One last thing…

You know that I’ve share a bit on this blog about some of the weird sounds and feelings I get in my church building. Well, tonight, I was opening up the parish hall for a group to meet.   One of the other church volunteers came in and said she had been here for a while but she was too afraid to use her key to come into the hall.  I asked her why.  She said that when she is in the building alone, she has the feeling that someone is about to walk down the stairs from upstairs and enter the room.   I’ve never told her about my feelings of the same “presence” and how I don’t like being alone in the building at night.  Somehow I feel “validated”……

L.

How a REAL man carves a pumpkin

 

Before I take off on one of my babbles, I should perhaps give a little… explanation on my scale for rating films. 

 

First-Will I watch it again?

Second-How many times do I realistically see myself watching it in the future?

Third- If I have seen it more than once, have I discovered more in the film after the first viewing?

Fourth- Will anyone else in the family want to see it in the future?

Fifth-Am I willing to buy this DVD?

Sixth-Do I want to insist on normal over wide-screen format?

Seventh-Am I willing to pay $15.99-$19.99 for the DVD?

Eighth-Do I add it to my Wish List” of CD’s and DVD’s?

 

So, without further ado-

Gwenerrella’s

                       Favourite

Frights

 

 

In past years, for Halloween, I have listed the top scary movies, according to the film industry.  Since that isn’t as much fun the second time around, this year, I will list some of my top scary movies.

 

Here are my favourite movie frights, in no particular order:

 

 

“The Birds” and “Psycho”, Alfred Hitchcock knew what he was doing, he could scare the bejabbers out of me without any gore, or special effects, his films continue to be much better than a lot of the ‘new’ horror films. 

 

Watching the playground equipment being covered with patient, waiting birds with the children singing so fearlessly in the schoolhouse.  Knowing the whole time the children are singing they are fated to become bird-bait, it was the not knowing the when that kept me glued Hitchcock’s films.

 

Anthony Perkins’ skilful handling of his character still gives me the willies.  The cinematography is stunning (but then, the scenes of his films are normally full of realistic details and enticing distractions), there are images from both films that are indelibly etched on the retinas of memory.

 

“Rosemary’s Baby” again, all the special effects won’t save a weak story.  And an almost complete lack of them won’t matter to a well-told, and acted story.  This is another one of those forget-that-I-have-‘pause’-on-my-remote films.

 

It doesn’t matter how many times I watch “Rosemary’s Baby”, I am still thrilled and chilled in the best of ways by this film.  If someone is ever self-destructive enough to make a remake of this, I think a lot of people will boycott it.

 

“The Omen”, only the original one will do!!  Gregory Peck is too skilled of a performer, and the story is far too compelling to ignore.  Lee Remick is so lovely and fragile, I still feel it was a mercy that she had passed before all Hell broke loose!  (I know, bad, bad pun!!)

 

My brothers and I have/had a head for meanness, although we have wisely channelled it into a love of horror films.  Every time we see the photographer’s head cut off we can’t help but cheer in gory delight.

 

“The Exorcist”, of course, who hasn’t been seduced by the slow advance of little Regan’s possession?  It starts with such innocuous things, a scratching in the attic, and cold drafts.  And we are transfixed by Regan’s transformation from an innocent to a beast, how can we leave, until we know that the girl has been saved from the ‘Dark Side’? 

 

My family saw “The Exorcist” at the Drive-in, my brothers were 12 and 11, and I was 14.  My brothers spent most of the film hiding under the front seat.  Mum had taken us on the promise we wouldn’t have nightmares.  The only way I kept that promise was by not going to sleep. *laughing shamefacedly*

 

“Silent Hill”, I still can’t watch that film, one scene was that distressing to me.  It was so distressing that I jumped from my chair onto Mum’s bed and got a death-grip on her hand!!  It was these… these… things, I still don’t know if they were mutant rats or cockroaches, but they gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies!

 

 Me, the one that thought fresh mountain lion hairball in our campsite was cool; or the time I knew we were less than 20 feet from a black bear, we had nothing to defend us and I remained mostly calm; I crawled into bed with my Mummy and shivered like a lost puppy!

