We're nearly halfway through October and there hasn't been a whole lot of celebratin' the season of the witch here at the ole' Trash Pile. Besides watching the occasional "scary movie" and chowing down on Halloween-themed Oreo cookies, I've been slacking when it comes to everything spooky. Even with all this neglect, that doesn't mean that the blog's monthly contest was gonna sneak by without a horrifying twist. Gone is the usual "One Man's Trash" giveaway, replaced with spiders and skeletons and all those things that go bump in the night.
Welcome, boils and ghouls, to the first annual "Trash 'r Treat" Free Giveaway.
I'm beyond excited for this one. The prizes that will lurk within have been piling up the last couple months. A morbid mix of creepy candy, freaky films and the all the odds and ends fit to be buried with.
Of course, because this is different from my usual monthly giveaways, the rules are slightly different. It's still easy enough to enter, but with a little twist-- I'm asking everyone who wants a shot at winning to leave a comment, something related to Halloween; whether it's a cherished memory of the holiday or a favorite candy or a horror flick you can't go without watching every year.
And because I want the winner to receive their prizes before the Big Day, the contest will only run for four frightening days. I'll be randomly drawing the winner's name on Thursday the 17th by 8PM, so be sure to drop [dead] a line before then.
Best of luck and pleasant screams!
My favorite Halloween costume as a kid was my Ben Cooper Batman. I wore it as a 6 year old.
ReplyDeleteIm in, please.
Oh am in on this! So let's see every year for the month of October i must listen to either the theme to the Munsters tv show or the classic song Monster Mash a couple times before Halloween arrives plus i set the tv to record all the classic Universal and Hammer horror movies i can find. Also up until a few years ago i used to play the old Atari 2600 game Haunted House on Halloween night. : )
ReplyDeleteI have fond, fond memories of listening to "The Monster Mash" at my aunt's house on Halloween night. She use to spoil us rotten with full-size candy bars and all sorts of baked treats; it was always my favorite part of the night as a young trick 'r treater.
DeleteI grew up in a town called Pikeville. One stop light, two cops, very small town. Whenever it was Halloween, everyone would hit the streets, the local firemen would pass out candy. Most everyone, including adults would dress up. It was really great. From what I understand the people that still live there don't really do much of anything for Halloween anymore. Sad really.
ReplyDeleteSounds like it was such an awesome place to spend a Halloween. It's too bad that things have changed, though.
DeleteNot entering the contest because I won last month and want others to get a chance, just commenting to say this is a cool thing you do and good luck to everyone else!
ReplyDeleteMy Halloween memory anyways: The Halloween after Return of the Jedi came out, I wanted to be an Ewok. But making an Ewok costume would have been too big an undertaking for my mom (remember when moms made costumes?) so we settled on me being a Jawa, which turned out to be pretty darn awesome because I've never before or since seen a kid dressed as a Jawa for Halloween.
Jawas > Ewoks.
DeleteI made a coffin out of my Winnie the pooh toy chest. The book Movie Monsters was the inspiration when I was 8 to open Monster Cafe Saltillo. Had to give up Halloween when I became a witness in 1993. Still trying to get acclumated to celebrating it again.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine was involved with a girl for several years who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, but had stopped practicing. We loved really introducing her to Halloween and Christmas [as a non-religious celebration]. Her enthusiasm for embracing the holidays was such a wonderful thing.
DeleteI carefully and obsessively select a pile of books that I never end up finishing before Halloween gets here, to get me "in the mood" This year I've read the Halloween Tree, The Shapes of Midnight, and am halfway through a Halloween anthology. I also plan to try and read Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes (again) and Roger Zelazny's A Night In the Lonesome October (also again)... but I have a funny feeling I'm not going to make it. Which is fine, because it usually takes me until Thanksgiving to get Halloween out of my system anyway.
ReplyDeleteI have of memories of getting SICK on Halloween as a kid. One year it was Chicken Pox, another year the flu, and yet another year it was what appeared to be food poisoning. Most of those years I was PSYCHOTICALLY excited about the costumes I had selected, MOSTLY the year I got to buy a werewolf make-up kit with GLUE ON HAIR. I never got to use it. My mom offered to put it on me the next day so I could "walk up and down the street and show everyone" but I was so dejected I never even opened the box.
I don't recall a single Halloween spent sick, so I can only imagine what an awful experience that must have been for you. And not just one time, you poor soul. Even the years where I wasn't totally psyched for my costume, I still loved everything else about the holiday.
