Halloween Haunts

 “Want to get your Halloween Spook On?”

Here are our Top Five Locations guaranteed to give you the creeps this Halloween Season!

 

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# 5  Myrtles Plantation

As a general guideline, we typically do not encourage our readers to visit haunted homes unless the location has at least a baker’s dozen of frequent entities. Otherwise, it is hardly worth their time and expense, but we will make an exception for Myrtles Plantation’s reported dozen spooks.

Metaphorically speaking, you can’t swing a black cat around your television set this Halloween season and not catch a show that features the fascinating story of romance, murder, and hauntings that reportedly occur at this historic antebellum plantation.  

Learn more by visiting: The Myrtles Plantation

 

# 4 Mansfield Reformatory (aka Ohio State Reformatory)

Built to look like a German Castle, this former palace for the naughty, just gives you the willies looking at it! Who wants to spend time in a prison under the best of circumstances, let alone go to rusty, deteriorating, big house of boo?

Spirits are alleged to abound here! Visitors tell of satistic guards, forelorn prisoners, and even the warden’s own “accidentally” shot wife that still frequent the grounds. During the Halloween season, the facility has an extremely popular paid attraction (must be at least 13 years old) called Prison Experience: Dead Walk – they make it sound so nice!

 Make your own prison break by visiting: Mansfield Ohio Prison Experience and at Ghostly World

# 3 St. Augustine Lighthouse

Unlike prisons, lighthouses are cool places to visit regardless if they are haunted or not. Here you will learn all about the original Blue Man (years before he formed a group) who likes to chill in the basement, as well as the tragic story of the former lighthouse keeper, whose daughters, along with another girl, drowned when the lighthouses supply trolley they were playing on suffered a catastrophic failure!

This is one Halloween beacon sure to lead you to haunted shoals. For more information, we dare you to visit: St. Augustine Lighthouse’s Dark of the Moon tour

 

#2 Peoria State Hospital

This one is a no brainer – in fact, everything we post on our blog is a no brainer – but we do the best we can with the limited resources our DNA grants us.

Peoria State Hospital is always near the top of most recommend Haunted Places to visit list. Someone needs to investigate to see if there is a connection between weird castle designs in prisons and hospitals and frequency of haunting. Perhaps these designs are satellite dishes for the receiving departed.

It is also no wonder the patients here went insane, even the location had more names than Sybil. The facility has been called Peoria State Hospital, Bartonville State Hospital or Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane (how is that for an optimistic prognosis doctor!).

Find out more about their brand of crazy at: Peoria Asylum 

 #1 Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Even if it wasn’t reported to be one of the most haunted places in America, Waverly Hills Sanatorium goes off the spooky richter scale. This expansive sanatorium once housed thousands of patients who were undergoing bizarre treatments for tuberculosis (the “White Plague”).

The real human toll here was staggering. Most patients were sent here to die. Although the actual number of patients who died here might never be known the fact that the facilities tunnel has been nicknamed the “Death Tunnel” or “Body Chute” gives you some sense of the scale of the operation.

Here is how you can check in for treatment: Waverly Hills

It’s a Wrap!

Well that wraps-up our recommendations for our top five locations to get you spooked this Halloween season. Whether you are a firm believer or an ardent skeptic, these locations are sure to get the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up!

As always, we welcome your thoughts and recommendations here at Halloween for All.

Looking for a Good Fright?

Looking for a good scare this Halloween season?

Here is a teaser on Waverly Hills Sanatorium from our friends over at Ghostly World.

We encourage you to check back with us soon, as we are about to publish our post on the top five locations to get spooked this Halloween season!

Whether you are a firm believer or an ardent skeptic, these locations are sure to get the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up.

Has Halloween Become Over-Commercialized?

Halloween News

Warning: Did you know that kids today believe that Halloween is all about “Having Fun and Getting Candy.”

Watch this shocking expose from The Onion and judge for yourself if “Halloween Has Become Over-Commercialized?”

Americans Spend $370 Million on Pet Costumes

Halloween News

Proof that Americans are Nuts!

“Sorry Russell, the Only Jack
 We Want Around Here is on Our O-Lanterns!”

Admiral Cutie

According to a recent CNN survey, Americans are expected to spend $370 million this Halloween season on costumes for their pets! That is an increase of over $40 million over last year. Well, that is to be expected since we are living in such robust economic times – what better use is there for spending our excess discretionary boo bucks than on pet costumes?