 

“Jaws”, there is one scene in there that scared the stuffin’s out of me!!  Brody and Hooper are out searching for the guilty fish of mythic proportions.  They run across a local’s boat, battered and capsized in the dark and misty sea.

 

Hooper goes in for a peek and the man’s chewed head pops out of the hull right at him.  I would have freaked under those circumstances as well.  That was one big toothy Hooper found stuck in the wood of the boat’s hull!

 

“The Hills Have Eyes”, the original one!!  I live in a desert like the location in the film.  It was a while before I stopped watching the foothills with a wary eye.  It was even longer until I would go kiting off on my own in the desert!!

 

“Phantasm”  ‘The Tall Man’ (Angus Scrimm) still hides in the shadows of my psyche, and awaits his chance to lope to the fore and cry in that otherworldly roar, “Boy!”  *shivering eloquently*

 

There is, in the horror film genre, an almost ubiquitous theme is the one with the bogeymen that only children can see, until it is too late. This film is one of the earlier versions of the theme; this is one of the few I bought for full DVD price without a qualm.

 

“The Silence of the Lambs”, “Hannibal”, and “Hannibal Rising” were all excellent, Anthony Hopkins brought Hannibal Lecter to full-bodied 4-dimensional being with his usual his usual skill and believability.

 

One year, for Valentine’s Day, my then-husband bought two tickets to see “Hannibal” at the local theatre.  I loved this gift, and we prepared to watch the sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs” with great excitement and relish. 

 

We were glued to the screen throughout most of the film.  When Hannibal starts cooking up the one man’s brain, slicing from the forebrain first; my husband, Jim, leaned over, and in a carrying stage whisper asked, “Is this what they mean by brain food?”  We were the only ones to find it funny.

 

“Hannibal Rising” was excellent, and gave us a peel into the mind of Hannibal the Cannibal.  I’ve been glued to it every time I’ve watched it.  The young man they cast as the early Hannibal was impressive, and one becomes even more sympathetic to Hannibal, despite his… ahem… quirks.

 

I think my last one (for now) will be “Alien”, my first peek into that film was via ‘Omni’ magazine; they published an article about the designer of the alien, H. R. Giger.  Giger is a very talented artist, whose work is stylised, mechanised and erotically sensuous at the same time.

 

I was waiting with impatient delight, awaiting the entrance of the mature alien.  Then John Hurt’s character began thrashing on the dining table, before, shriek, the baby alien is born!!

 

Thank you to those who are still reading my babbles!  I would truly like to see your ‘Favourite Frights’.

 

 

It’s Not Just About The Candy

by a.m. moscoso

There’s a lot of things I like about Halloween-

first of all

nobody thinks it’s weird that I have a  skeleton in my living room- sitting in a chair- by my phone-I bought him from Bucky’s Boneyard, I named him Edgar

(click the pic to got to Bucky’s Site)

I  also love the bite sized candy snacks because I’m not happy with sitting down and eating a boring old candy bar- I like them best with  wrappers decorated with bats and ghosts and zombies stamped on them.

Most of all I like anything dealing with Zombies because they are the dumbest monsters to ever be dreamed up and I take a certain weird pleasure in biting their candy heads off.

You know, before I do a little trephination.

Pic from Bone Clones

Osteological Reproductions

But most of all I enjoy Halloween because of the movies-

the vendors put them all out there, old ones, new ones, whatever, which is good because they’re all good-in their weird way.

These are the best of the Strange and Weird-

And my personal favorites.

Enjoy!

The legend of La Llorona – a Medea-like myth that has haunted the Americas for more than 500 years. Now this supernatural spirit hunts again. Over the course of one ominous day this anguished soul terrorizes New York City escalating her appetite for vengeance. A young mother comes under her spell and collides with two detectives a witch/curandera – and the many who suffer this horrifying vengeance. Evocative and suspenseful haunting and disturbing this supernatural thriller brings to life the chilling legend proving there is no rest for a mother who murders her child and that La Llorona is real

dvd and review from:::

From amazon.com

Now this film is one of my favorite Sci-Fi Horror films of all time I only watch it once a year so as to not ruin the experience for myself-

I knew it as 5 Million Years To Earth, but it’s listed  at IMDB as

I like this review, it’s from IMDB.

