The End of Chucktober aka the Post-Halloween Hangover

It’s pretty fantastic having Halloween fall on a Saturday, as it gives all of us the perfect excuse to enjoy the wicked holiday all weekend long. However, despite finishing up a watch of Hollow Gate after falling asleep halfway through the night before, and enjoying a few Halloween episodes of Roseanne during Roseanne’s Halloween Hangover on WE (which is an awesome thing to do, by the way), the deep down feeling that the party’s over is impossible to shake.

As the day goes on and the rotted jack-o’-lanterns find their way into the trash to finish their slow dissolve into fly infested nothingness, the sadness of it all starts to settle in, knowing that it’ll be yet another long year of anticipation for the fun to all begin again. As somewhat depressing as that may sound, with the exit of another Halloween season comes the opportunity to reflect upon it, and when all's said and done, it was a good season indeed.

This year’s jack-o’-lanterns courtesy of my inflatable wife (right jack-o) and myself (left jack-o).

As per usual, the last few months have been filled with the usual intake of Halloween-themed snacks and goodies as well as a number of delicious seasonal beverages. That stuff is always a highlight for a junk-food junkie and lush like myself, that’s for certain. The only thing that might top overdosing on Halloween treats is spending a month plus watching horror films and various Halloween specials throughout the season, which actually goes well with all the Halloween junk food, as I have perfected the art of eating and watching my television at the same time. What can I say, I’m multitalented.

As mush as I love junk food and horror films, this Halloween was enjoyable for reasons other than orange-colored treats that may or may not cause cancer, and that comes in the form of my daughter, Hallowbaby herself, Clara.

Don’t be skerred, fall-jacket Jason.

Clara was born on October 25th of last year, which as luck would have it, meant her first birthday fell on the Sunday before Halloween. Now, for those of you who don’t know (and really, why would you?), the town I live in does trick or treat the Sunday before Halloween, unless Halloween lands on a Sunday, of course. This basically gave us an excuse to do a Halloween theme for Clara’s first birthday party, which was graciously hosted at my in-laws’ house.

Clara’s first birthday cake, designed by yours truly. The main cake is vanilla and the cupcakes chocolate, because daddy don’t play. 

Hallowbaby digging into some smash cake aka cake that gets smashed by an infant and is a nightmare to clean up.

Timing wise it couldn’t have worked out any better, as immediately after we got home from Clara’s party, trick or treat had begun. While I don’t love the idea of trick or treat being held in the afternoon (usually from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM) and on a day other than Halloween, I am always thrilled by how many spooky boils and ghouls show up at my door looking for a handful of treats, and this year was no different. I didn’t keep count, though I really should have, but I am willing to bet at least 50 kids came to my door, and each one was greeted with a fistful of Halloween candy, which only ensured our home will A) be the cool house and B) never get egged.

It’s hard to make out, but four adorable girls who came to our home for trick or treat - then proceeded to sit on the corner of my lawn and dig into their stash - wrote trick or treat on my sidewalk. My black heart melted, naturally.  

In any event, Halloween itself was enjoyable as well, being filled with special Halloween cookies, the flickering of Yankee Candle candles, tons of Halloween-set movies and horror films, and even a trip out to the local fairgrounds for a little Halloween fun, with a heavy focus on the word little. As great as the big day was, however, it was Clara’s birthday mixed with trick or treat that turned out to be the real highlight of this Halloween season, and I honestly couldn’t ask for anything more.

Here are some more notable photos from the past month of madness for you to dig into:

Clara’s babysitter did a little art project with the kids, and this was the result. It is Clara’s first art piece, and fittingly it’s Halloween related. You know, because she is Hallowbaby.

Clara doesn’t care much about TV, but for some reason she was drawn to Roseanne’s first Halloween special, BOO, which only proves that she has a good chance at one day being crowned “the master.”

Again, not really into TV, which only makes Clara’s interest in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Halloween morning a pretty special moment for me. Hallowbaby is clearly not a uniform; it’s a lifestyle.

And lastly, I freed my lovely inflatable wife from the basement so she could take this adorable photo with Clara, in full Hallowbaby attire, on Halloween.

At any rate, I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween, and I also hope you enjoyed all the Chucktober festivities I put together this year. Naturally, things are going to slow down here on the blog now that October has passed, but I do plan on trying to put together something for December. Until next time, however, thanks for reading my endless blabbering!

A Little Pumpkin of Our Own

First of all, I want to wish you all a happy Halloween! I hope that you are able to enjoy the day of darkness to its fullest, and I also hope that you have enjoyed all the Chucktober festivities that I have provided for you throughout the month. I know it’s been a blast for me, and I am quite sad to see it all come to an end.

In any event, while wishing you a happy Halloween is a high priority, there are more important matters to deal with, specifically the birth of HALLOWBABY!!

Clara Emily House (aka my daughter) was brought into the world by my incredible (and tough as nails) mail order bride on Saturday, October 25 at 5:16 AM. Naturally, the birth of my first child is overwhelmingly amazing, and it doesn’t hurt things that she came during my favorite time of the year. It only makes the Halloween season even more special to me, and I look forward to years of Halloween themed birthday parties.

