after all these years. Think of it as Six Flag’s answer to Space Mountain only with a theme on the exterior that brings to mind The Goonies, King Kong, or a pirate movie.
We were required to buy separate tickets for the haunted attractions, so we did that online at home to save a couple of bucks. Next we had to wait on another long line just to show them our print-outs to get a wristband for the haunts. This was just becoming an abysmal LINE FEST. Then we would have to wait on more laughable lines for each individual haunt. Fed up by this point, I started asking the lady a few questions about the attractions.
I was disappointed to learn that all of the attractions were walk through trails featuring live actors. I wasn’t hoping for dead actors, I was just hoping for a good old fashioned haunted house or dark ride type situation. They should mix it up and offer half walk throughs and at least one or two haunted houses that remind you of an old dark ride. I can’t tell you how many times Six Flags has sent me e-mails asking for feedback regarding my last visit to Fright Fest and I wrote them a hundred times that Fright Fest needs a good old fashioned, boardwalk style haunted house. It shouldn’t only be for Fright Fest either, it should be open year round for all of us psychos to enjoy.
In the late ’70s, Great Adventure’s Haunted Castle was the type of attraction we needed until arsonists supposedly burned it down in ’84, killing eight teenagers trapped inside. Maybe they feel like it’s a curse if they build another one? I can’t say for sure, but maybe they fell that they aren’t experts at subtly, they prefer spending millions to create the fastest, most cheek rippling coasters the world has ever seen. Nothing wrong with that. The thing is, Great Adventure is already fully stocked with thrill rides and there’s a new one on the way for next season. Another thrill ride is superfluous, again, we need a damn haunted DARK RIDE. Attention to detail is preferred.
Keeping with the resoundingly positive note I am on, the graphic on this year’s Six Flags Great Adventure Fright Fest shirts and hoodies are AWESOME. They did get this part of the celebration correct. Apparel graphics are always a big part of the experience. You must be able to properly commemorate your visit and this year Six Flags came up with a couple of really cool looking designs. I couldn’t exit the park without snapping a few shots. America loves zombies…and paying lots of money to wait on never-ending lines apparently.