PS

If you click the pic it’ll take you to the Amazon page where you can order a copy.

Workers excavating at an underground station in London uncover the skeletal remains of ancient apes with large skulls. Further digging reveals what is at first believed to be an unexploded German bomb from World War II. Missile expert Colonel Breen is brought in to investigate, accompanied by Professor Bernard Quartermass. When the interior of the “missile” is exposed, a dead locust-like creature that resembles the devil is found. It is determined by Quartermass that these “locusts” are evil Martians who altered the brains of our simian ancestors to eventually lay claim to the Earth. When Quartermass’s suspicion that the missile can reactivate the dormant evil in humans is confirmed, all hell breaks loose.

 Written by Rick Gregory

 click the pic it’ll take you to the Amazon page where you can order a copy.

And it wouldn’t be Halloween without

Arsenic and Old Lace.

I mean the story is about two sweet old ladies who are cold blooded killers

and they bury their victims in their basement

They also love to bake and celebrate Halloween.

What is there NOT to love about a story like this one?

 See…it’s not just about the candy.

It’s about the Monsters too…

more on that later.

a.m

Home of Hammer Films

HERE

If you click the pic it’ll take you to the Amazon page where you can order a copy.

After Dark, All Alone

Our sons have all worked in food service, mostly for the same local people. Occasionally, this has included some contract work for other local businesses. One year, they did the food at a local dinner theater, associated with the Wyoming Territorial Park, where the old Territorial Prison is. The dinner theater is housed in a renovated barn near the main building, and was used when the site was part of the University stock farm. To my knowledge, the barn has no connection with the prison from when it was actually a prison.

The Territorial Prison has its own ghost who appears only rarely, and since there were no executions at the prison and it didn’t have many deaths, there is no real reason for it to be a hotbed of ghostly activity. The barn that houses the theater has even less reason to be haunted, unless there are ghostly travellers going through, attached somehow to the Interstate highway that runs nearby. The highway has seen more than its share of fatal accidents.

Of course, the barn did house an interesting collection for a number of years. For a while, it held the U.S. Marshal’s Museum. This display included equipment actually used by the Marshal’s service, and items they confiscated from criminals in the performance of their duties. These items, used in violence, might have had something attached to them and  might be the source of an experience one of our sons had, late one night.

One of our boys (whom I shall not name because he’d be annoyed with me) was the last person there one night, and was cleaning up and washing the dishes left from the dinner theater. It was quite late at night, and except for him, the building was empty. He came into a room, looked up, and standing there was a man, dressed in black. Or rather, it was part of a man. Part of him wasn’t there.

Our poor son was more than startled; he was terrified. He left the dishes, the cleaning, and the building then and there. He did call his boss and tell him what happened, and either the boss or my son called another of my sons who, grumbling, went out and finished the dishes. This other son was quite derisive in the classic manner of brothers, and considered the whole thing an excess of imagination on his brother’s part.

The son this happened to swore that it was real; it was a while before he would agree to work there after dark alone. These days, if you ask him, he’ll say that no, he doesn’t believe in ghosts. But if you sneak up on the topic and he’s in the right mood, he’ll talk about the experience in a manner that suggests that he really does believe it happened – and it wasn’t his imagination working overtime!

-She Wolf © 2008

Who’s Home?

My husband Pat and I had been married about six years, and since our family was growing we needed a larger place to live. We found an older house which we could rent that was just right – it was still small, two bedrooms and a yard for the kids to play in, but just right for us. The larger bedroom was at the back of the house, and we put the boys in there, since the room would double as their playroom. Pat and I took the smaller bedroom at the front, which also had a door that opened into the front entry hall directly across from the front door. I blocked that off with furniture since I didn’t want anyone coming into the bedroom by accident.

Pat was working as a reporter for the local newspaper at the time. He worked a 3 pm to midnight shift. We lived about five blocks from the newspaper building, so unless he decided to go out with the guys after work, he could walk home within just a few minutes, and he was usually home shortly after midnight.

