Halloween really lends itself, perhaps more than any other holiday, to imagry.... it's a holiday that really is all about visuals. A witch, a darkened room, a scarecrow at night, a graveyard... they all evoke a sense of the season. For those of you who haven't had a chance to catch the Halloween themed images I've been slapping up on my Tumblr blog, Retrospace Zeta, here's a sampling of them.....
.... do you dare read on?
Thanks to Casey in Jackson, Mississippi for sending me this next one. I well remember the shrunken heads ads that appeared on the back of comic books in the 70's. I seem to recall pouring over this one for hours, begging my mother to get me this...alas, it was to no avail.
I have hundreds of copies of horror magazines from the good ol' days. The artwork in those mags are sometimes shockingly well done. This image is from a 1953 illustration.... what an incredible piece of art to wind up on cheap paper in a kid's magazine. I am happy to resurrect it.
I do believe that this particularly nasty looking jack-o'-lantern is about to "bring the ruckus" to that boot polish witch. Look out!
I can't for the life of me remember where I got this picture from... I want to say it's a photograph from a tour of the set of The Munsters or the Munsters Go Home movie. Wherever it's from, it's a wonderful slice of campy 1960's horror fun.
Once upon a time, our nation's city streets were lined with dingy theaters playing smutty sickening films; often horror flicks that scraped the very bottom of the barrel. Nowadays, your average city has a couple multiplex theaters, each playing the same billion dollar Hollywood productions.... at $10-$15 a head. It's the rare city these days that has a theater that plays anything off the beaten path.
I've always loved spook houses and scary attractions at fairs and amusement parks. Sometimes, the haunted houses put on by local groups like the Knights of Columbus are the best. Last week, I went to the Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights and was, well, underwhelmed. I waited nearly three hours for the new Saw attraction, and it was nothing compared to some local spook houses I've visited. The Wolfman attraction was worth the wait, though....
