If buckets full of candy at Halloween leave you shuddering and your dentist rubbing his hands in glee, then you need to get into healthy Halloween treats for your kids. Just because it’s healthy doesn’t mean it’s tasteless or that your neighbourhood kids will shun your home during ‘Trick or Treat’. Healthy eating and healthy treats can be just as much fun as store bought candy, as well as being a lot easier on your pocket and your health.

These treats are great for a Halloween party you are hosting, for a school snack, or to give out to the kids and their parents you know (give packaged goodies to trick or treaters you aren’t familiar with.)

Yummy Mini Pizza Mummies

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Pizza is always a treat, and you can make mini pizzas that are healthy and look scarily like the head of a mummy. Spoon a small amount pizza sauce onto small rounds of pizza dough and use small olive slices to make the eyes. The mummification of the mini pizza comes in the careful placement of cheese strips across the ‘face’ to resemble the mummy wrapping. You can make up a tray of Pizza Mummies and bake them in an oven at 350ºF for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is all melted.

The great thing about making healthy treats is that your kids can help you in the kitchen and your Halloween festivities can turn into a fun filled afternoon of cooking with Mom.

Frightening Freaky Cheese Fingers

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A real spooky treat that children will gobble up in seconds. Using a white cheese like Mozzarella is perfect for this Halloween treat. Cut finger sized sections of Mozzarella cheese and carefully carve out the lines to represent the joints below the nail and the first knuckle. An adult should always perform this task, as you’ll want to use a sharp paring knife to get the best effect. Cut a small ‘finger nail’ out of a green pepper and use a dab of cream cheese to stick it onto your cheese finger. Absolutely a smash hit with kids and the only drawback is you’ll probably run out of them quickly!

The Phantom Toast

This is probably the simplest healthy Halloween treat ever. You can’t have a Halloween party without ghosts, or in this case toasts! Simply toast some bread and cut out a ghost shape when it is cool. Lather on some cream cheese and add a couple of olive sections for the oval mouth and scary eyes. Kids love working on this one as much as they love eating their ghost shapes.

‘Dem Bones, ‘Dem Bones…

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If you’re looking for sweet treats that are still healthy, and want to avoid cake and other candy, then why not meet in the middle with Skeleton Gingerbread. You can buy gingerbread cookie dough or even ask your bakery to create you a batch of gingerbread shapes without any decoration on them. When you get them home, you can use white icing or frosting and then pipe a skeleton onto the gingerbread for a sweet but relatively healthy treat.

Caring for your children means watching what they eat all of the time. You can create wonderful healthy treats for any holiday celebration. Getting your kids involved in the kitchen with you means so much more than a quick trip to the candy store to satisfy a sweet tooth.

This guest editorial has been provided on behalf of Chessington Holidays; Official Provider of short breaks to Chessington World of Adventures.

Halloween is a festival that dates back over 2,000 years, with origins in Celtic celebrations marking the beginning of winter. Believed to be a night when the boundaries between the living and the dead world are blurred, this night of magic and mystical happenings is steeped in traditions and superstitions. Join us as we explore some of the age-old Halloween customs and where they came from.

Trick or treating

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This playful pastime dates back to the British Hallowmas practice of ‘souling’, where the poor would visit houses singing songs and offering prayers for the dead in return for ‘soul’ cakes made of bread and currants. At the time, it was believed that dead people remained in limbo, and prayers would help them to safely reach heaven.

A similar custom took place in Scotland, known as ‘guising’, which began as an attempt to scare off malicious ghosts. The earliest known use of the term ‘trick or treat’ appears in 1927, and in those days tricks involved blocking chimneys, blowing smoke through keyholes, setting horses free and vandalising vegetable patches.

Dressing up

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The druids thought that spirits returned to the realm of the living on the night of November 1 and it was a common fear that they would take living people back with them at the end of the night. As a result, people wore gruesome masks and costumes to disguise themselves and to fool evil ghosts into believing they were already dead. Early costumes were gothic in nature, but later became based on popular characters from film and literature.

Jack-O-Lanterns

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The custom of carving pumpkins into lanterns is thought to stem from an Irish folk legend about a prankster named Jack who tricked Satan into climbing a tree and trapped him there. On his death, he was denied entrance both to Heaven and to Hell, due to his dishonest deeds and trickery. Instead, the devil gave him an ember placed inside a turnip, to light his way in the darkness, so the lantern has come to symbolize a wandering soul in purgatory. Lanterns in Scotland were originally made from cabbage plant stems and other root vegetables.

Apples

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When the Romans conquered ancient Britain, they brought with them the now pervasive apple tree. A symbol of fertility due to its associations with the Roman goddess Pomona, it was assimilated into Halloween customs, the most notable of which is apple-bobbing. Young bachelors and fair maidens would try to bite an apple floating in water, and it was thought that the first to bite would be the next person to marry. These days it is more of a light-hearted party game, and the apples are often suspended from string instead of floating in a bowl.

Marriage rituals

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In days of old, young romantics would perform rituals on Halloween in the belief that the spirits would help them see the future. Heartsick hopefuls would eat an apple at midnight in front of a mirror while combing their hair in order to see your future husband in the reflection. Girls were told to carry a lamp to a natural spring in order to see their true love in the water, or carry an egg in a glass if they wanted to see their future children. Doubtful partners were advised to sleep with a love letter under their pillow in order to dream about whether their other half was faithful, and young ladies slept on rosemary sprigs and a silver sixpence in the hope of dreaming of The One. Weirdest of all, it was thought that if you catch and ensnare a snail on Halloween, by morning it will have written the first initial of your future spouse in its trail.

Dumb supper

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A solemn affair held in honour of the dead, dumb suppers were by definition silent, with guests forbidden to speak at any point during the meal. A seat at the head of the table was reserved for spirits, who would even have their own place setting. Traditionally held at the hour of midnight, it was thought that the dead would be present, and that if words were spoken; they would speak back in response.