I tried to stay awake until he got home, and would usually lie in bed and read until I heard him come in. Since the front door was just on the other side of the blocked off door in the bedroom, I could clearly hear when he got home.

Occasionally, I would hear Pat come home a little bit early. This was always welcome, except…

Except that sometimes he wasn’t there.

It would sound exactly like his footsteps walking on the wooden porch, coming in the front door, closing it, and opening the door to the front room. I would call out, but there would be no answer, and no further noises of him walking through the house. I wasn’t asleep, just reading and involved in my book; I don’t recall it ever happening when I waited up in the front room, only when I was in the bedroom.

And strangely, I don’t recall being particularly alarmed by it, after the first time. It just happened, and it only happened a few times. I did mention it to Pat who still remembers it too, but he never experienced it, even after he left the newspaper and took a regular eight to five job with the university. It only happened very late at night, when the children were asleep and I was waiting, alone, in the bedroom. Besides this, the house always had a comfortable feel about it, so perhaps that was why it didn’t scare me. I don’t think I ever even thought the word “ghost” in connection with it at the time. (Perhaps this was self-preservation so that I wouldn’t be frightened all alone late at night!) But I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

We only lived in that house five years before we outgrew it, too, and moved again, leaving the late-night homecoming behind.

-She Wolf (c)2008

More Orb Action

I have an orb picture.  This picture was taken in the main ballroom of the Queen Mary.  The ship has a history of haunting, particularly in the ballroom.  This orb, circled in red, seems to glow with its own light.  This orb seems to be attracted to harp music.

L. Gloyd (c) 2006, 2008

Active Dying

Active Dying

“Oh, crap. “

My pager vibrated in my pocket as I sat back down on the couch. I had been jumping up and down all night to get the doorbell. We lived in a neighborhood full of kids, and it was a mild, moonlit Halloween, guaranteed to bring Trick-or-Treaters out in droves. We were on our fifth bag of candy, and we were deep into the original “Frankenstein,” a Halloween favorite of mine.

“Gotta go?” my husband asked.

“Yeah,” I said, with a sigh. “Oh, well, I guess I’m lucky I haven’t been called out a bunch of times. And at least it’s still early.” I was a nurse for the local hospice and home health agency, and it was my turn to be on call. The name on the pager was unfamiliar to me. I assumed it was a home health client. My day job was to care for hospice patients, but at night, both agencies shared call duty.

I got my bag and map and headed out. The streets were packed and I had to move carefully to avoid hitting a child.

I had checked the location before I left. It was on old 24 Highway, west of town about 20 minutes. After a pleasant drive through the moonlit county, I turned into a short drive that I thought was the address.

I pulled up to an old farmhouse with a sagging porch, almost hidden by trees. I could see a dim light burning in the window. As I got out of the car, something brushed by my leg. I turned, expecting to find a dog or cat, but I saw nothing. I took a deep breath. I’m not really all that fond of dark, lonely houses way out in the country. I was raised in one, and my older sister made sure I had plenty of scares—down in the root cellar, in the long, dark hallway, and in the upstairs closets. I slept with a nightlight until I was about 30.

I stepped up on the porch, nearly falling as the step caved beneath my weight. I knocked on the door, frantically scraping at my face to pull away a cobweb. A very old man answered the door.

“Hello, I’m Karen, from the nursing agency. I understand you’re having some problems?”

He opened the door and ushered me in. I stepped into the house. It smelled like so many of our patients’ homes—the smell of dying.

The house was falling down, with crooked lintels, slanting floors, and loose window frames. The light was minimal, just a few bare bulbs in some old-fashioned fixtures. Probably all of 60 watts.

“She won’t die,” he whispered to me. I looked at him carefully.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Is she close to death now? What’s wrong with…your wife?”

He smiled a strange smile. “She’s always been close to death. Ever since I’ve known her.” He turned and stepped briskly from the room.

I stopped to consider the situation. Many of our patients were dying, even those not yet referred to hospice. Their endings were drawn out affairs, with close calls, rallyings, and near misses. This period was hard for families. Once Death is expected to make a call and no-shows, his absence becomes a place at the table. Waiting for Death becomes a painful exercise that colors everything that happens, every minute of every day.

