There’s plenty to do this weekend, from the zombie walk in Toronto being held in conjunction with the Toronto After Dark Film Festival to the Ottawa Zombie Walk. New York is holding there own today at ZombieCon, where the best and brightest will be munching on tourists in Midtown.

All horror and zombie enthusiasts are invited to join in on this ghoulish spree of shopping, bar-hopping, and street theatrics. Spectators will be eaten–all are encouraged to dress and make-up in their bloody, oozing, putrid, undead best.

The start location and time have been kept secret, but can be received via email at zombiecon@gmail.com. It may be too late by the time you read this, but if you’re wandering the streets be on the lookout for a very fasionable cannibalistic horde. And run. Run as long and hard as you possibly can.

The first Toronto After Dark Film Festival is this weekend, put together by the crazy kids over at Twitch Film, and it’s sure to be one wild shindig.

Some of the films on display this year include The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell, Night of the Living Dorks, Vengeance, Frostbite, Mad Cowgirl, Tokyo Zombie, SL8N8, Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and many others. A special treat, and the main reason I’m kicking myself for missing this, is Lloyd Kaufman’s Make Your Own Damn Movie Masterclass, which is going to be showing clips from his most recent movie, Poultrygeist. Man, I can’t wait to see some undead chicken action.

You can read a report on the opening night festivities over at Twitch. Damn. I wish I was there. The last time Toronto took a shot at an independent genre film festival was back in ‘98 with the much-missed Toronto version of Fantasia. Sometimes I wear my Bloor Witch t-shirt and cry through the night for our loss. I certainly expect this event to fare better and wish them the best of luck, if only so I can attend next year.

What the fuck is going on? Everytime I visited Horror Roundtable contributor Louis Fowler’s blog, there didn’t seem to be any new posts. I chalked it up to a bit of downtime, or perhaps those lovable bastards over at Bookgasm were taking up all his time with Louis’ new comics column over there. But no, the truth was I’m just some kind of idiot who doesn’t know how to work a web browser and Louis has been posting all along. And what posts! In a way I’m glad I haven’t been over there in awhile. It’s like finding twenty dollars in your winter coat from last year. What a pleasant surprise. He’s currently rocking the 80’s cheese in a number of wicked soundtrack sharities, including Trick Or Treat, Black Roses, Freddy’s Greatest Hits and, uh, a disco version of An American Werewolf in London?

Describe your favourite Halloween costume.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I could say it was my ninja outfit, I could say it was my home made rendition of The Thing (the giant carrot version of course). But nope, it was the year my first girlfriend in highschool went to my house as a nudist.

THAT was the best costume ever.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeen!

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

The Invisible Man…

Curt - Groovy Age Of Horror

Last Halloween, bizarrely enough, someone e-mailed me asking for suggestions for a Phoebe Zeit-Geist “costume.” Now that’s one I’d like to see!

JA - My New Plaid Pants

My father loaned me his werewolf costume when I was like 15, which was an awesome costume, this full rubber body suit, head to toe in fur, paw to snout. I was probably too old to go trick-or-treating at that point, but my need for sugar outweighed any rationality, and this costume disguised me well enough to get away with it. Sure, I was twice the height of the other kids, but nobody was messing with me in that get-up.

Red Hawk - Happy Horror

My favorite Halloween costume that I own is the one I just bought this year, the Winged Reaper. I love the look of it: it’s your basic Grim Reaper type with skeletal mask, gloves and wings (too bad it doesn’t come with a scythe, also, but it’s still not too bad for 30 bucks).

Gary Wintle

Shark Suits and Cenobites!

Steven

Yes, the shark suit was truly one of the great costumes. I wore it in Kindergarten, this huge foam shark suit that covered your entire body, with only your head peeking out of its gullet so you could pretend the shark had swallowed you whole. I’m fairly certain I walked away with every Halloween costume prize I entered that year. Thanks to Mom and various aunts for creating that monstrosity, and encouraging a mania for horror that has lasted my entire life.