Nut Crack Night

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In ancient times, nuts were used to divine the future, and at one time played such a crucial role in Halloween that it was often known as Nut Crack Night. Plentiful at this time of year, hazelnuts were roasted in a pan over the fire and the time and manner in which they popped open was meant to symbolise future romantic success, or the lack thereof. Nuts were often ground into flour and made into special halloween cakes or bread that were eaten before bedtime in the hope that they would invoke prophetic dreams.

Witches

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Why do we associate Halloween with witches? Folklore tells of covens gathering at this time of year, a myth that springs from Wiccans – early pagans who would meet on October 31 to celebrate one of the two major Sabbaths of their calendar. It is thought that if you want to meet a witch, you must put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween, and at midnight one will appear before you.

Black cats

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Ebony felines get their connection with Halloween from their association with witchcraft. Due to their nocturnal habits, they were believed to be spirits of the dead, witches’ servants, or even witches in animal form, which has led to their notoriety as an omen of either good or bad luck, depending on which side of the Atlantic you hail from.

Bats

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These blood-sucking beasts are not just associated with Halloween due to their vampiric connotations. Festivals at this time of year would often involve bonfires that would attract insects, and therefore bats. It was often thought that bats indicated the presence of ghosts or spirits, and if a bat flies around your house on Halloween, it is thought to signify death.

Halloween Superstitions is a guest editorial put together by Alton Towers Breaks; official providers of short UK breaks to Alton Towers.

When the Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage in 1936, she was the second largest cruise liner in the world, with almost twice the tonnage of the Titanic. Before the era of jet travel, luxury liners such as these were seen as the only way to travel in style, and famous personalities such as Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, Clark Gable and the royals were often seen enjoying it’s first class amenities while crossing the Atlantic from Southampton to New York City.

In World War II, she was converted into a troop carrier, earning records for carrying the most troops across the seas. Winston Churchill secretly traveled in it for Allied meetings in the United States, and demanded his own lifeboat with a machine gun, so as to fight until the bitter end, if it came to that. After the war, it functioned again as a passenger ship until 1967. It sailed to Long Beach, California, where it’s been a combination museum, hotel and tourist attraction ever since. The Queen Mary receives over 1.5 million visitors per year.

Some of these visitors are permanent – ghosts and hauntings! There is even a show devoted to the ghosts of Queen Mary, and signs are installed within the ship where ghosts have reportedly been spotted. There is also a Halloween event every year, called Dark Harbor, which runs for two weeks leading up to Halloween (more on that later.)

So, what are some of these stories that would make this ship one of the world’s foremost haunted attractions? Let’s get into the bloody history of the Queen Mary, who witnessed 49 deaths onboard while in operation.

The Grey Ghost

In World War II, the ship was painted grey as camouflage, and due to that and the fact it held the world record for speed at sea, it was nicknamed The Grey Ghost. To avoid torpedoes, it sailed in a zig zag pattern, and once sliced through an escort warship that went off course, sinking it rapidly and drowning 338 of her 439 sailors. 40 years later, a television crew accidentally left an audio recorder running overnight in the exact location where the collision happened – the tape played back sounds of pounding hands on a metal hull and noises of drowning sailors.

The Crushed Crewman

In 1966, a young seaman named John Peddar was crushed to death in the depths of Engine Room #13 during a drill. To this day, visitors report sightings of a young man in coveralls wandering around. One visitor felt something brush across his face while visiting the room, and later his wife noticed a streak of engine grease on his face.

Ghostly Swimmers

There’s been several reports of ghosts in the first class swimming pools aboard the ship (which is empty), such as sightings of bathers in 1930′s era bathing suits. You can sometimes hear the sounds of splashing, and many have seen wet footprints on the tile. In the second class pool (long since converted into a theatre), a little girl named Jackie had drowned, and visitors can sometimes hear her calling for her Mommy, or her childish laughter and singing in the first class pool (where else would she go?) Some have also seen a little girl in the pool area clutching a teddy bear.

Little Spirits in the Playroom

There is a children’s playroom and nursery, where some visitors may hear children laughing and playing. In 1991, one passenger on a guided tour heard the sounds, but could only see the usual toys, games and books on the display. But then the doorknob began rattling and they heard the door being kicked. She quickly went to catch up with the rest of the tour group, but felt her purse and shirt constantly being tugged. I guess they needed a play companion?

A much darker spirit is that of a little infant named Leigh, who unfortunately died a few hours after birth (though not without the surgeons trying to save his life.) Some could still hear the wails of the baby while passing what was once the third class playroom.

The Woman in White

A “regular” ghost seems to reside in the ship’s first class lounge – a beautiful woman in a white evening gown is often seen dancing alone within the shadows. On one tour, a little girl, who had never heard of the sighting, kept pointing and asking about a “woman in white.” Nobody else saw it, but the girl insisted she was there, and continued watching her dance.

The Lonely But Playful Girl

In 2000, a hotel service member was vacuuming the carpet in the Exhibit Hall when the temperature suddenly dropped. Turning around, he saw a little girl sucking her thumb and floating in the air. She then stretched her arms out, as if wanting to be picked up. Her eyes were also glowing. Terrified, the crew member fled and reported the incident.

A few weeks later, just leaving the Grand Salon on R Deck, another cleaning crew member was pushing his mop and bucket. It suddenly jammed, so he checked to see what was stopping the wheels. He felt a presence, and turned around to see a little girl in a white dress and white hat sucking her thumb. She was floating in mid air and had no legs. She floated away into the Grand Salon, where the doors were shut (they were always open), and tried to open them. They swung out so powerfully it knocked the man to the floor. He heard the girl’s playful laughter recede in the distance. The next day, he checked the (open) doors, and realized they were much too heavy to be swung shut by one person.