“Well, let’s see what we can do, Mr….” I followed into the darkened room into which he had disappeared. A hospital bed sat in the corner of the room, and the frail body in it lay still, stirred only by the breathing pattern we nurses associate with imminent death. I moved closer, and pulled the sheet aside to look at her feet. Ancient and crabbed, they were cold and livid with purple mottling, another sign of impending death. It appeared that she was in the phase we call “active dying.” The body is shutting down, and the person is usually comatose. I looked at her husband, sitting silently in the corner. His eyes were sharp and eerily reflected the dim light. “I’m sorry. It looks like your wife will die tonight. Let’s see what we can do to get her comfortable. Do you have any family you wish to call?”

From the head of the bed came a cold and powerful voice. “No family. It’s just the two of us. Always has been.”

I caught myself, having been massively startled by the voice. I looked more closely at her face. Her eyes were open, and they were dark. Dark and as clear as a young woman’s eyes. Not the eyes of the dying—far away, silvery with cataracts and dehydration–no. These eyes were penetrating. This was highly unusual, but I had experienced the unusual before. I introduced myself to her and touched her hand. It was icy, unmoving. “Are you in any pain?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, with sorrow in her voice. “I would rate it at a thousand on a scale of 1 to 10.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. I stared at her.

“Do you have any pain medicine here?” I asked her husband. He stood up, and walked toward the bedside table. He picked up a vial of medicine and withdrew some liquid into a syringe. I busied myself with finding the IV line or port on the patient. I found none.

“Do you give it to her intramuscularly?” I asked. “Because we can get a pump out here tonight that will avoid having to stick—-Oh!” I cried out. He had jammed the needle into my thigh and pushed the plunger. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just wait,” he said. “You’ll see.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I started to move away from the bed, but suddenly felt weak, too weak to even move. I staggered, and he caught me, with a strength I thought impossible for his age. He lowered me onto the bed next to her. I recoiled from the touch of her cold body, but he lifted the side rail, imprisoning me in the bed. I couldn’t focus my eyes or lift my head.

“Don’t fight it, girl,” he said, and then left the room.

Suddenly the woman began to speak. “A thousand on a scale of 1 to 10. That’s about right. Plagues, wars, inquisitions, fires, cataclysms, lynchings, poisonings, and loss. Always loss. Everyone I ever loved. Gone. Only him for company.” She spat the last sentence out. “He never leaves.”

I tried to speak, but could only mutter unintelligibly.

“I remember when I met him. I was young, and foolish. He was handsome and courtly. I loved him, though my mother locked me in my room for looking his way. Trying to protect me.” She laughed, bitterly. “I got away. Fled to him through the night. We made our pact, to be together forever, and swore beneath the full moon that nothing would tear us apart. I gave myself to him. But as soon as I awoke from that night of passion, I saw him for what he really was. I turned to find a rotting corpse in bed with me. I screamed, flailing against him, but he was strong—you saw—strong as can be. And he held me, tighter and tighter, and looked in my eyes with those empty sockets of his, and I saw who he was, saw Death in my bed, and I fainted from the fright of it. When I awoke, I cried, I bargained, I threatened death at my own hand.

He laughed and said, “I am Death. You are my wife. I decide the time and place of your end. You will be with me always.”

“And so it has been. “ Her voice broke.

“But…you are dying,” I said, with difficulty.

“Yes, “she said. “Once again, my body lies dying.” And she turned her head to look at me, and in her look was the most immense sadness. “But my soul lives on.”

I lay in absolute horror as her meaning made itself clear. I began to whimper and moan. “No, please, please….my husband—my family…” I was sobbing now.

Her eyes looked past me, glittering with hate, at her husband as he strode into the room. He stood over me.

“No children, three other siblings to take over the care of dear old Mom and Dad….” he said briskly. “I do my research. Your husband will find someone else… in time. They always do. And many a young woman has disappeared around these parts on Halloween night. Stull isn’t called one of the seven gateways to hell for nothing, you know.” And he laughed, a sound like leaves burning and bones cracking.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as tears fell onto her pillow. “This is what it’s like to be close to Death…”

“She won’t die,” he said. “No,” he said, as he moved toward me, flesh now falling away from his skull. “She’ll never die.”

