My Little Haunted House

Every year a friend of mine and I get together and throw a Halloween Party together.  Actually,  last year was more of a practice run.  This our we are expanding our work and inviting more people and turning it into an event.  Part of planning this event has been turning a portion of my home into a haunted house.  This week we've got the wall up and most of the props up.   I still have a few more props to add, the bridge to paint, and the wiring to finish, but we are making progress.

I have some of the pictures of our work below.  We aren't done, but we are on our way.  The target age for this haunted house is 5-10 so there won't be any decomposing bodies or actors with chainsaws, but we're hoping the kids will have a good time while the grownups drink and act foolish.   Despite the target age, after looking at the pictures I do know I'm going to have to something about the Spongebob lamp.  Spongebob just isn't scary.  Now if it were Elmo.....

Zombies and Ghosts and Serial Killers, Oh My!

Last night I drove out to Meridianville, Alabama in the dark to find another haunted attraction.   This haunted attraction was made unnerving by its emptiness.  I'm assuming because it was Thursday night,  the parking lot was eerily empty.   We were the only ones going through this attraction and the loneliness certainly added to a feeling of fear and dread as I walked in the attraction.

The Haunted Gin is a mile long corn maze in rural Alabama.  It is filled with costumed actors and affects that jump out of the corn at you in the darkness.  My favorite affects in this maze included a hideous, giant monster thing that hung from the wall, a zombie actor reminiscent of the oil zombie from Return of the Living Dead, and an unnerving fat, bulbous serial killer that looked dead himself with a chainsaw.  The fat guy really put me off.  His costume was very, creepy.

I think this corn maze should have been scary.  All the ingredients for terror were there.  It wasn't as extravagant as Disturbia.  The props were cheaper and fewer, but the factors that contribute to fear were there in the darkness, waiting for you.  However,  last night was a beautiful night.  It was the kind of night us city dwellers see only when we are camping or backpacking.  There were so many stars in the sky I could navigate with them and the moon was full and brilliant.  The air was just cool enough to send a chill down your spine and make you long for winter.  It was perfect.  It was so perfect I found my eyes drifting up to the stars and away from the zombies.   Also, by the light of the full moon, nothing could really take you by surprise.  I might as well have been walking through the corn maze in the daylight.

So, The Haunted Gin had potential, but lighting is everything and with an outdoor attraction a beautiful night can spell destruction.

The Ghost of the Starved

I must have a strong influence on my son because he came back from the book fair today with a stack of books on ghosts and monsters.  We looked through these books today together and had a wonderful time.  My favorite section from his Horrifica book was on Japanese ghosts.  It is no surprise that the Japanese would have interesting ghost lore. The Japanese have some of the most wicked imaginations when it comes to ghosts and horror.  Just look at the best ghost movies, The Ring, The Grudge, etc.  They are all taken from the minds of the Japanese.  Any even cursory look into Japanese cinema reveals  a strong Japanese folklore filled with demons and ghosts.  Japanese folklore is filled with ghosts and perhaps the most terrifying of these ghosts is the Gashadokuro.  The gashadokuro is a ghost which is assembled from the bones of those who have starved to death.  Once these bones have been assembled to make a gashadokuro, it becomes a skeleton that is over 15 ft tall and is ravenous.  If it finds you, this monstrosity will eat your head.  The only thing that can protect you from the gashadokuro is to run when you hear the ringing in your ears that marks its approach.

The Gashadokokuro aren't the only terrifying ghosts in Japanese mythology.  According to Norman Rubin:

"Belief in ghosts, demons and spirits has been deep-rooted in Japanese folklore throughout history. It is entwined with mythology and superstition derived from Japanese Shinto, as well as Buddhism and Taoism brought to Japan from China and India. Stories and legends, combined with mythology, have been collected over the years by various cultures of the world, both past and present. Folklore has evolved in order to explain or rationalize various natural events. Inexplicable phenomena arouse a fear in humankind, because there is no way for us to anticipate them or to understand their origins.:


Kabuki theater is filled with stories of  vengeful women spirits that were wronged in life.  Koizumi Yakumo collected many of the famous classic Japanese ghost stories in the late 19th century.  You can find them at http://ghost.new-age-spirituality.com/japanese.html  .