Cabin B340

This cabin is now closed for rentals, due to its high paranormal activity. Previously, guests sleeping in this room were awakened in the night by lights turning on and off, water being switched on and off, and covers being pulled off. Other people have heard a moaning, angry voice saying “Get out!”

There’s two (unconfirmed) stories involving this cabin. The first is that in 1948 it was used as a holding cell for a deranged man who had been threatening his family. When the family visited later, the men flew into a rage and murdered his 5 year old daughter. The second story involves a crew member who was murdered in the room in 1937, and that his ghost still resides there.

The Piano Player

One evening, a mother and daughter were staying aboard the Queen Mary for the night, and they were waiting for a friend at a quarter to two in the morning. They waited in the Lobby, which was deserted – even the front desk clerk has stepped away for a moment. The daughter decided to sit at the grand piano, which was constructed especially for the Queen Mary in the 1930′s. The lid on the keyboard was down, but suddenly a melody came from it. Both the daughter and mother heard it. They decided to wait for their friend outside on the deck instead.

The Dark Harbor Haunt

Many people would list the Queen Mary as among the top world destinations for hauntings. To celebrate, the ship puts on a frightful Halloween bash every year. It features 7 mazes and attractions, as well as a complex for live entertainment, food and cocktails.

To enter the haunt, visitors must first pass through a 220 foot long, fog-shrouded tunnel of shipping containers containing ghouls and monsters. They then emerge at “Hell’s Bells Tower,” a 33-foot tower made of shipping containers and which shoots flames into the night sky. Throughout the mazes, pyrotechnical and other spooky special effects keep visitors spooked and their skin crawling. Such attractions include “Containment” where the ship’s infirmary gets a bit sick, “Submerged” where it feels like you’re sinking (the ship almost sunk once due to a rogue wave on choppy seas), and “The Village of the Damned” where creatures attempt to make you their permanent residents.

The show this year goes from October 7th to 31th, and prices start at $20. For more information, check out www.queenmary.com/dark-harbor. The Queen Mary is located at 1126 Queens Highway in Long Beach.

Halloween is such a great event and with the advent of smartphone apps you can enjoy your favorite parts of Halloween everywhere you go.  We tested dozens of apps and compiled a list of the 8 best ones we could find in terms of the most imagination and uniqueness. We hope you enjoy these selections and have a Happy Haunted Halloween!

1.  Halloween Deluxe  ($0.99)

Halloween wouldn’t be complete without scary sounds and this app lets you do that and more.  Opt for the paid version and avoid annoying requests to upgrade from the free one.  This app includes a count down to Halloween, a soundboard, ring tones, music loops, trivia, costumes ideas, and even a option that lets you create your own colored flashlight with the screen.  There are tons of Halloween soundboard apps out there but our recommendation is to ditch the others, this one has it all.

• Buy Halloween Deluxe
  

2. imut8r ($0.99)

Our favorite picture altering app, this offering gives you tremendous creative control over altering real photos of you and your friends.  You have dozens of creature choices to model after including demons, zombies, werewolves, vampires.  From there you’ll change skin colors add blood or sores and channel Dr. Frankenstein himself!  When you’re done, save the photos and send them to your friends and family for a spooky good time.

• See how your zombified friends look

3. 100+ Horror Stories ($0.99)

You’ll absolutely love this creative application that let’s you tell over 100 of the most popular scary stories in history, but with an added twist.  During your story you can tap the screen when prompted to play an appropriate sound to add extra effect to your story.  Lightning cracks, evil laughs, moans, and more will enhance your terrifying tale and keep your audience on the edge of their seats.

• Look for horror stories

4. Ghost Radar ($0.99)

For all you watchers of ‘Ghost Hunters’ out there, check out the latest version of Ghost Radar from app developer Spud Pickles.  The creators of this app claim it runs on a proprietary algorithm that interprets QUANTUM fluctuations of intelligent energy.  Some users say the program is just reading simple electromagnetic sources in your immediate environment while others claim they’ve experienced accurate readings of actual objects in the room that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Either way, you’re bound to get hours of eerie entertainment from this original idea.

• Start looking for ghosts

5. Ask the Dead ($0.99)

Get ready to be freaked out with this unique offering from The FORM Group. It’s a digital Ouija board that sneakily uses your phone’s contacts to return answers to your questions. You can totally prank your uninitiated friends or family into thinking you are connecting with the spirit world.  You’ll get a ton of screams from this application, but be careful, you may even scare yourself….

• Ask the dead a question

 6. Pumpkin Xplode (free)

Pumpkin Xplode is one of those annoyingly addictive games like Tetris or Angry Birds (yeah we could have easily added that one here too).  But you just can’t seem to put it down because there’s always the next level to defeat.  Bottom line: if it’s on your phone, you will play it.  It has great graphics and sounds built into the game play.  Thoughtful features include: night mode, saves game on exit or if uninterrupted by a phone call, and for you cheaters out there you have the ability to undo up to 10 moves back.  There is just something so gratifying about busting up pumpkins that makes this our only game of choice for inclusion in this app review.

• Go explode some pumpkins

7. Halloween Spooky Soundbox (free)

The truth is there are dozens of free Halloween sound boards out there and you’d probably do just fine if you downloaded most any of them.  Why do we recommend this one then?  Two reasons:  Selection and sound quality.  This sound board has 35 sounds to choose from, whereas most other apps you’re lucky to get 20.  Also, the sounds you get don’t sound cheap or “thin”.  In other words, they don’t sound like you made them yourself on an old tape recorder.  You can play the sounds on a loop (which you’ll probably never use) besides that there aren’t really any bells and whistles to this app.  If we could make a recommendation to the developer, it’d be to add a delay feature in a future version.

• Make some spooky sound fx

8.  Footprints (free)

While this is not a Halloween application it certainly the most useful on the list particularly if you are a parent and your kids are old enough to trick-or-treat without you.  You can track your multiple kid’s locations in real time without having to request location status from the people you are tracking.  We’ve seen some apps where users have to “request” location and the person being tracked has to manually approve request on their device.

