Horrifying Halloween Words

From hardcore Christians to shopping mall Wiccans, everybody is jumping on this year’s Halloween season LimeBike™, trying to cash in as much as possible. So I’m gonna do the same thing, except I’m doing it for free. (Yep, the Wizard of Wall Street right here.)

Thus, behold a collection of horror-themed words/logos that you can use for any of your design work and/or tattoo flash. I created this some years ago, scanning the art and converting to the EPS (encapsulated postscript) format and, for those who don’t do art-tech speak, a PDF (portable document format). If you have any graphics app, you can open these files and go straight to crazy town.

If you do anything cool with this stuff, send me a pic or screenshot. I promise not to tell your mom/primary caregiver.

Anyway, download HERE (EPS) and HERE (PDF).

And may the Gods of Halloween not put razors in your nutritious trick-or-treat candy.

Evil Revenge, Basement Rats, Olympic-Grade Sharks

July 23, 2017 marks the beginning of Discovery™ channel’s mecha-popular Shark Week, with probably one of the worst promotional ideas since Sharknado (2013). On Sunday, July 23, 2017 they’re having Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps (the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals) racing a great white shark, the kicker line being “the battle for ocean supremacy.” And you thought the bottom of the sea was low.

This concept of matching up sharks with celebrities was first tried on the waning sitcom Happy Days back in September of 1977, during which The Fonz — wearing a bathing suit and leather jacket, ski jumped over a shark in a pen just mere biting distance from those delicious skis with human filling.

While we wait for that over-hyped moment, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that’ll sink or swim…

INSIDE (2017)
“Alone and carrying her baby, Sarah faces a calculating, cold-hearted and predatory woman — an adversary who will stop at nothing to snatch her unborn child. Trapped and disorientated, barely able to hear the evil that stalks her, Sarah must unleash all her reserves of strength to protect her baby and survive the night. Never underestimate a mother’s protective fury.”

Can you say The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)? Can you say Rosemary’s Baby (1968)? Can you say, “Been there, done that?”

EXHUME (2017/2018)
“Over 50 unmarked graves were discovered at an institution dedicated to the rehabilitation of troubled boys. Patrick Connor and his wife Karen were the archaeologists that uncovered the evil buried under the earth so many years ago.”

Unmarked graves are a problem. What if you showed up to pee on your enemy’s grave and your vengeful bladder defiled the final resting place of some nice old lady who made cookies for Third World countries? And you wonder why the dead hate us so much.

THE TERROR OF HALLOW’S EVE ( 2017/2018)
After a fifteen-year-old is brutally beaten up by high school bullies, his wish for revenge unknowingly unleashes the terror of Halloween.

Um, this one’s been done already. It was called Trick or Treat, released in 1986 and typecast Ozzy Osbourne as a preacher and KISS’ Gene Simmons as a radio deejay, presumably to hear himself talk all the time. But hey, without revenge, horror movies might start looking like all the same thing. Ahem.

DEVIL’S GATE (2017/2018/VOD/Limited)
“Struggling to overcome a recent professional tragedy, a tough-as-nails FBI agent relocates to a small North Dakota town to investigate the disappearance of a local woman and her young son. The search leads to the missing woman’s husband’s secluded farm, on which answers, new mysteries, and God-fearing terrors await…not to mention something locked and caged down in the basement.”

God-fearing terrors and something locked and caged in the basement. Probably a rat. Or spoiled jam preserves, that when consumed, turn you into a rat. Or… never mind.

Slash Her Films

In my day they would’ve categorized horror like Berkshire County (arriving 2015) as a slasher film. Sure, the term is outdated and doesn’t come close to describing today’s predatory villain movies as torture porn. Harsh, but right on the money.

So what is torture porn? Had to ask an ice cream truck vendor in a clown suit for the definitive definition: A captor or captors ritually performing extreme, relentless, unblinkingly graphic torture on a bound captive(s). Couldn’t have said it better if I made it up myself just now.

So Berkshire County might not fall exactly into the torture porn category, but watching the trailer, it certainly has strong TP elements: Animal masked men wielding Wüsthof™ cutlery and violently terrorizing a young female babysitter. Here’s the synopsis (see if you can’t figure out who the slashers are)…

“Kylie, a teen who is coerced into a sexual encounter at a party by a popular boy whose friends send video of it across social media. Her self-confidence in shreds and her reputation in tatters, she is in chronic victim mode when she reluctantly agrees to a desperate plea by a couple in a secluded castle-like mansion to babysit their two children on Halloween.”

Alone in the country she is a prime target when she begins receiving prank phone calls, and a boy wearing a pig’s head makes a suspiciously-late trick-or-treat call. What follows is a game of cat-and-mouse between Kylie and a surprisingly sophisticated gang of butchering hicks. It is a test of will that requires her to stand up and take charge if she and the children in her care are to survive the night.”

While it grabs fistfuls of truck ice cream of Halloween (1978), I liked it better when this was called You’re Next (2013), featuring animal masked villains wielding Wüsthof™ cutlery.

Halloween – Just In Time For Christmas

Decidedly evil (though recently deceased) rock star Sammi Curr speaks to a dysfunctional headbanger teen by means of your ordinary, run-of-the-mill back-masked heavy metal record. (Note to those who don’t know what a record album is: It’s like a plastic MP3 but with credits.)

Being dead, however, doesn’t keep hammy Sammi from playing a Halloween concert at the high school he graduated from for some Carrie-esque styled revenge in 1986’s blackened Trick or Treat.

Sammi looks like Poison’s CC Deville, who looks like Phyllis Diller, but with more crack, alcohol and eyeliner. KISS’ Gene Simmons makes a cameo as does Ozzy Osbourne playing a preacher, denouncing heavy metal. (Note to organized religion: You’ve been punked.)