Thanks to all the little trick or treaters who contributed to this week’s roundtable. Weren’t they cute, with all their tales of nudity? Take a chance and ring their doorbells for even more treats, or just fuck with them and play some knicky knicky nine door. And while you’re here, why not tell us about your own favourite costume in the comments below?

Many of the most frightening moments encountered in arts and entertainment come from the most unexpected places. One of the numerous things to have inadvertently scarred me as a child was an episode of The Smurfs. When Lazy Smurf gets bitten on the tail by a purple bug, he becomes purple, aggressive and starts biting his fellow Smurfs on the tail as well. Soon the contagion has spread throughout the Mushroom Village, with a handful of survivors fighting off the horde. Sound familiar? Watch the entire segment above. GNAPP!

Hello! Sorry I haven’t been posting much recently. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather, and the only things I was capable of doing were drinking ginger ale and watching post-apocalyptic barbarian tit movies. To tide you over until I fully recover, here’s a full load of interesting tidbits from across the universe.

Edmonton goths hold a walk for charity and to counteract the press’s negative image of them.

George A. Romero has already started to film Diary of the Dead? Horrorcast contributor Rony is pissed he didn’t get called to be an extra!

Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro is a fan of the monster rally, stating that he would love to see Hellboy go up against the classic Universal monsters. Link courtesy of Dread Central.

Twitch Film has the scoop on the French horror-comedy Poltergay, about a young couple moving into a house haunted by the ghosts of an all-male discotheque.

Bruno Mattei keeps on rocking.

Cinematical lists their top 7 horror comedies.

Former comics blogosphere hunk-of-the-month Sean T. Collins helps compile a list of the scariest moments in comic book history.

Warren Ellis is writing a Castlevania movie?

Cinematical is holding a costume contest. And while you’re at it, why not double dip and enter the 80s blog costume contest?

Billy! What did you do to one of my favourite movies, Billy?!?

“Thanks” to Cinematical for directing me to this teaser.

Before they made their mark with South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were hired to create a video for Universal Studios, which had just been bought out by Seagram’s. This video was meant to reassure Universal’s employees that the studio would remain artist friendly. For obvious reasons, it was never used in the way it was intended.

There are a few small treats in the video for the horror aficionado, including Spielberg reuniting with Jaws, the Bates Motel, Traci Lords and more ceramic deer than you’ll ever need.

Originally found at NewFromMe, though I got the link from The Movie Blog.

It’s old school versus new school as an assemblage of Frankenstein’s creations take to the streets in a good old chain rumble against modern-day boogeymen Micheal Myers and Jason Voorhees. I don’t know who’s going to win, but I’m guessing this will be one of the less talkative battles.

Vote in the sidebar for your favourite, and don’t forget to cast a vote for the last fight, Captain Howdy and The Blair Witch. That one is far closer than I imagined it would be.

Every october I flip through Martha Stewart’s Halloween issue and every year I nearly buy it. Hard to believe, but Martha goes all out every year with all sorts of ghoulish tricks and treats. And she’s never afraid to make herself look monstrous for the occasion.

If you’re still not convinced, head on over to her website and check out some of her crafty video tutorials. My personal favourite is the Eyeball Wreath, where she discusses what it must feel like to push a human eyeball through a twig.

Today’s match showcases two contenders who fell out of the ugly horror icon tree and hit every branch on the way down. It’s the techno-terror of Captain Howdy vs. the old school juju of the Blair Witch, no holds barred. Here to speak on behalf of the Blair Witch is Burkittsville finest, JA of My New Plaid Pants.

In all seriousness, who can beat the Blair Witch? Nobody stands a chance. Any foe will just be led in circles for days until they start hallucinating and completely lose their mind, and either hurt themselves or don’t see the real evil coming until its too late. Plus, cry-snot - nothing will bring any of these tough bastards down quicker than cry-snot.