This app comes with a number of great features built into it.  Two of our favorites are the parental settings which don’t allow kids to disable the tracking feature or delete the application on their devices, and the ability to track way points.  In short it shows you where your kids have been not just where they are at the present moment.  All this is provided by a beautiful interface overlaid on Google Maps.  There is really nothing we don’t like about this app.

• Get the Footprint app

About the Author:

Chris DuPaul is a huge Halloween buff and the co-owner of the self proclaimed #1 Wonder Woman Costume website on the internet.  He enjoys technology and sneaking up and scaring the crap out of unsuspecting people year round.  For all you ladies out there still looking for costume ideas check out our Sexy Wonder Woman Costume page for outfits that’ll make you the star of the party.

With the approach of Halloween comes another tradition – the release of a new album from horror masters Midnight Syndicate (Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka.) Their albums – Carnival Arcane is their 14th – always fills the air with Gothic dread, ambient sounds and creepy instruments. If the “things that go bump in the night” had a soundtrack, Midnight Syndicate would ring through the echoing halls upon their midnight entrance.

Each album they release tells a story in music, a “soundtrack for the imagination” filled with haunting melodies, sound effects, shrieks, groans and the occasional lyrics, all fitting the theme of the album. For instance, their studio album “The 13th Hour” has the listener journeying through a sinister and Gothic haunted house. The album begins with the house looming in the mist, and subsequent songs makes it feel like we are stealthily creeping from one dusty, decrepit room to the next, until at last, we realize we are not quite alone … and that this presence is not friendly.

Your Ringmasters, Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka

Carnival Arcane continues in this grand, masterful tradition of storytelling with music, but is even more ambitious than all others – both in the depth, grandeur and creepiness of the music, and in the well-researched and accurate representation of what it would be like to visit a slightly shabby, sinister circus from the Victorian era. It owes a lot to the novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” (at least that’s the impression I got,) complete with nightmarish rides, a sense of foreboding and sinister characters.

We’re introduced to the Lancaster-Rigby Carnival, a traveling circus with a sinister past. The album begins with the arrival of yourself, a “mesonoxian” visitor (a very cool archaic word meaning midnight.) The atmosphere is cold, and in the distance we hear the arrival of a locomotive – the wheels squeak to a halt, and the sounds of the circus rise from the night air in a slow, haunting chorus of introduction. Already, we feel a sense of something shady and macabre, but we must go forward – who know what wonders await within? Besides, the aggressive ringmaster (voiced by Jason Carter – aka Marcus Cole on Babylon 5 and a bit part as a demon on Angel) promises us the horrific instruments of lobotomies, freakshows, the big top and a grand carousel you’ll never forget.

While we voyage through a variety of acts, we can hear the ambient sounds of excited visitors, strange laughter, elephants and the squeals of horses. From a menagerie of strange creatures, a forceful hawker ushers us into Madame Zora’s tent, where we are read our fortune with a flourish of deep atmospheric music, curious whispers and a sense of dread. Through Dr. Atmore’s Elixers and Good Humour and Fortification (cheerful circus music and applause), Alura the Snake Lady (Middle Eastern mysticism) and Arcane Wonders (Victorian music boxes), we have a sense of the wide musical range Douglas and Goszka have put into this album – far beyond the Gothic melodies of previous albums.

The middle of the album begins the transformation from fantastical wonders and big top adventures to something far more sinister and dangerous – you begin to realize and witness the fallen grandeur of the Lancaster-Rigby circus. From the chilling and even sad music of the freakshow, we go on a carousel ride from Hell – beginning with the usual cheerful carousel melody, it quickly degenerates into an abomination of madness, ghosts and ghouls until it explodes in a crescendo of what must be broken horses, snapping electricity and injured victims.

We journey deeper into the carnival, where all the Gothic and Victorian horrors begin to close in on us – mad clowns, screaming children, horrific laughter as we’re lost in the hall of mirrors, a ghoul chasing us in the shadows, where we run, panicked, into a dreaded labyrinth, and finally collapse in a claustrophobic room of barking mad laughter. The carnival then closes (perhaps a bit too hastily … before the Victorian-era authorities witness the mayhem), and we are left listening to the grunts of several circus performers entering their boxcar after a long night, trying to stifle their mirth and drunkenness. One performer talks to another in a conspiratory whisper “So, what’s the next town at?” A cold wind blows through the air, and music from a Victor gramaphone echoes off in the distance.

With it’s wide range of atmospheric sounds and natural transitions from one track to the next, this could easily pass as a movie soundtrack for a grandiose horror film. Midnight Syndicate have definitely pushed their musical boundaries, and the mix of ambient carnival sounds and atmospheric composition blend perfectly, successfully transporting you to their fantastical world. It fits perfectly as the chilly atmosphere of a home haunt, and no doubt you will hear it at some amusement park, where their music is often played. This is an essential album to add to your horror collection, and powerful mood music while celebrating Halloween … or to add a touch of sinister magic before going to a modern circus.

• Carnival Arcane can be found at Amazon.com

Whenever I build a Halloween haunt, a horror soundtrack is always running through my mind – while planning this year’s layout (always a maze), hiding the monster props in nooks, and decorating the rooms. A house is not a creepy Victorian mansion until you add the lighting, the fog and, of course, the creepy soundtrack dripping in the background.

Most of you have heard of Midnight Syndicate. A decade and a half in business, Edward Douglas, along with Gavin Goszka, has been creating dark music specifically for Halloween. You can hear them at haunted attractions, parties and amusement parks. Their award-winning music has been featured on television, video games (like Balder’s Gate 2), Hugh Hefner’s Halloween bash, concerts by The Misfits and King Diamond, and movies such as Robert Kurtzman’s The Rage.