In general, we here at Halloween for All don’t give a Shih Tzu how you spend your hard-earned greenbacks! However, if Reality TV has taught us anything,  it’s this: “All issues and problems with people and their pets originate in the gray matter – no matter how limited – found between the ears of the primate in that relationship.”

If you have ever watched an episode of “The Dog Whisperer” or “My Cat from Hell,”  you will quickly discover that nearly all animal behavioral problems originate with the pet owner or guardian not treating the animal like an animal. In short, the two shows’ basic principle is this:

“STOP TREATING YOUR PETS LIKE THEY’RE PEOPLE!”

Cats are cats and dogs are dogs – isn’t that wonderment enough? Animals are great companions. It is impossible not to marvel at the parallel and mutually beneficial relationship that humans and especially cats, dogs and horses have developed and maintained through the passing ages.

Here at Halloween for All headquarters, we love animals. We have two cats, one dog, two rats, one hamster, one turtle, one bearded dragon (lizard), one tarantula, and two black widow spiders! In the spirit of full disclosure, we have adorned our dogs and cats – even the bearded dragon – in various costumes.

Is it the right and responsible thing to do? Certainly not, we can recognize that it is not beneficial to the animal. We cannot hide our bizarre compulsion behind the “Dolphin Show Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Tarot Card” disclaimer of “the tricks you are about to see here today are natural behaviors that can be observed in the wild.” We have yet to read about packs of wolves donning “Princess Leia” outfits before the hunt nor have we received reports of bearded dragons dressing like Elvis in the Australian Outback – until now!

 

So we are left with the conclusion that Americans are nuts!

Annual Trip to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm

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Wheatland, CA –  You do not have to look any farther than your local pumpkin patch or farm to realize that Halloween is gaining in popularity.

Since 2003, our crack research and trend analysis team has ventured to the Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland, CA to assess the health of the holiday.  We are delighted to report that Halloween is in good spirits and doing well.

For you history buffs, Wheatland became the base camp for the Donner Party survivors after they finally crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but of course they became infamous for eating more than Wheatland’s legendary pumpkins.

Anyway, rather than our usual snarky observations and bizarre factoids, we’ll try something new, and merely post some images of our fun-filled outing. 

Should you find yourself in the greater Sacramento region during the Halloween season, we encourage you to include a visit to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm as part of your short list of things to do while you are here. For more information, check out their web site: Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm

Corn Mazes – Field of Screams!

By John Morgan

“Help – I am Lost and I Haven’t
Even Entered the Corn Maze!”

Halloween is a big enough and versatile holiday to handle just about everyone’s tastes. Since Halloween is agile enough to please just about everyone, there are bound to be elements that simply are not your cup of cider.

At the risk of polarizing our readers (and we know who both of you are), we here at Halloween for All have a confession to make: corn mazes appeal to us as much as pork flavored ice cream – we are simply lost regarding their popularity.

So, if we understand it correctly, the allure of corn mazes consists of the following: you get to go to the country; you get to find a corn maze that suits your needs; you get to shuck out some boo dollars; you get to enter a hot, humid, perhaps bug infested corn field; you get to have hours – perhaps even days – of fun as you wander around seeking an exit. Is that correct (minus of course any effort on our part to describe anything remotely resembling fun)?

We are huge fans of critical thinking here at Halloween for All, it is the only way we can maximize the limited gray matter in our gourds. Therefore, we will apply Barbasol shaving cream to the problem and then whip out Occam’s Razor – which states that the simplest solution is often the best – and we will shave ourselves a solution in no time!

Ah, we have it! Don’t enter the maze. Even better, stay at home!

So in a real sense, you will be saving corn by not visiting a corn field. When you stay home, you won’t expend any corn ethanol; when you don’t use any corn ethanol, fossil fuels aren’t used in creation and transportation of the corn ethanol; when farmers decide that it is better just to grow corn in the former maze paths, additional corn will be grown; when additional corn is grown, more feed is available for domestic livestock; when more feed is available, pigs will multiply and get larger – which in turn can be used for making more pork flavored ice cream. It is the perfect win-win!

Isn’t it wonderful what you can do with properly applied critical thinking!?