 

Case 39 Review

Halloween is the season for candy, haunted houses, costumes, and of course, scary movies!  I started my scary movie marathon with Case 39, an excellent horror movie staring Renee Zellweger as a social worker fighting to save children from difficult home environments.   I have to say, I'm a little biased because this movie hit very close to home for me.  I spent 2 years working as an  in home therapist for children at risk from being removed from the home by DHR.  I felt the main character's suffering and related to her and the therapist's and psychologists that ran the children's groups profoundly.  It is a hard job and often you lose more than you win in the battles to save children from their environment.

Case 39 gives you a character who is fighting this battle every day and is desperate to win and save the world one child at a time.  She is overworked and under paid and on top of her huge caseload she gets another client, case 39.   The main character relates to this case more than any other and goes above and beyond the call of duty to save a little girl from parents that clearly want to kill her.  When the system fails,  she enlists one of her close friends on the police force to save the girl and they find her parents trying to put the sleeping child into an oven.

Of course, our sweet, tragic girl is not what she seems.   It isn't long after Rene takes the tragic child in before the children on Rene's caseload begin to have horrible things happen to them.  It isn't just the children.  All those around her begin to die or suffer worse fates than death.  Case 39 was a good movie that I wouldn't mind seeing again.  It is definitely a good start to my Halloween horror fest!

And The Winner Is...

1. Wow.
   Teresa Ashby at A Likely Story has kindly passed on this Sweet Friends award which I'm happy to accept. I don't think anyone has described me as 'sweet' before but there's a first time for everything. Anyway, in the true spirit of the award I'm supposed to tell you six things about my writing.
   
   1. I've always liked writing. Although I'm basically a technical person with a degree in engineering I've always put a lot of effort into the documentation side of the job. Whether it's reports, test routines or specifications I've tried to be accurate, clear and unambiguous. And when it comes to compiling a justification for spending lots of money on lab equipment it pays to be creative. So that's probably where my discipline comes from.
   
   2. At the moment I'm trying my hand at different kinds of writing and hoping I'll meet with some success somewhere. I've written four short novels, about 80,000 to 90,000 words, and these are currently doing the rounds with various agents.
   
   3. I've written loads of short stories for competitions and magazines with limited success so far. A few of them have had favourable reviews by other authors so... fingers crossed.
   
   4. I've written a few scripts intended for stage and TV. Again, I've had some encouraging feedback and constructive critscism by people who have worked in the business.
   
   5. I'm not very good with the descriptive stuff. My novels are basically adventures where things are happening all the time and so I tend to keep details about people and locations down to the bare minimum. I do try and convey things like atmosphere and emotions so that the reader feels part of the story.
   
   6. I have put together a little booklet with stories and articles drawn from my experience as a cyclist. It has the catchy title 'Mummy, Why Does Daddy Shave His Legs?' and my wife has managed to sell a few when she's out at her craft fairs.
   
   And now I'm supposed to hand out the award to six other people but, as I have a very short list of people that I follow, I shall pass it on to just three who have inspired me with their blogs. I apologise if any of them have already received one. They are:
   
   Jarmara Falconer at A Mission Impossible for the Dark Fantasy Nightwriter
   Olivia Ryan at olivia's oracle
   Kath at womagwriter's blog

A Night of Haunted Houses!

Last night I went a little crazy.  I went to two haunted attractions.  My evening began with taking my two sons to the school haunted house.  The haunted house was put on by the Venture scouts and was actually pretty good.  For something that was made by eighth graders on a limited budget in a school cafeteria, it was very well done.   Sadly,   I went to a haunted house at the Space and Rocket Center a few years ago that was  about as well put together as this one.  It was mostly based on many costumed scouts jumping out of the darkness, but it gave my youngest son nightmares so it was probably even a little scarier than it needed to be for the age group it was targeting.  There was a kid in a clown costume that really scared the crap out of both my kids.