This month, the band releases their 14th studio album, Carnival Arcane. Each album takes the listener on a journey to imaginary places, be it haunted Victorian manors, abandoned insane asylums or gothic cemeteries. Their latest work gives the listener a creepy and mystical taste of walking through an early 20th century traveling carnival.

Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Edward Douglas, composer, filmmaker, writer and horror aficionado. As founder of Midnight Syndicate in 1995, he began his career by producing his own feature film straight out of college, called The Dead Matter (which was remade alongside Robert Kurtzman in 2007.)

HA: In listening to your albums, I’m transported to a certain location, be it a mansion, cemetery, or some fantasy orc lair. Every year you come out with something new, and this year it will be a traveling carnival. What’s your typical thought processes and inspiration for deciding which landmark or motif to focus on for a new album?

ED: Everything has been done before, so it’s really about picking a theme that sparks our imagination and then putting our own spin on it. The concept for our new CD, Carnival Arcane, was a really fun one because the very idea of a “dark, turn-of-the-century traveling carnival” conjures so many images and ideas. Those images and ideas translate to the songs and soundscape we create.

Gavin and I have a particular fascination with the paranormal so that element works into just about every disc we do in some way or another. History, particularly the Victorian and Edwardian eras, is another big source of inspiration for us so when we can set one of our discs in those time periods (like we did Gates of Delirium, The 13th Hour, and Carnival Arcane) it’s especially intruguing to us. There’s so many worlds and motifs to explore, that’s what keeps it interesting and exciting for us.

HA: Back when I was a teen, I would blast out the soundtrack to Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser for the trick or treaters. What made you decide to specifically compose “Halloween music” as the focus of your career? After all, your education is as a filmmaker.

ED: Although most of my education was in film and theatre, music was my first love and I’ve been playing music since I was very young. In 1992, I came up with the idea for Midnight Syndicate – this band that would merge sound effects (circa classic radio dramas like The Shadow) and music (mostly instrumental) to create CDs that would be “soundtracks to imaginary films.” The goal of these CDs would be to transport the listener to a world or movie of their own creation.

In addition to music, a love of horror, fantasy, Halloween, and the paranormal has always been a constant in my life. As a result, virtually every creative endeavor I’ve undertaken, be it film, writing, or music, has had a darker or fantastic side to it. That’s how Midnight Syndicate’s first all-horror-themed “Halloween” disc, Born of the Night came about in 1998. At that time there were no quality Halloween music CDs. The only options you had (outside of horror movie scores) was cheap, recycled sound effects cassettes, and light-hearted Monster Mash-type party compilations.

The thing was, there was a real demand for good, quality, creepy, non-cheesy Halloween atmosphere from the amusement parks, haunted attractions, gothic music fans, and Halloween aficianados that took their parties and decorating for the trick-or-treaters seriously. Midnight Syndicate was able to fill that void – first with Born of the Night and then continuing with each of our subsequent releases. We quickly became the second largest supplier of Halloween music to the Halloween retail industry (the largest are the Monster Mash folks) and the largest supplier the haunted house and amusement park industries and have remained there for the past thirteen years. Gavin and I are fortunate because (as people who live for Halloween ourselves) we are able to write the music and explore the themes we love while making our fans happy.

HA: I notice that the song tracks on your albums read like film sequences. For instance, on your album The 13th Hour, it starts with the song Mansion in the Mist, continues to The Drawing Room, then builds to Footsteps in the Dust. Near the conclusion, you have titles such as Gruesome Discovery and Return of the Ancient Ones.

ED: We want to give you “just enough” with the song titles and the CD packaging to help spark your imagination. However, our prime directive, as it were, is to not impose our own interpretation of what’s going on in a CD upon the listener. We want to leave it all up to you. That’s one reason I love instrumental music so much. Every listener can interpret it differently, see different things in it. There are no lyrics or words to even lead you a certain way.

HA: When composing an album, do you construct a fully formed movie in your mind before you begin, which then inspires a soundtrack, or do you think of the music first, which then creates this imaginary landscape?

ED: After determining the world we want to create (an insane asylum, traveling carnival, vampire’s crypt) we do a lot of research (both fiction and non-fiction literature, movies, art, etc.). From there we begin to add detail to the world, creating the people, places, and things the listener will experience. The music comes through that. Sometimes we do formulate an ambiguous storyline but only as a sort of rough guide.

HA: You’ve worked with Robert Kurtzman a few times, and released some music videos. Any plans for future work with movies and videos, or producing more soundtracks to films? Where do you see Midnight Syndicate headed in the near future?

ED: We will definitely be producing more music videos. The Dead Matter was really well-received. That, and Bob’s great team, is going to allow us to do another film in the future. The focus of Midnight Syndicate will always be the music, though. Gavin and I really loved working on Carnival Arcane and can’t wait to get started on the next disc. We are getting more offers for custom work, too (like movie scoring, etc.) so I see that continuing as well – complimenting our regular Midnight Syndicate CD releases.

HA: You’re newest album, Carnival Arcane, transports the listener to a turn-of-the (last) century carnival, complete with mystics, freaks, fortune tellers and rusty circus rides. Listening to it, there was a definite undercurrent of sinister shadows and macabre dealings, as if peeking through a tent would yield something monstrous and terrifying. What was your inspiration for this album?

ED: I did a lot of research on traveling circuses, in particular those from the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras (which were part the traveling carnivals’ heyday). That historical research yielded a lot of the inspiration for the themes, music, and especially the sound design on this disc.

We really want to make you feel like you are at this carnival, exploring the various tents. Gavin has a solo project called Parlormuse where he recreates and performs authentic Victorian-era music. That served as musical inspiration for tracks like Under The Big Top. Of course, the Lancaster-Rigby Carnival has more than a few skeletons in its closet so there is definitely the sinister element you mentioned.

The primary inspiration for that part of the disc is Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. We had so much fun working on this disc. It’s definitely one of my favorites and features some of our most advanced sound design to date. I’d like to invite folks to stop by our website, www.MidnightSyndicate.com or check us out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/midnightsyndicate. There you will find out more about we do, be able to hear samples from our CDs, etc.