The Haunted Pool

                              I live in a ‘Retirement Community’, in other 

                  words, the median age is about 70 years old. 

         So needless to say, the life expectancy of

          tenants  isn’t the same as it would be in

          a ‘college complex’ or ‘family

          neighbourhood’. 

 

The amenities include a pool, Jacuzzi,

small private gym, computer room,

library, and a dining hall for get

-togethers and the ubiquitous

Bingo game once a week.

 

Being the age that they are, the tenants

rarelyuse the pool on the evening or

the night.  That is when we young folks

can laze in the pool or Jacuzzi and visit

in almost complete privacy, except for

 the regular walk-throughs  by on-site

security.

 

I tell you this everyday minutiae so you

understand how a pool for about 400

people can be empty at 8 p.m. or so.

 

Not too long ago, my brother Matt,

his ex-wife Doreen, and I went down

to the pool area and availed ourselves

of both the Jacuzzi and pool.  Being

 the only ones there we sat in

companionable silence in the Jacuzzi. 

I try to take my cameras everywhere

I go, because you never know when a

picture will be there.

 

I took some night shots of the

landscaping, Jacuzzi, and pool

before we returned to the house

and showered prior to sleeping

like a trio of logs.

 

When I downloaded the pictures

 and went through them, I wasn’t

terribly surprised at some of the

shots being too dark, but one of the

photos held a  startling scene:

I counted no less than 10 orbs

floating over the pool in this shot!

 

I am sure that were I to listen at

night when the wind is right, I could

hear voices chatting and laughter

 between people that are no

 longer there.

A Local Urban Legend

My friend Shiloh, you remember Shiloh, wrote a post requesting readers to share local urban legends.

http://sunnydreamer.net/octo-dec2008/urban-legend.shtml

 

Here in ‘Aridzona’ we have two legends;  La Llorona, and the Lost Dutchman.  Today, I’ll brave La Llorona.

La Llorona

The story begins innocently enough (don’t they all begin that way?), with a lovely young widow, and her two children.  Her hair was still thick, glossy and midnight black, and her eyes were limpid pools of deepest chocolate.

 

One sweltering summer day she took her children to a small, spring-fed pool in the desert.  Being a constant source of water, the pool was ringed with Desert Willows and Palo Verdes.  As she sat on a warm flat rock her children romped joyously in the water.

 

The sound carried to a young, and darkly handsome young man riding by.  He stopped to water his horse at the pool, and introduced himself to the widow.  The couple (as usual) fell hear over ears in love with one another.

 

The young man’s ardor cooled noticably when he discovered that the ninos were the widow’s.  The foolish young woman thought herself to be madly in love with the stranger, and saw her children as an impediment to her happiness.

 

When the young man ( her ‘Conquistador‘) settled in for an afternoon siesta, she went to work.  Clad in only her light linen chemise she joined her children in the water.  When their little heads were turned, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and held them under the water until they weren’t moving at all.

 

“¡Mi dios mi amor!!  What have you done??”  The young man had slept well, and awakened with the joyous  realisation that the ninos needed a padre as much as the widow needed a new esposo.  He had risen and come to tell the widow that he would love her children as deeply as he loved her.

 

To his horror, the widow stood bosom-deep in the pool, still holding the bodies of her ninos pobres under water.  She turned to him with not a single tear on her face and spole, “Now nothing will stand in the way of our happiness.”

 

“¡Mi dios!  How could I ever love someone who could murder their own children??”  The man staggered towards his mount and rode away, never to be seen again.

 

As for the widow… well… she looked at the bodies of her children and went muy loco.  She took the trailing arms of the willows and plaited them into a rope as she wailed for her children and her lost love.  When the rope was long enough she hung herself from the tallest palo verde.

 

To this day, if you sit quietly by the canals, rivers and lakes, or a spring-fed pool, you can hear her still, wailing and searching for the children she murdered, and the love she destroyed with her selfishness.