Alright, I am completely exhausted, so I don’t have the energy to keep on babbling. Once again, I hope you all have a fantastic Halloween, and please feel free to send my daughter gifts. She loves Amazon gift cards.

Halloween Happenings: Post Mortem

The Chucktober decorations have been taken down and Halloween has done left the building for yet another season. By the time Halloween day comes, I often feel sort of empty about the whole thing. I suppose I get a little bummed out that all the fun leading up to the big day has to end in such anticlimactic fashion. However, this year was a little different; instead of being bummed out as the final days counted down, I felt satisfied, and I think I can attribute that to having a fantastic Halloween weekend in Columbus and a genuinely satisfying Halloween overall. I don't want to get too detail heavy here, as the purpose of this post is to share with you my rocking Halloween weekend in a way that won't take up too much of your time. With that said, as Jello once belted, LET'S MOVE 'EM OUT!! 

---

On Friday night, we went to The Scare-A-Torium, a haunted attraction in Dublin, OH. Ye ol' lady and I had a total blast at this place, as it delivered the haunted horror goods on all levels. Definitely a recommend if you're ever in the area around Halloween time.

This meatball pizza from Pizza Rustica was pretty much off the chain, and the owner touched my shoulder as he made a joke. By doing that, and by providing me with such a tasty treat, he has made a friend for life.

Sometime after my touching pizza moment, we went to see a special little film on the big screen in THE COOLEST THEATER EVER, Gateway Film Center. Any film fan, especially a genre fan such as myself, would blow rope at this place, and I did, all while enjoying an afternoon spent with Psycho on the big screen. For me, it was the highlight of the entire weekend, and it was made even better by the fact that my wife, who had never Psycho before, seemed to absolutely love it.

Speaking of my wife, I dumped her for some chick dressed up as a Wu-Tang killer bee. She kept saying that she wanted me to swarm her nest… I wasn't sure what that meant, but I played along with it.

Things got a little hairy when Chance Boudreaux from Hard Target showed up, stole my new dime piece from me, and then bit the rattle off of a rattlesnake. It was weird, but I sort of dug it since he was so handsome and all.

Later on, Chance and the killer bee chick made me go to some amazing party called Highball Halloween, where something like 10,000 people, all dressed up in awesome costumes, partied the night away. I didn't have much fun, as Chance and the killer bee girl kept yelling at me to get them beers and take pictures of them groping. At one point, Chance was repeatedly screaming, "We are the John Woo-Tang!" It wasn't even funny, but they wouldn't stop laughing and yelling at me. I hate them both. 

Oh well, it was still a great Halloween weekend and certainly one of the best that I've had in a very long time, and I'm happy to have been able to share some of it with all of eww. So for now, I suppose I can chill out and recuperate for most of November, and then I need to start gearing up for this certain little thing known as Death-cember!

A Baby Too Big to be Eaten?! Wah-wah-WHAT?!

Well, Chucktober is all over now, and as I whimper out of the month tired and underwhelmed due to an elongated state of blogging boredom, a less than exciting Halloween, and some personal bullshit, I have to reposition myself to shine that positive smile upon the world. Or something. Depending on my mental state, chances are things will be a little scarce around here, but hopefully that equates to some better quality post by yours truly. Only the finest in dick and fart jokes for my readers, I say!   

Anyway, I do have some classy content to share with you, but that content is at a place much classier than this, and that is Paracinema. If you feel the need to read about one of the most mind-bendingly strangest films I have ever seen, ever, then head on over to Paracinema to read my review of 1973's The Baby, a film about a baby who is literally too big for his britches.  

Speaking of Paracinema, in the next day or so I will be revealing the winner of the Chucktober DVD/Paracinema Magazine giveaway, so don't fret, freters! All of those who were awesome enough to share some great Halloween traditions with me deserve a big thanks, and I wish you all the best of luck in the upcoming drawing.

And once again, speaking of Paracinema, if you were not already aware, the independently produced cult/genre film magazine was recently picked up for distribution, meaning there's a real good chance you can grab yourself an issue at a store near you! For your convenience, I have provided a list of retailers across the United States and Canada carrying this fine ass bitch of a magazine.

 

Don't be a commie… support your independence by picking up an issue of Paracinema! 

The Party's Over

Well, for this year that is. I hope everyone had a fun Halloween out there in the internet. I had one of the better ones I've had in quite some time. Last year was a bit of a bust, but this year I got my fill of tricks and treats to make me more than happy. There wasn't much to do in terms of haunted house and things of that nature, unfortunately, but as opposed to last year, we did make it to a pretty great haunted trail which proved to be a good time. It doesn't take much to make me happy when it comes to that kind of stuff to be honest.

Something else we missed out on last year was trick or treating, due to the fact that they did it on a day that wasn't Halloween (like seriously?). This year they thankfully did, and we were ready with candy treats for the massive amount of kids that came by our place. We must have had like 50 some odd ghouls and ghouletts come by, and there is nothing better than seeing their reaction to my special doormat that makes spooky sounds when stepped on. Shit was priceless. Even if they were trick or treating in the day time, it still was a wonderful sight to see so many kids out there doing their thing. It certainly was a highlight of my day.