So there I was, tending my small pumpkin patch on the roof (not a roof-top garden, the vines had escaped my backyard and had crawled all over my bungalow) when this strange fellow, previously curled up in a leaf, emerged, yawned, and asked for some refreshments.

Over a cup of pumpkin juice, he explained his story to me and a strange tale about a pumpkin dream. It was a cautionary tale, and he spoke all in rhyme. Though it was a blazing hot August morning, his words turned the sky dark, the trees leafless, and a cool, autumn wind began moaning from the north.

I asked him questions, and he answered with the same soothing sing-song. He explained that, in the normal world, he is sometimes known as “Aaron Wiley.” As he continued his tale, I could swear the pumpkins behind him were grinning at me – the grin of goblins up to no good …

HA: Who is this Aaron Wiley you speak of? What was his (your) childhood like?

BB: My childhood imagination leaned toward sci-fi, ghost stories, theme parks and dark rides, and holidays. I loved art and usually had some project going like papier-mâché puppets, self-engineered poster-size holiday cards, and at Halloween transforming the back end of the home into a haunted house. Music was part of that childhood, and my imaginative ear developed interests in old radio, world recordings, novelty, electronica, psychedelia, sound effects, and I still have my seventies Pickwick record “Sounds to make you Shiver” from the local K-Mart – (and it’s a record that sort of symbolizes the poor relation my imagination fared with the everyday world, such as one post-Halloween when my father confiscated the record, understandably sick of hearing it repeating over and over well after Halloween had long passed). Anyhow, while the conflict was not always so bad, I do remember there was always “a designated time and place” for celebrating holidays that drove me nuts as a kid.

After many years as an adult of “practical monotony” to pay the bills, (keeping art to the sidelines), my spirit was overdue for a better balance. When the start of the bad economy kicked in around 2000, I started looking for my own solutions, and I rediscovered the fun of holiday projects in 2004, and while not exactly well publicized, it began a personal momentum. I started exploring vintage holiday ephemera, writing Halloween stories and poems, and even found a way to do some holiday templates as a temporary contractor for Microsoft Office Online. And this past year I really pushed myself to complete “The Pumpkin Dream” combining my love for poetry and illustration. Returning to the comforting folds of ghosts and goblins has been cathartic, and has kept me upbeat through our tough times.

HA: And who is Mr. Bindlegrim?

BB: As I was writing “The Pumpkin Dream” I heard the poem as being narrated by a classic voice talent such as Boris Karloff or Vincent Price, and it seemed natural to create a sort of pseudo-authorship. To make a long story short – the words bumblebin (a pre-existing pseudonym), bindlestiff, and grim experienced a word-play collision, and the word bindlegrim became deliciously cryptic of mysterious objects contained in such an item. The left over word bumble turned into a first name – but I think now this is a nickname from the locals who couldn’t pronounce the real name that probably came from Eastern Europe.

The name now lends itself beyond the devices of the book, and has turned into more of a concept and alter ego (for my holiday art, the website, blog, etc.), and also as a character I have a feeling he could be showing up soon in my fictional writings, (I had great fun creating a fake bio for him in the back pages of “The Pumpkin Dream”).

HA: Most artists are inspired from others, either artwork, writers or movies. What inspires you? I heard you mention Peter Straub’s “Pork Pie Hat”

BB: There are so many artists, I’m not sure I know where to begin. Speaking from generality, (regarding holiday inspirations), I tend to love those artists that perhaps are able to first get in touch with innocence, and from there develop a genuine sense of spookiness without swinging over into revulsion or gore; I also enjoy those with a sense of humor. A small hodgepodge of artists in different media that I suppose I could mention would be Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, Max Fleisher, Kelly Link, and a whole host of vintage Halloween product-artists whose names are unknown to us today, not to mention some really great Halloween artists of our own era (see blog entry: http://bindlegrim.blogspot.com/2011/07/four-inspriring-halloween-artists.html).

Regarding “Pork Pie Hat” (the name I gave to the audio mix heard in the video promo for “The Pumpkin Dream”) is that this short story stood out in a book compilation, filled mostly with various other authors who, for me, seemed bitter having lost their “Halloween magic.” Peter Straub’s story somehow gives me the same great feelings of early Halloween jazz or old Halloween radio skits. Again, I think it’s because he did a fantastic job in that story of bridging a certain amount of innocence with horror.

HA: Your art is quite retro, but modern as well – childlike, but also gothic and menacing. Tell us more on how you work.

BB: Actually, it was a challenge – because most of my background is with surreal art from autonomic drawing.., and I almost went that route, but decided I wanted to be more representational of the scenes in the poem. I definitely wanted a nostalgic feel, so I ingested cartoons from the 1930’s (I maintain a Youtube Halloween playlist of these) together with vintage holiday graphics from candy packages and images from antique silhouette lanterns of orange and black. I tried to strike that same good balance between fun and menace, (that I hoped would best reflect the tongue-in-cheek nature of the poem).

I tasked myself with 37 illustrations on zero budget, and found some great tools like the freeware program Inkscape. I would scan vintage art and/or my own sketches, and then with a digital pen tablet (also new to me) would see how well I could recreate the look with the most simple line work possible. I had sketched all the scenes on paper ahead of time but as I became more familiar with the digital pen and vector software, I began to draw the characters/scenes from scratch in the software, and many times in a sense let the characters direct how a scene would form. I was having so much fun, that it was actually quite sad for me as I started to finish the final drawings…

HA: … and this eventually became “The Pumpkin Dream”

BB: Yes, “The Pumpkin Dream: A Cautionary Tale from the Library of Mr. Bumble Bindlegrim” is the first completed book I have produced. In a way it’s been part of my annual Halloween tradition these last few years to dabble with the poem…. and I think maybe that’s a great idea in general for people to find a personal holiday activity, though this year I guess I’ll have to develop a new one! (I have plans for a Christmas book, as well as a collection of other spooky poems and stories – I guess those are next!).