DeleteWhat a fun contest! I love that you do this, I know I have said that before. But I like this added twist. Super fun.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to share a Halloween memory that I have never shared with anyone on the Internet before. Back in high school I was in the 10th grade and I had a few friends that were seniors and they had to do a science project where they were assigned an element and had to do something creative with it. My friend was given the chemical Argon. So it being Halloween season, my friend wanted to make a homemade slasher movie about Argon since the gas can be deadly if you are in enclosed spaces. I had a role in this short-short film, I was the Drew Barrymore character because I died in the first few seconds. (Scream had come out a year before and we were all on a horror high.) I drew posters for it and everything. It was just a really fun thing to be a part of. My friend ended up getting an A, and I think it was because my death scene was just that believable. lol Such a mess.
I hope you are doing well!
I can only hope you have a VHS-copy of the project or one of the posters that you drew. Something tangible left over. I love the idea of SOV short-features as relics from the late '80s/early '90s.
DeleteSweet, I love these giveaways!
ReplyDeleteEvery year for the month of October I try a marathon of some sort. Last year it was a movie marathon, 1 spooky movie every night for the month. This year was going to be a gaming marathon, but I got back into blogging and I decided to take part in Blogoween and I'm loving it!
Here is the list of games I had planned on playing this month. I may still find time to play some, but certainly not all of them. I have already played most of them at least once before.
(Forgive me, the list is rather long)
NES: October 1st, Tuesday-October 5th, Saturday
1. Friday The 13th, Monster Party
2. Ghosts n’ Goblins
3. Castlevania
4. Castlevania II
5. Castlevania III
SNES: October 6th, Sunday-October 12th, Saturday
6. Gremlins 2:The New Batch, Monster in My Pocket, Frankenstein: The Monster Returns
7. Casper, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Ghoul School (NES game)
8. Ghoul Patrol, Jurassic Park, Wolf Child
9. Todd McFarlane’s Spawn: The Video Game, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D
10. Super Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Mortal Kombat
11. Super Castlevania IV, Mortal Kombat II
12. Castlevania: Dracula X, Mortal Kombat 3
N64: October 13th, Sunday-October 19th, Saturday
13. Shadow Man
14. [COLUMBUS DAY] Animal Crossing [EXPLORERS DAY]
15. Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 2
16. Quake 64
17.The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Resident Evil 2 (Gamecube version, it’s exactly the same)
18. Castlevania (64), Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (Don’t own), Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
19. Perfect Dark, Mortal Kombat 4, Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Gamecube, Indie PC: October 20th, Sunday-October 26th, Saturday
20. Resident Evil 0
21. Resident Evil
22. Resident Evil 3
23. Resident Evil: Code Veronica
24. Resident Evil 4
25. Yume Nikki
26. Imscared
Indie PC: October 27th, Sunday-October 31st, Saturday
27. Slender: The 8 Pages
28. SCP-087
29. Minecraft (I/we will create and battle The Wither within the Nether.)
30. Home
31. [HALLOWEEN] Lone Survivor
My favorite game of the lot has to be Monster Party.
Man, that almost sounds like a rigorous task. Especially trying to tackle the original Ghosts 'n Goblins. That game is an absolute terror.
DeleteAnd now I wanna play Zombies Ate My Neighbors...
I always watch the Nightmare Before Christmas around Halloween.
ReplyDeleteThere's been a few years where that's the first movie I watch post-Halloween. Makes the perfect transition from my favorite holiday right into my second fav.
DeleteIt's going to be a STAR WARS Halloween for the G family. We all have our roles to play this year - with me and the wife as Jedis, and our 3 kids parading around as R2 D2, Vader, and a Storm Trooper.
ReplyDeleteI think it's no coincidence that this contest ends on the exact date and time of the start of the RetroDaze Halloween Special (minus time zone considerations). This must mean I am destined to win this one. Excellent.
Ah, I didn't even make the connection.
DeleteActually, the winner "announcement" may be postponed a couple hours due to a last-minute social obligation. We'll see.
I remember the times past of the cold, nippy autumn days of my childhood. One memory that will always stick with me is from when I was six or seven. We had finally reached my aunt's house after a long night of visiting corner stones, bodegas, and the interestingly decorated houses of all the retirees. My loot included a small goldfish in a bag and tons of foreign candy. I walked into my aunt's living room, surrounded by all my little cousins, and we all dumped our candy onto the living room floor as the adults ate pizza. Someone put poltergeist on the TV, but I was too upset by the fact that all my candy was mixed in with everyone elses.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how the most seemingly unmemorable things end up sticking with us. I was The Riddler, wearing a thin costume over a full sweatsuit because of how cold it was outside. My little brother was being pushed around in a stroller dressed up as Casper the friendly ghost. I'd love to have more Halloweens like those...so carefree!