Creepmas Day 3: Gremlins and Other Christmas Imps

(A Quick Note: I have no idea why posting these from my iPod has made them all appear to have been posting from November 30th instead of the proper days I've been posting them, but from here on out I will be posting them from my PC rather than my iPod because that seems to solve the problem... And just when I was beginning to think I was liking the Blogger app after all. Phppplllttt!!!)

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

This past summer was the 30th anniversary of the film, "Gremlins". It was written by Chris Columbus, directed by Joe Dante, and executive produced by  Steven Spielberg. Is there any question as to why this movie is so beloved? 

This is also a time of year when a lot of people cite "Gremlins" as one of their favorite Christmas movies. I just love the movie for what it is: a movie starring a bunch of bloodthirsty little creatures that happens to take place in a Christmas setting. I even have a couple of toys that display my love of Gremlins that reflect my natural love of Creepy Christmas trappings: 

And there are some undeniable scenes in Gremlins that make Christmas an almost integral part of the film itself. Who can forget Billy's Mom getting mauled by the Christmas tree? 

And let's not forget Phoebe Cate's amazing "Worst Christmas Story Ever!" 

But believe it or not, the concept of little beasties at Christmas time goes back MUCH further than the 80's. There was an ancient Greek tradition of imps known as Kallikantzaroi that are tiny evil demons that spend the entire year hacking away at the World Tree.  

For the twelve days of Christmas these little jerks are freed from this task, and they run rampant, although there were plenty of ways to ward off the little evildoers. They were compelled to count the holes in a colander for instance, and so folks would leave these out on the doorsteps of their homes for the goblins to count. The trick here is that the Kallilantaroi count out loud, and if they utter the number '3' out loud (a holy number) they would destroy themselves. So they'd just sit and count to 2 over and over again until they had to hide away at dawn. 

The burning of the yule log for 12 days was also thought to ward off these gremlins as well. Eventually, on the day of the Epiphany, (January 6th) the goblins are forced back to their underground dwelling to try and hack at the World Tree once more. Except, they find that the 12 days the've been absent is enough time to undo the damage they've cause all year, and they have to start all over again! Here's a video discussing more of the lore of the Kallikantzaroi: 

Now, there is not one single reference in anything that I've read that there was any initial connection between the inspirations behind "Gremlins" and the myth of the Kallikantzaroi... but I find the synchronicity here just purely awesome. 

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 14: My Birthday!

10 days later and I wasn't even going to bother with posting anything about my birthday because I didn't really get anything Halloween-y for my birthday anyway... Until today. Wanna see what I got? Let's take a look!

Out of the gate we're starting with the non-Halloween-y stuff, of which the MAJOR gift this year was this set of Disney Infinity Marvel: Guardians of the Galaxy figurines! Before anyone asks: No, I do not own the game... or even a system to play it on. But I LOVE Guardians of the Galaxy, and I LOVE the animated-style of these figures. They are simply stunning, and make a great addition to the shrine I am currently building to the GotG.

Slightly more Halloween-y is this Scooby-Doo PEZ set, which I mentioned during my tour of the Halloween aspects of my Geek cave... so I won't go into great detail here again. BUT PEZ + Scooby-Doo = AWESOME!!!

My daughter got me this book The Infinite Sea which is the second book in the 5th Wave series by Rick Yancey. This author is currently one of my favorites and this series is just GUT-wrenching. 

This set of TMNT PEZ dispensers was a last minute purchase by my wife the night of my birthday. Again... PEZ + Almost anything = AWESOME.

NOW. The inspiration for this post was the fact that when I arrived home today my wife's cousin gave me this awesome pillow from www.Horrordecor.com the creators of the Horror-Buddies line. This Handbook for the Recently Deceased from Beetlejuice is perfect for the chair in my Geek-Cave!!! Gorgeous AND functional!

The pillow came with a bag of (biohazardous) random goodies as well, including a Betelgeuse business card, a postcard of the Farmer from Motel Hell, a banana Laffy Taffy (which I promptly ate) and my favorite part: a random toy evil-clown head.

My wife greeted me with a late birthday present as well. A "Freddy vs. Jason: Forest of Fear Game" from Neca! She found this for four dollars at Mardens, a local chain of salvage and overstock stores here in Maine. Marden's doesn't always have awesome stuff... but when it does... It's INSANELY awesome stuff. Like this.