It all started one summer when I started the first scribbles of some random Halloween poetry, and latched immediately onto 8 lines of snarky poetry that warned of the terrible goblins that lurk on Halloween, thinking to myself, what trick-or-treater is going to listen to this old geezer(???) – (we were still trick-or-treating in the height of the seventies candy scares). That started the general story line. There’s the innocent trick-or-treating kid in a mouse suit, the warnings of elders, a rambunctious Jack-O’Lantern to lure the kid into trouble, and a bunch of scary monsters that might or might not be up to no good. What results is a tongue-in-cheek adventure and a dark-humored public service announcement.

HA: I see you also design holiday cards and bobbleheads.

BB: The Halloween cards mentioned from 2004 were my re-introduction into putting creativity into art for the holidays. I remember staying up late at night, working on those…. and they were great fun. The content is some of my old 35mm photos from past US travels, collaged with some studio shots of ghosts and pumpkins. Then when I decided to do a Christmas set, I opted to photograph my explorations into the amazing products of past vintage lighting. Both of those sets explore transparency; latter cards (not currently on the site) explored mechanical motion, and I hope someday to get back to those (and similar products), and develop those further.

As for the bobbleheads – well, they were a bit of stressful nightmare. The look was inspired by vintage bobbles, and I was very happy with how they turned out but I have yet to fully understand the best methods for reproduction, and ironically the frustration in the reproduction process is what actually turned me back toward my poetry and 2D art. I do hope to return to them too sometime in the next year after a few other projects have been completed and my patience has returned.

HA: Though I see you curled on a pumpkin leaf, you mention Christmas quite a bit … what is your favorite holiday?

BB: That’s a tough one. Halloween has the benefit of being at a great time of year, with the changes of Autumn, and the harvest, the anticipation in the air regardless of the actual holiday… and to have Halloween on top of all that is like an extreme bonus. At Halloween everyone can be an artist with their pumpkins or costumes! Also Halloween seems to closer encapsulate my other interests like dark rides, or monsters, and that sense of spookiness can hit you any time of year.

I do love Christmas too, (I love vintage light designs and retro Christmas styles) yet the holiday is in the middle of winter (at the close of the holiday rush), and while it’s supposed to be joyous, there’s an element of seriousness and when it’s all packed away can sometimes be depressing. I’m not sure I enjoy the way Christmas is celebrated here in the U.S., but I have learned to be more relaxed about it, and these days have much more fun shopping small local businesses, and finding ways to make Christmas more personal, without the hubbub of the masses. I do like the rest of the holidays, but at this stage don’t have much to say about them in regards to art…

HA: Where are you off to after this (hint hint – get out of my pumpkin patch!)

BB: It’s amazing to see how holidays developed (and I love retro styles) but I’m just as excited for the holidays of the future, seeing where they go next. Holidays have amazing histories and iconographies, and there are so many clever people building on that, creating something new, I’m filled with awe at each new twist. I really do appreciate Halloweenalliance giving “The Pumpkin Dream” a nod amid all of the wonderful work out there!

HA: You’re welcome, it’s a very well done book! … Do you like my pumpkin juice?

BB: Delicious! Could use a bit more vermin brains.

• You can find Aaron Wiley’s … ur, Bumble Bindlegrim’s book, “The Pumpkin Dream” over at Amazon. (Go there now)

Over the years there has been more than a few great spooky albums with a distinctly Halloween feel to them. These range from gothic rockers to haunted movie soundtracks. There’s a brilliant interwoven connection between Halloween and music and it’s for this reason that Halloween parties are always so epic. Here’s a review of ten of the best Halloween album releases ever to grace the ectoplasmic airwaves around All Hollows Eve.

10. Alice Cooper Trash & Hey Stoopid

Ok, so this entry is officially 2 albums, but they came out back to back with a ramped up gothic feel. Alice Cooper’s Trash contains the classic Halloween track Poison and Hey Stupid followed that up with Feed My Frankenstein just two years later. With other track titles including Snakebite, Dangerous Tonight, House of Fire and Bed of Nails, these two albums are about as Halloween as rock ever got.

9. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

The psychedelic drippings on The Crazy World of Arthur Brown are perfect for Halloween. With tracks like Fire and a reworking of I Put a Spell on You by Screemin’ Jay Hawkins, along with a scary rainbow clown front cover, this is an album that was made to be played in the darker side of late October. Its opening song is Prelude/Nightmare and it even has a track that makes a great backdrop to a game of bobbing for apples in Spontaneous Apple Creation.

8. The Original Monster Mash

This sixteen track, big beast of an album by Bobby (Boris) Picket and the Crypt-Kickers, is another classic album for Halloween. Along with the song of the same name, it’s also got tracks entitled, Rabian – The Fiendish Idol, Blood Bank Blues, Graveyard Shift, Transylvania Twist and Monster’s Holiday. It was literally made for Halloween.

7. Tubular Bells

Created by Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells contains the title track from the film The Exorcist. It’s eerie, spectral and chimed with foreboding, which makes it just plain scary.

6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack

The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack wasn’t much of a hit when it was first released, but it has stayed the test of time by becoming a cult Halloween sing along. With tracks like The Time Warp and Over at the Frankenstein Place, it’s got enough tongue in cheek horror melodrama to give Alice Cooper a run for his money.

5. The Addams Family Soundtrack

The Addams Family Soundtrack isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. To start with it hasn’t got the sing along brilliance of the original TV show on it. It’s mainly the full original film score by Marc Shaiman, with a little MC Hammer, Addams Groove thrown in for good measure, so unless you’re a big Addams Family movie fan, this might not be the best album for you.