The second haunted house I went to was much more grown up.  There was a haunted house way out in rural Alabama that I always admired, but was never willing to drive over an hour to get to called The Haunted Manor.  Apparently,  the owners of the Haunted Manor closed down and one of the partners reopened in Huntsville, Alabama.  This haunted attraction is now called Distubia and features some of the most impressive props I've ever seen in a haunted house and this includes such professional haunted houses as the Ripley's Haunted House.  This haunted house featured a 40ft Satan holding screaming people by bloody stumps,  a native village with dinosaurs that jump out front he darkness,  an evil laboratory, many spinny hall things with dismembered, decaying corpses reaching out at you in your disorientation, a very impressive cemetery with a beautiful mausoleum and an enormous gargoyle that leaps at you when you approach, and the usual array of costumed weirdos screaming and raving at you from the shadows in attempts to make you jump. 

I can't say how scary this haunted house is because I really am numb to these things.  I realized this at the very beginning of this haunted adventure because about one minute into the haunted attraction some grown man screamed in terror and grabbed onto my jacket  in the darkness.  I was in the front and he was too afraid to walk through the damn attraction without clinging to me.  He was so afraid he practically tore my jacket off gripping onto me, I would have thought he was some kind of pervert if I hadn't have looked back and saw everyone else was clinging to whoever they could in terror.  They were all strangers to me and many strangers to each other, but all laws of social decorum were lost in the face of a decomposing hands reaching out at them from the walls.  I finally shook my tag along and pushed my husband behind me and took the lead, where I could better study the props and actors.  So, although I wasn't afraid, judging from the screaming and clutching behind me I have to assume that this was a terrifying haunted house.  I was also impressed by the full costumed band that entertained us with bad 80s hard rock while we waited in line.  Overall,  I think this is the best haunted house I've been to so far.  More to come next weekend,  I hope I go in with a slightly braver lot next week.  I really wanted to punch the man behind me.

Ghosts in the Towers- Spain's Legendary Paradores

Looming proudly atop a selection of Spain’s hills and mountains are some of the country’s finest hotels:  The spooky Paradores hotels. These were founded in 1928 by King Alfonso VIII, in his bid to make Spain more attractive to tourists, and are magnificent conversions of some of Spain's oldest and most majestic historic buildings into luxury hotels. Yet taking a vacation at one of these hotels isn’t always just a tale of majesty and repose. Deep within the Paradores’ weather-beaten walls are stories of the tragic deaths of pilgrims, monks, Dukes and Kings who have inhabited them.

The Alhambra is perhaps the most magnificent of the Spanish historic buildings. Once a Moorish palace, it is here that the famous writer Washington Irving was once a bohemian squatter, recording the history of these sweeping buildings and gardens perched high on the hilltop overlooking once-Islamic Granada in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. It is here that the Moorish sultan discovered an affair between his favourite concubine and one of his courtiers. The lovers were parted and the courtier (along with his entire family) were executed. Some guests of the Parador have sworn they hear the ghost of the love-struck courtier still roaming the palace and grounds on still, moonlit nights.

Forbidden love is a powerful theme in the ghost stories of the Paradores. Perhaps the most well known is daughter of an 11th century Viscount. Although promised to a nobleman, she fell in love with a lowly governor (who was also a Moor – a double sin!). Her father locked her in one of the castle's tower (in the now Parador de Cardona), promising to release her when she consented to an 'acceptable' marriage. A woman of her convictions, she refused, and lived a long and lonely life locked away from her lover and the world. Her ghost is said to still inhabit the tower, some 900 years after she died there, and her desperately sad presence is often felt in room 712.

Photographs of mysterious spirits have been captured at the Parador de Jaen, a thirteenth century Arab fortress that was refurbished and opened to tourists in the late 1960s. Although no-one can figure out who these hapless souls are, or why their spirits still roam the halls, the haunted house in Belmez consistently records the impressions of women's faces on the walls and floors. Even when chipped away (as Maria Gomez found out more than 30 years ago), the faces return, with company.

Guest post by Escapio.com