This also turned out to be a year where I actually came up with a costume, something I usually put off until the last minute, in which I end up just throwing some latex on my face making myself into a quick, but always decent looking, zombie, or wearing my Michael Myers' jumpsuit with a creepy rapist mask of some sort. This year as my main squeeze and I were trying to come up with ideas while at the costume shop, we stumbled upon a wig that basically made our decision as to what we would go as this year.

Yeah, we started off as Slash and Axl but, by the end of the evening, turned into drunk and hammered, which is kind of fitting. It happens, especially when you're barhopping on a school bus filled with forty or so party animals. It led to a supremely hungover Halloween day, but it was totally worth it.

What really topped the Halloween season off was certainly the series premier of The Walking Dead. I mean, wow. Much better than I could have hoped for, and outside of some CGI blood (which I can certainly overlook in the big scheme), the show is off to a wonderful start, and I cannot believe the amazing zombie make-up (but I guess can with Nicotero involved), as well as the amount of violence that is shown. Kudos is in order for AMC and everyone involved, and I can only imagine how great this show will be as we become immersed in the lives of the characters surviving the apocalypse. A fucking plus.   

With Halloween passing on by comes the end of Chucktober. It was a busy but fun month here at CNAMB and as it turns out, it was the busiest month by far the blog has ever seen as far as traffic goes, so that is very awesome that people were stopping by and checking out the crap I have to say. It'll be nice to be able to get back to something a little more normal, and I do have a handful of films that I wanted to review for this month that I simply just didn't have time to in October. Now I can finally get to them before my memory fades as to what I liked or disliked about them. I will try and hit up a few different genres, especially after being all horror all the time, I need to break things up a bit.

So yeah, this has turned out to be a solid season of the witch, and I hope the same went for all of you out there. Thanks to everyone that stopped by and made Chucktober a part of their day, and now I'm off to start putting away the decorations until next year.

The Horror Hangover

Halloween has officially passed and while I am very saddened by this, I still have some left over Halloween goodies for you Baby Eaters out there to make the transition back to normalcy a little easier. Chucktober kept me pretty busy and made it a little too difficult to post all the shit I wanted to, so I still have a few more horror movie reviews to put up before the end is "official"...so keep your eyes open!

As for the Horror Hangover - with the spooky season over now, I will not be focusing on just horror movies, but any type of genre film that I see worthy of CNAMB. If it's on basic cable and it's either bad-ass, bad, or at least interesting, I will have it listed for you to choose from as you drool all over yourself every Sunday afternoon!

Here we go...
At 11:00 AM, SyFy is playing Showdown at Area 51 (2007). It's about two aliens that crash land on Earth and do something...I'm gonna guess that it involves some sort of showdown at area 51, or something. Not sure if it sounds like your cup of tea? Just let this clip make the decision for you...



If you aren't into SyFy movies staring Jason London (and who isn't?), then 11:30 Am The Butterfly Effect (2004) is on FX. Yeah. Whatever.

At 12:00 PM the TV Guide network (?) is playing Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest (2008). It's apparently based on short stories from Stoker with Stoker himself as a character in the film, who is forced to spend time away from his girl to prove their love for one another. 2003's Leatherface plays Dracula...sure.



SyFy is coming out swinging at 1:00 PM with part 1 of V (1983) to be followed up with the 80's alien invasion miniseries concluding at 3:00 PM. V is awesome and the perfect way to spend your hangover this afternoon...so this is definitely my pick for the day. It's already made for TV, so no edits, and the cast is great with the likes of Robert Englund and the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer. This promo is so great, you should be sold!



No need for coffee when at 2:00 PM Crank (2006) will be running wild on USA. Crank is a fun movie that really isn't for everyone, but if you love Statham (I know I do!) and you love completely ridiculous, nonsensical, and insane cinema, then this is the movie for you! Not sure how well this one will play out on television, but your barely alive right now, so it may be worth a shot!

2:30 PM brings us Club Dread (2004) on Comedy Central. A solid mix of humor and horror, I thought Club Dread was an okay flick that works as a mediocre-to-decent Slasher and is chock full of comedy. It's Broken Lizard, so if you like what they do, then you should enjoy this one...and Bill Paxton is great as Coconut Pete!



Almost time for a shower, but before that Thelma & Louise (1991) is on Style (?) at 4:00 PM. You should know about this one, tons of great actors with Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Brad Pitt, and Tabby Tibbons aka Christopher McDonald. Oh yeah, and it's directed by Ridley Scott. Great movie.

4:15 Gives us the gift of Forbidden Planet (1956) on Turner Classic Movies. This will be my second choice since it will be presented nicely on TCM and its a classic Sci Fi film - you can never go wrong with classic Sci Fi. So now you got two solid Science Fiction picks to choose from throughout your day. You're welcome!



That's it for me today...have a nice hangover!