However, we also realize that there are some corn haters out there who can not or will not be persuaded to not go into a corn maze no matter how compelling the arguments against it are! Therefore, we reluctantly will provide you with the following resources for your sick amusement:

• US Corn Maze Directory
• Tips on how to navigate a corn maze

One final warning before we select submit to this post, let us ask you this: Are corn mazes part of a complex, subsidized government effort, to keep us distracted and misinformed, in order to fog the collective memory of humankind regarding not the nature of corn mazes themselves, but the true alien menace – crop circles?

Quick, tell us, what came first, the corn maze or the crop circle? See for most you, you simply do not know or worse, you might even be thinking “I don’t care!” And if that is the case, wouldn’t that be exactly how the power elite would want you to feel.

“Cucurbita Panem et Circenses”

One-Ton Pumpkin Squashes Competition

Halloween News

NEW WORLD RECORD!

Record Breaking Pumpkin

 A one-ton pumpkin squashes the competition at the Topsfield Fair! History was made when Ron Wallace’s massive pumpkin, “The Freak II,” became the first pumpkin to break the one-ton mark!

Readers, we have to ask ourselves, “what is going on in the family of Cucurbitaceae?” The alarm bells are ringing.

It was only in 2000 that the 1,000 pound pumpkin barrier was broken. So let’s get this straight, pumpkins have doubled in size in just 12 short years! We here at Halloween for All, recognize that this is bigger and more dynamic than any previous c-change in the orbit of Halloween.

Is this the dire warning of the Mayan calendar manifesting itself in Massachusetts? Why are the two presidential candidates so mum on the matter? Could the fabled 13th planet Nibiru actually be a pumpkin? We don’t know about you, but we’re not waiting around to take marching orders from some kind of monstrous orange overlord!

This a call for action!  Please, while there still may be time, each and every one of us needs to devour anything made of pumpkin. We need to tip the scales back in humanity’s favor. So have another piece of pumpkin bread and drink another pumpkin spiced latte.

After all wasn’t it Aragorn who said:

 “Hold your gourd, hold your gourd!  I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men and women fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of Halloween fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered pumpkin fields, when the age of pumpkin carving comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we eat and fight, but mainly we eat! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you feast on all that is pumpkin Men and Women of the West!”

 

 

Perfect Halloween Destinations

by John Morgan
The Cauldron List

Halloween Travel

But not just any travel, mysterious forces have cast a strong spell on us that requires us to solely focus on those destinations that celebrate the rich tradition and spirit of Halloween.  These are the enchanting locations that we would like to experience – at least once – before we do any haunting of our own.

Here is The Cauldron List’s top Halloween Travel Destinations:

 

The Real Dracula’s Castle
Romania

And you thought Ravens and Crows got a bad rap when literature refers to them as a “murder of crows” or an “unkindness of ravens.”  How would you like to go on Ancestry.com and discover that you are related to Vlad the Impaler and his father Vlad II Dracul from order of the House of the Dragons?

I am Vlad to See You!

Many attribute Vlad the Impaler as the real life inspiration for Bram Stoker’s immortal Dracula.

OK, things are never as easy as they seem. There are actually three castles in modern-day Romania that claim to be “Dracula’s Castle”:  Bran Castle, Poenari Castle, and Hunyad Castle. Although it worth pointing out the Stoker’s own notes state that he invented the castle and placed it on an empty mountain top.

We figure it is not every day we get sojourn through the rugged Transylvanian and Wallachian terrain so why not visit all three.  Just make sure to drop by the local Romanian Leu Store to pickup plenty of garlic, crucifixes, and wooden stakes – along with greeting cards, batteries and helium balloons (what else does one go to the Dollar Store for?).

Festival of the Dead
Salem/Danvers, Massachusetts

Talk about Halloween sensory overload: witches, necromancy, séances, Celtic ceremonies and dramatic fall foliage all in one – better make that two – locations!

Just like in Dracula’s Castle, time seems to cloud the record, as various parties claim to be the real fright deal in order to entice you to spend your boo bucks in their locations. In Massachusetts, both Salem and Danvers claim to be the sight of the original witch trials of 1692 and 1693.

It appears that Mrs. Hickok, my eighth grade history teacher, must have had a broom in the game for promoting Salem, because she never once called it the Danvers Witch Trails. Where do the lies end Mrs. Hickok? Was the Boston Tea Party really a Gloucester Espresso Soiree?

Just like the curtain between the physical and spirit world grows thinnest around Halloween, perhaps you will become clairvoyant enough to decide which witch community has rightful claim to the historic witch trials. Either way, a trip here will leave you enchanted.