Here's a look at the Freddy Krueger pieces from the set. I'm loving all three, but if forced to choose I think the Freddy on the right is my favorite. I like worm-Freddy too, but I'm almost always more of a sucker for the iconic versions of characters vs. some sort of gimmick.

Again, if forced to choose my favorite Jason Voorhees, I would probably go with the Jason on the left this time. Although, the Jason in the middle is carrying Freddy Krueger's head, which is pretty badass in its own right. (I apologize for the crummy photographs throughout the post. Not even gonna make excuses.)

On a side note, another MAJOR birthday gift from my wife was a road-trip to three different Goodwills on the day of my birth, as they give you 25% off your purchase if its your birthday and you have a discount card with Goodwill. So I went on a Goodwill SPREE too.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with some Ghostly Goodwill Goodies soon enough. Until then... Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 12: A Look at Halloween in the Geek-Cave

I love Halloween. Year round. I am always on the prowl at Goodwill, even in March, for great Halloween merchandise. Horror movies. Ghost story collections. If it goes bump in the night I love it.

So... it would stand to reason that there would be a bit of an influence on my environment due to this. So I would like to take you on a brief tour of the most Halloween-y aspects of the cave I call home. 

First off, here is the main shelf that I consider my "Halloween" shelf. This is the whole thing, but the next three pictures kind of break it down into smaller, digestible bite-sized chunks.

Here is the left end of the shelf. It's the end closest to my desk, so I make sure to keep the heavier hitters like Jack Skellington, Sam from Trick R' Treat, and the Headless Horseman right where I can see them. You may also notice the legless zombie from Walking Dead, a pair of Etrigan the Demon figures, and a trio of Freddy Kruegers. Yes. That is Daryl Dixon standing on his head. Because he's top-heavy.

Here's the center of the shelf. Many miscellaneous characters and items here, including a bunch of wind-up Halloween guys, a couple of Anubis toys, and various Halloween items like plastic jack-o-lanterns, werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, etc.

And finally, on the far right side we have a barbershop quartet of Jason Voorheeses, some more jack-o'-lanterns, and a host of ghouls and goblins like Pennywise the Clown and the Xenomorph. You will of course notice 1. there is a heavy Funko POP! presence here... and 2. it is INCREDIBLY crowded.

Right next to the right end of the official Halloween shelf is this little shelf. It is topped by my monster Mez-its, my set of Killer Panda Monsters, and my Monster in My Pocket figures. These guys are all beautiful to behold, and therefore get this shelf to kind of keep them out of the crowded mess that is the Halloween shelf proper. It's still not exaclty how I'd like to see all of these toys being displayed... but again, I'm runnin gout of room. Right below those monsters is my collection of skeleton pirates (plus three living pirates that had nowhere else to go). I have waxed poetic SEVERAL times on my blog about pirates, ghost pirates, skeleton pirates, and how they tie into Halloween so perfectly. So... I won't do it again now.

Right next to THAT blue shelf is an area mostly dedicated to Scooby-Doo, but also includes Monsters Inc., Aaah! Real Monsters, Stretchy Screamers, the Walking Dead Funko POP! and... Archie (I justify this because of the Afterlife With Archie series, which I am a rabid fan of). This is not the only Scooby-Doo area within the cave however...

Because over on my desk, I have a dedicated space for my Mystery Mates figurines! These guys are just great. I just wish they had released more monster figures before seemingly giving up. You can see I also have some Joker and Penguin figures in there, as an homage to the episodes where the gang meets up with them... and again the Monsters Inc. guys... just because. Real monsters and all that. 

On the curtain rod above that very shelf is my McDonald's trick or treat pail collection, featuring a couple of vintage McBoo pails and the three Scooby Doo pails from 2012. You can also see a couple of Scooby-Doo books poking out there as well.

One of my most recent additions to the cave is this PEZ dispensor set that my 5 year old son picked out for me for my birthday. When I received this, I didn't even know this pack existed yet! He saw it at Wal-Mart and told my wife she HAD to buy it for me. And just look at this thing. It is truly beautiful.