4. Ghostbusters Soundtrack

Again, apart from the amazing Ghostbusters track by Ray Parker Jr., this is pretty much the film score. However, if you combine it with the soundtrack from the second film too, which includes a Ghostbusters rap from Run DMC, On Our Own by Bobby Brown and versions of Higher and Higher, then you’ve got more than enough to add to your Halloween collection.

3. Monster Halloween Hits

All of the other albums are great, but if you want pretty much every single Halloween song ever in one place, you can’t go wrong with Monster Halloween Hits. Its got songs from most of the other albums in the top ten, including the likes of Thriller, Ghostbusters, The Time Warp, Feed My Frankenstein, Ghost Town by the Specials and Psycho Killer by Talking Heads. It’s about as definitive as it gets.

2. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

Looking like an early drawing for Joker in Batman The Dark Knight on the album front cover, David Bowie went fairly macabre for Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). The title song on its own is enough to make the album a great Halloween record, but with the addition of Ashes to Ashes, Fashion and Scream Like a Baby it is more than just a novelty entry.

1. Thriller

Can there really be a top ten Halloween album list without Michael Jackson’s Thriller heading it up. Cueing it up for a Halloween party starter would add a bit of life to a morgue. In fact, if the video is anything to go by that’s exactly what it did. Other than the song Thriller, there’s not much that’s actually all that fiendish about the album, apart from maybe the beginnings of MJ’s morphing madness. Although, Beat It, Billie Jean and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ are all a lot of fun to dance to wearing a shower curtain costume.

This guest blog post was written by Tuppence Magazine, dedicated to the best album reviews online.

If your kids are getting just a tad too old for trick-or-treating, or you’re hosting a family event a few days before the big night, consider making a Halloween Photo Safari the highlight of your next bash.

With the advent of camera cell phones and smart phones, photo safaris have become easier and easier to put on, but remain a classic, fun adventure that can be tailored to any age and location. With a little forethought and planning, your Halloween Photo Safari will be the hit of the season.

Brainstorm Your List

Start by making a list of items for your guests to hunt for. Don’t be afraid to mix very easy to find items with very challenging ones. Consider specific theme lists as well. Your guests could hunt down different types of jack-o-lanterns, a certain type of Halloween decor, or costumes, or you could put together a general Halloween list for your party.

Form Teams

When assembling teams, make sure at least one member of each has a camera, or even better, an email capable phone. This allows teams to snap photos of their finds and email them directly back to base. Hunt lists can be emailed directly to each team at the beginning of the party to ensure no one looses their list.

Clarify Rules

Click for larger image

Decide on the rules of your game and make sure everyone knows them. Is this a neighborhood hunt or is the whole town up for grabs? Are teams restricted to walking only or can they pile into cars? Setting geographical boundaries helps keep the game fair and safe for everyone involved.

Use Apps!

Smart Phone applications can make photo safaris even more fun. Check list apps make hunt lists easy and fun and a variety of photo apps can alter photos to look like Polaroids, give them a Halloween-esque Andy Warhol appearance or even twist and distort the images for an extra creepy photo. Notes, Camera bag and Polaroid Camera are all great app options for this adventure!

Finish With A Slide Show

When all your teams have returned to base, download the photos into a quick slide show using your computers photo editing program and show it on a computer monitor or TV screen while your guests are chatting, snacking and mingling.

Hand out gag trophies to the winning team – Plastic severed hands or rubber eyeballs glued to spray painted plaques make fantastic, and frightening, prizes.

As a child, Halloween was my absolute favorite holiday. I started planning my costumes months in advance, polling my friends to make sure none of them were thinking of showing up at school on the morning of the 31^st decked out as the same thing as me.

I was fortunate to have a mother with infinite patience and above average sewing skills, which meant that my costumes could be just about as elaborate as I wanted. And over the years there were many wild and ingenious costumes for me to dawn on Halloween. There was the year that I wanted to be a blue bird and convinced my mother to cut individual feathers out of bright blue rip stop nylon. She sewed them on in layers, shingle style, to create a fluffy, feathered and slightly tent like bird outfit.

Later I had to be Annie, complete with red hair. Fearing that, if left to my own devices, I might accidentally dye my hair red permanently, my parents used traffic cone orange spray paint to turn an old brown wig “red”. I loved it so much that it remained in the costume cupboard for years; forever shedding tiny orange specks of paint onto everything it touched.

But the costume that caused the most drama in our house occurred during “The Year of the Mermaid”. I say the year of the mermaid because my passion for these finned ladies lasted at least that long, interfering with swimming lessons (I refused to kick my feet separately) and haircuts (mermaids did not have short hair!) and finally culminating in the mermaid costume that I HAD TO HAVE for Halloween.

The costume itself wasn’t much of a strain. Made from shimmering fabric it had a shell decorated bodice and a long tail that swept up and attached via a ribbon to my wrist. A small hole in the tail left my feet clear to walk (although I swore I could just hop!)

The problem lay in the fact that our northern Idaho winters began early, and by the time Halloween rolled around, we were often already covered with a half a foot of snow. Most of my costumes had some kind of insulation incorporated into them. Extra layers to make the bird fluffy, a snowsuit hidden under the magic rabbit outfit, but mermaids didn’t wear coats. They didn’t even wear shirts with sleeves. Mermaids had swimsuit-like tops and bare arms and so must I. I did not care about snow, nor the fact that the forecast predicted below freezing temperatures during the trick or treating hours. I was immovable. And so was my mother.

In the end she cleverly dyed a white turtleneck and gloves with coffee and tossed them in the dryer so that I could have a skin colored underlayer. I was mortified, but when it came down to the turtleneck or no candy, the turtleneck won.  From that year on, my mother vetoed anything that did not automatically include long sleeves and legs, deciding it was better to redirect my ideas than to try to reason with me on a freezing Halloween night, and I obliged. But I never quite forgave the fact that I had once had to be a mermaid in a turtleneck.

Because who ever heard of a mermaid in a turtleneck?