 Sleepy Hollow, New York

Finally, a Halloween location that exists without much controversy. After all Halloween is not worth losing your head over – just don’t tell the Hessian I said that!

There is plenty to see and do in this small community to celebrate Halloween. Although there are parades, hayrides, pumpkin patches, and various festivals and events held throughout the community approaching Halloween, the one can’t miss event is the annual Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor (tickets are required and they do sell out quickly).

Sleepy Hollow is a fantastic destination to celebrate Halloween. You will experience the same spooky locations that inspired Washington Irving’s classic tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  You might even be unfortunate enough to sight the Headless Horseman himself.  If you do, just make sure you can outrun the person next to you. That should be enough to ensure that you come out head and shoulders above the rest of the Halloween revelers.

 

Stonehenge, Hill of Tara, and an Irish Pub
Great Britain

The foundation of today’s Halloween celebrations can directly trace its origins back to the Ancient Druid, Roman and Catholic traditions and beliefs that blended in the melting cauldron that is Great Britain. As such, Great Britain is a dream location to celebrate Halloween!

Visit to Hill of Tara and other Druid locations where Samhain festivals were originally held.  Warm yourself by a bonfire, the likes of which brought some of Halloween’s most recognizable symbols of the bat and owl to become indelibly linked with the holiday.

Then find a warm pub, enjoy a pint or two and recount the legend of “Stingy Jack.” Who tricked the devil in an Irish pub and in the process became the inspiration for the modern-day jack-o-lantern.

So those are our recommendations for perfect Halloween destinations that celebrate the spirit of Halloween’s rich history and traditions. As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments.

What the Heck is a Goblin?

by John Morgan
Halloween Symbols

 GOBLINS

As a lifetime Halloween enthusiast, I have to come clean: I have never understood what the heck a goblin is. Oh sure, I have faked the funk enough: “Goblins,  I know all there is about goblins! They love hanging out with ghosts and you don’t even want to get me started on their subspecies, the Hobgoblin!”

It is time to stop faking it until I make it. Today, I have decided to finally ferret out the little (they are little, aren’t they?) rascals.   Let me do a quick Google search. Ah yes, here we go…”the term goblin is a collective noun for evil spirits like redcaps and bugbears.”  Well, mystery solved then – this will be my shortest post to date.

(Note to self: If anyone asks me to explain redcaps or bugbears, I will just shake my head in pity, boldly state that they are goblins, put on a facial expression that conveys “what else could they possibly be?”, then turn and walk away in mild disgust).

As someone who currently is not much of a gamer, unless you count the occasional Spider Solitaire game while I am waiting for something to upload, I am guessing that I might be in the minority in my goblin quandary. Especially since we are now living in a post “Dungeons and Dragons” and “World of Warcraft” age.

Maybe I am suffering from a mild form of amnesia.  I have always admired the Lord of the Rings, it’s quite possible that goblins were thoroughly described and chronicled throughout Tolkien’s classic series. After all, just by reading the series and watching the trilogy, I have through osmosis acquired an understanding of trolls, elves, and ring-wraiths and the like. If pressed, I would hazard that the LOTR character Gollum is probably the most goblin-like. Yet, I would not be in the least surprised if someone admonished me by definitively declaring that Gollum was a redcap, bugbear, or hobgoblin – whatever the heck they are?

OK, so let me see if I can at least get a handle on Hobgoblins. Let’s just go to Wikipedia, here it is: “Hobgoblins –seem to be small, hairy little men who—like their close relative, brownies”…STOP! STOP right there! Is someone messing with me? How come every definition of a goblin or goblin relative is defined as something resembling an even a more obscure mythical creature?

Great, it goes on to state that Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream character Puck is a hobgoblin. Now I am even more confused, wasn’t Puck a half goat, half devil looking thing like Phil from Disney’s Hercules?

At this point, I no longer give a @#%& jack-o-lantern what they are! It is time for me to break this infinite vague definition chain and just proclaim that all I know about goblins and their evil spirited kin is that they are now my least favorite Halloween characters!

The Wolf Man has left me howling mad!

(Reader’s Alert: I would give this post a PG-13)

“Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May Become a wolf
When the wolfbane blooms
And the Autumn moon is bright”

 The Wolf Man

You have got to be kidding me – the werewolf is the victim! OK, I have got to calm down. Let me take a few deep cleansing breathes before I go any further into exploring the only canine that got Cesar Millan to talk above a whisper!