This little area sits directly behind me when I sit at my desk. The steam-punk-looking skull-thing is one of those light-up reusable jack-o'-lantern type things you buy at Wal-mart made of a sort of hard plastic-y foam that has been painted over. It is beautiful. The light boxes above it were bought by my wife from an online crafter with a now-defunct shop called "Morbid Decor" they are prized possessions. I had planned on adding a third light to the set with an image from Night of the Living Dead on it... but then the shop closed and it was no longer available to buy. Sigh. I  literally set the Ugly Doll figures on top because I had no where else to put them. It occurs to me now that I could have found something a bit more appropriately macabre to go there.

Here is the inside of the door to the cave. Some old-timey circus posters (reprints) some calendar pages from a Tales from the Crypt calendar, a "Fryin' Ryan" GPK poster, and a couple of postacards feature horror greats, Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. Usually there's a big vintage cardboard cutout of a teal-colored skull hanging here as well, but during the month of October he's doing his duty greeting company at the front door. 

Here's a look at the shelving unit right next to the door, where I keep DVDs and more toys. What's of interest here is the set of posters, post-cards, and other images I've collected together here. Everything from old movie posters (more calendar repros) to the X-Files and Scooby-Doo... to other things I'll let you discover on your own.

Here's my set of Monster 500 cars from Toys R' Us. Before anyone bugs me about why I didn't buy the 3-packs because they're cheaper... I like the way they look better individually packed. I don't open toy cars. This is how I display them. And I like the look to be consistent. I love this series because it combines everything cool about monsters with everything I consider to be cool about the old Rat-Fink style car artistry of yesteryear. They have a sort of Wacky Racers vibe to them as well.

About a foot below my Monster 500 cars are these bad boys. I realized as I was taking the picture that I also have this weird four-pack of post-it notes shaped like Hawaiian shirts, but with Halloween designs on them, hanging right next to the awesome ReAction figures. So I kept that in the shot too. I knew when they announced the release of the ReAction lines that Sam and Jack would be my first two purchases.

I also have a little table full of dragons, dinosaurs, and kaiju. This is stretching the Halloween theme a bit, I know, but I feel only a little. Dragons and Kaiju (and even dinosaurs to an extent) can all be categorized as monsters easily.

 And to wrap things up, we'll end at my desk, in the tiny little alcove where my very favorite Halloween toys hang out. Here we have yet MORE versions of Jack Skellington and Sam from Trick r' Treat, alongside a LEGO custom I made of the Headless horseman. Two of my all-time favorite Halloween PEZ dispensors in the back, and some tiny Halloween tchotchkes in a Crazy Bones orange and black cyclopean ghoul, a tiny metal Jack-o'-Lantern ring, and a portly vending machine devil. But by far the star of THIS show is Garfield in disguise there, from his Halloween special. He was an eBay find, and I believe he was produced and sold in Germany back in the 80's, making it very hard to find here in the states these days. But Garfield just IS Halloween to me. So he's a very prized possession of mine indeed.

So that's it! There's actually SO much more to the cave than this very specialized and fine tuned Haloween-themed tour, but we'll get to all of that some other day. I'll be back soon with some Grizzly Goodwill Goodies sooner rather than later. Until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 1: Goodwill Finds!

October first is finally here!!! And with it, the Countdown to Halloween!!! So welcome dear readers, to the time of year I adore the most. Below I have a handful of Halloween goodies I brought home from Goodwill (along with some decidedly UN-Halloween-y things... but they're all at the end) recently! 

My wife does not often join me in Goodwill. She finds my obsession with other people's secondhand stuff less charming than most of my blog readers. But on the occasions when she does join me, she often finds some really fun stuff! On a recent trip with the entire family in attendance, my wife picked up this rustic little piece of Halloween heaven. This now hangs next to our front door out on the porch. 

During the same trip I found this groovy version of everyone's favorite murderoue pastime: CLUE!!! As one of my favorite 80's movies, and one of maybe two distinct boardgames dealing with murder in an old mansion, CLUE is one of my favorites. It's one I actually enjoy playing from time to time as well. 

Love this burnt orange background for the boardgame, and the illustrations for each of the rooms.

I was VERY disappointed to find that the lead pipe was replaced with a penny in this edition. But even MORE disappointed to find that the character cards did NOT look like the pictures on the box: 

Which honestly leads me to wonder if these are the cards that even go with this game. a quick google search reveals that they are indeed NOT the cards originally included in this game... but look how cute those little potential murderers all look up there, lined up in a row! I actually would have framed the set of cards had they been this charming. Oh well. I still love the box. 

