Bob’s Thirsty Thursday: My Haunted Yard

I love decorating my house for Halloween. I start promptly as close to October 1st as possible, or just slightly before, to ensure that Halloween is in full effect for the entire month of October. While some people may stop at hanging up a few Jack-O-Lantern cut-outs on the walls, or decking out their mantle with spider webs, skulls, pumpkins, and other spooky paraphernalia, I take it one step further by doing all that, plus decking out the outside of the house as well. I take pride in making my house the spookiest, most Halloween-decorated house in the neighbor. To do this, I put up a few strings of orange lights, a graveyard, a few human skulls, a couple of creepy-ass looking scarecrows, and couple of three ghosts/ghouls/demons that just ‘hang out’ in the yard all month long. Because I have three kids under the age of 7, the yard is part super-scary, part kiddie-friendly, with friendly skeletons coming up from beyond the grave, and silly sayings like ‘Enter If You Dare’, which doesn’t sound silly, but the sign is. Trust me.

People stop to check out the yard every time they walk by it. Kids are freaked out and don’t want to walk by the house and are therefore forced to run as fast as they can. My kid’s friends don’t want to come to the front door. Basically, that’s all I need to make it worth it. Best of all is the kids who then start asking their parents why they don’t decorate their house for Halloween. Good fucking question, yo! Get on that shit, that’s what I say. And you know what, the amount of decorated houses for Halloween in my neighborhood as doubled every year we’ve been there (this is Halloween season 3 on this block), and that is all the confirmation I need that people dig it… and it’s nice to have other spooky houses to oooh and aaah over throughout the season. My only hope is that someday, there are as many Halloween houses around as there are come Christmas time (and just you wait to see my yard then!).

Speaking of Halloween, I’m loving the horror movie season this year more than any year previous–this year I’m trying to veer away from the crap and sticking strictly with the quality horror, making my month of movie watching 1 billion times better than Jim Law’s 101 Damnations. I’m taking in all kinds of classics–some of which I’ve seen, some of which I’ve never seen before, and I’m loving every second of it. At Day 9 of October, I’ve taken in Psycho, The Birds, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (on Blu-ray!), Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, Scream, a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Eaten Alive, Creepshow, Cabin Fever: Patient Zero, The Town That Dreaded Sundown (original), Horns, Gone Girl, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (with Donald Sutherland), House of Wax (original), 28 Days Later, and The Baby. And I’d recommend all of them… except Cabin Fever: Patient Zero, cause that one sucked (but it has a good catfight towards the end).  I’ll be checking out even more as the weeks go on, including Night of the Demons, a flick that I’ve surprisingly never seen before.

On the TV side, American Horror Story: Freakshow starts this week, as does The Walking Dead. After wrapping up the shitastic The Strain this week, I’m looking forward to some quality horror on TV. Let’s hope these two delivery. Yes, Walking Dead has let me down in the past, but what can I say… I’m an optimist about this season. And AHS: Freakshow just looks awesome. Love that show. Old shit like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and The Munsters will also be in the loop all month long to get into the holiday season. Sons of Anarchy is still awesome and is, by far, the one show I look forward to the most week after week.

And because I need one more source of horror in my life, I’m currently reading Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. While much more dense than, say, FRANKENSTEIN, it’s still a pleasure to read, and perfect for the season. The whole thing is drenched with a gothic atmosphere that’s so damn thick you can practically cut it with a knife. Hopefully I can time it right so I’m reading THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW during the last week of the month, leading up to Halloween. That’s  a Halloween tradition I always take on as the story of the Headless Horseman is a staple of Halloween for me. So fucking cool.

Anyway, that’s all I got. High Life!