Let me spend a good “Night on Bald Mountain” and enjoy a Chernobog view of the situation. If I understand the facts correctly: Larry Talbot (aka The Wolf Man) is estranged from his family; and he only returns home after his brother dies in a hunting accident (hey boys in Scotland Yard, you might want to check Larry’s whereabouts during the time of the alleged accident – ask yourselves who stands to gain if something should happen to the first-born son?).

 When Larry arrives back home, the first thing he does – the very first thing – is not show compassion or sympathy for his Dad or his brother’s surviving friends, no, he is no sooner home than the dashes upstairs grabs one of his father’s telescopes and gets his soon-to-be four-legged voyeurism freak on spying on the village hottie.

He is obviously so grief-stricken, Larry hauls his destined to be shaggy tail down to the village where he spotted the vixen just moments before entering her family’s store. He buys the largest and cheapest (kids, don’t read this nor ask your parents what it means) phallic symbol in the store.

Then he pours on the sappy: “My brother just died and I can’t stand the thought of being alone right now” (the oldest trick in the G.I. and Soon-to-be-Monster Icon playbook). The sly dog actually convinces the lovely Gwen Conliffe into not only going on a pity date with him, he’s so brazen he gets her to bring a “friend” along to act as “chaperone.”

When the date doesn’t live up to Larry’s expectations (what did he expect would happen after taking the ladies out to free Gypsy festival? His generations version of a “mac & cheese and Redbox movie” date), Gwen’s friend Jenny decides to leave.

Larry’s such a fine gentleman that he’s content with letting Jenny walk home through the misty dark forest all alone. As fate would have it, Jenny is attacked by the thought to be extinct British wolf. Obviously frustrated over how the evening was going, Larry whacks the wolf to death with his silver tipped cane.

By this point, Jenny no longer accepting calls at 867-5309, the wolf manages to bite Larry before dying, and it turns out that the wolf is actually a Gypsy man named Bela, who was transformed into a wolf because of a legendary curse…and who are we supposed to feel sorry for? Of course, it’s obvious – Larry!

Someone has to tell the Welsh townsfolk of Llanwelly to stop being a bunch of enablers! It’s past time to go all Bob Barker and “fix” the problem permanently.

 

But oh no, everyone is still fine with good old Larry. He even attends Bela’s funeral. In fact, Bela’s mother even gives Larry a charm. Being the progressive player that Larry is, when things with Gwen and Jenny failed to work out, he has no problems going on a second date with Gwen – just as long as she brings her fiancé Frank along so the boys can get into a shooting contest.

When the full moon comes, it’s Larry’s turn to stalk the woods and terrorize the townsfolk. Why Jenny is not even fully in the ground when Larry decides to maul her gravedigger.

After making messy all over the rug, Larry explains to his Dad that he might be a shapeshifting monster; however, his Dad being the enabler he is, insists that Larry is simply showing the psychological elements of Lycanthropy (someone who believes they’re a wolf – instead of the dawg we know Larry to be).

Larry goes on to morph, yet again, into his fury counterpart and stalks through the local forest. This time he gets his leg caught in a bear trap. Finally, we are going to witness justice being served! Alas, who comes to his aid? Why the mother whose son Larry bludgeoned to death. Here, she gives the most enabling diatribe of the entire story: “The way you walked was thorny; through no fault of your own. But as the rain enters the soil; the river enters the sea; so tears run to a predestined end”…yadda yadda yadda.

 Please, let’s be honest here, “The way he walked was horny; it was through every fault of his own; and he wanted to soil more than just the rivers and seas!” I must apologize, I normally don’t get so tawdry on this blog – it’s just that the Wolf Man has left me howling mad!

Larry shifts into a werewolf for one final time and decides he is going to have a howling good time with Gwen. Anyway, thankfully “parentus-wolfus-interruptus“ occurs when John Talbot, Larry’s dad, catches up with them in the woods. Sir Talbot goes all Al Capone in The Untouchables over Larry’s canine rear end, which resulted in Larry going to “live on a farm in the country” if you get my meaning.

 The seasoned gypsy woman repeats her prayer but adds, “Your suffering is over, and now you will find peace for eternity.” Finally, your suffering is over, as you have come to the end of this ranting blog post.