This grisly fellow is meant to be a 12" reproduction of the Frankenstein's monster from the 2004 Van Helsing film... which I did not like. But when I found this toy for .99 cents... I fell in love. He looks downright gruesome! I like his arm, the mechanism driven into his chest (it still lights up sporadically) and his huge metal boots. I even like his exposed brain (which I assume is missing whatever was used to cover it up originally). I will promptly scrub any prior knowledge from my mind of the film, and display this guy with a bunch of my other monster toys. 

Next up is this trio of Halloween-themed books. First up we have Beverly Cleary's Ramona and her Father which I may have referenced in the past as a series of books I've been trying to track down for my wife. Halloween actually plays a prominent role in this book, for a few chapters at least, as you can see on the cover. Then we have Halloween Fun: 101 Ways to Have a Safe and Fun Halloween which is not as snooze-inducing as it sounds. It's a pretty fun little craft book for someone with two little boys. There are lots of fun ideas for creepy little crafts and games to play to ring in the Halloween Season. Finally we have Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and the Wicked Witch which is something I picked out for a friend, as I am not the hugest Flintsones fan myself. 

Here we start drifting further out from the Halloween theme. But I still can't wait to talk about my newest obsession: Collecting audio cassettes! I'm mainly focusing on movie soundtracks right now, but I'm also snapping up some other stuff too. I definitely blame the Awesome Mix from Guardians of the Galaxy for getting me back into cassettes. I've never really understood the impetus for collecting VHS tapes or even vinyl records for that matter... but suddenly I have these tangible objects that bring me back to some of my happiest memories in high school.

Of course High School included arguably some of the happiest and unhappiest days of my life, but most of the happiest days involved music and boy howdy I loved making mix-tapes back then. As someone who lived in a gutted out liquor store as a teenager, and slept on a dilapidated loveseat in a closet with a floor that flooded and froze over every winter (I laugh at you Harry Potter)... the pure gold that was a blank cassette tape that I could then fill up with songs and was magical.

I would make mix tapes for my closest friends as they were pretty much the only gifts I could afford to give back then. My Aunt who spoiled me with action figures as a kid began spoiling me with cassette tapes and a decent tape-to-tape recorder. I also had friends who had CD-to-tape recording capabilities, so I would scab their music all the time. ANYWAY. I'm collecting audio cassettes now.

I discovered the book Castle Perilous easily fifteen or more years ago. It is one of my all time favorite comfort-food books. It takes place in an interdimensional castle that plucks people and creatures and other... things from all over the multiverse. Sometimes folks wander the halls and end up on jungle planets or being chased by angry french swordsmen. It's facets are endless, and the Guests are outrageous. After I discovered the first book in the series and fell in love, I discovered more in the series. Up until a few years ago I had despaired at ever finding these two particular books right here: the 2nd and 4th books in the series. Castle for Rent and Castle War! I highly recommend the series to anyone who likes books like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere where absurdities rule and literally anything can happen.

A bevy of young-reader Choose Your Own Adventure books! These are all semi-Halloween appropriate, including Pirates, lake monsters, and genies.

They also apparently put out a Choose Your Own Adventure series involving the Star Wars books. How that works I'm not entirely sure. Maybe Darth Vader doesn't die in one of the endings? Maybe he tells Luke "Psyche! I ain't the baby daddy!" I don't know. But I aim to find out.

In a genuinely tragic turn, I found this Mr. Ed the Talking Horse Little Golden book that had the cover completely demolished. I still picked it up. Because MR. ED HAS A LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK!!! 

I used to watch the S#!T out of Mr. Ed on Nick at Nite back in the day. Crazy. And now I own the book. 

And finally, in what could be described the CREEPIEST of the Halloween-iest items in this post... is a disturbing time capsule detailing the life of people who lived before smart-phones. Look at all of the abominable mechanical devices they needed to listen to music, watch shows, take pictures, and write stuff!!! Eegads that's horrific (just let me have this okay?)!!!

So that's it for tonight kiddies! I'll be back tomorrow with more Ghastly Goodwill Goodies!!! Until then, Happy Haunting!