You heard the man. Are you going to take that? No, you’re not going to take that. Anymore. Vote in the sidebar for the video nasty you most want to come out on top.

I found the Animal Attack site after the proprietor left a message in an earlier post here on The Horror Blog. I’m glad I did, because even though the bulk of the site is in French, the trailers page isn’t, and with well over 100 trailers to choose from it’s quite the treat. I could wallow in this kind of trash for hours. If you like watching nature take its revenge on humanity as much as I do, get your keister over there pronto.

On a side note, I just discovered that when you enter “nature runs amok” in Google, The Horror Blog is the first site to appear. I’ve finally made it, Ma!

Wicked! Some kids from the Rose City and the Garden City have managed to put aside their differences and created The 80’s Blog, a look at all the day-glo decadence that decade has to offer. Of especial interest to readers of this blog is the Halloween costume contest they’re holding.

With a stay-at-home mom, I always had beautifully sewn costumes, but families that had working parents often opted for the quick and easy Ben Cooper costumes. You know, the plastic mask and bag costumes? I never had the privilage of dressing up in a Ben Cooper costume, so I’ve recently been placing bids on eBay for numerous 80’s costumes, such as Pac-Man, Stripe (from Gremlins), Jem and ALF. Yes, I actually plan to wear a costume made to fit a 5 year old this year.

Anyways, we at the 80’s Blog would love to see your favourite childhood costume. Scan and send us that picture you have tucked away from the year you dressed up as Yoda. The picture we enjoy most will be featured on our website on Halloween and I will also personally send you a special halloweenie prize!!

Katie is the queen of finding cool gimcracks and geegaws, so head on over and enter.

Not horror, but who visits on the weekends anyway?

Office Naps is a wonderful little mp3 blog that posts three or four songs taken from 45s under a different theme every week. A few months back they featured a group of songs under the banner “Vocal Noir”, and the name couldn’t be more appropriate, particularly for the first track in the selection. Come and Get Me by Mark Murphy is one bleak little tune and concerns a man imploring his lover to come take him out of the situation he’s in. Of course, he’s singing to a dead woman so it’s unlikely she’ll ever make it, and he’ll be sitting there for the remainder of his life, wasting away.

First you dream, then you die.

Describe your favourite Halloween experience.

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Easy as pie: Emceeing and playing Brad in the floor show for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” my sophomore and junior years at Yale. Surprisingly, we sons and daughters of Eli had been without a “Rocky” for many many years, so when me and a group of other degenerates brought it back, we had no idea what to expect. Apparently we should have expected our Devil’s Night midnight performances to instantly become one of the top five most well-attended events of any kind at the university, with a crowd in so much of what could euphemistically be called “a good mood” that by the third year the dean had to crack down on the amount of booze and drugs (and water guns and toilet paper and rice and toast and lighters and yadda yadda) being allowed into the performance, leading most of us performers to take our balls and go home by year three. But for those two brief shining Octobers, from de-virginizing viewers in the most explicit way I could get away with to chanting “GIMME AN R! GIMME AN O!” to the final drag kickline and simulated orgy, it was Halloween bliss.

Billy - House of Irony

One year, I dressed up as a cenobite for holloween. Made the costume myself including the hooks in my mouth that were peeling back my lips so I had this constant toothy sneer. And as I was walking down the street this one little kid stopped, dropped his candy and just started crying his little eyes out because my costume scared him so bad. I kinda felt bad for making him cry, but it was the biggest compliment to one of my costumes ever!

Doug Nagy

Getting eggs whipped at me on the Rose City streets whilst trick or treating as a youngster.

Don May, Jr. - Synapse

One time, when I was very young, we went up to a house that was all decorated with Halloween stuff (pumpkins, ghosts in the trees, etc.). There was even a scarecrow on the porch. We ran the bell, got our candy and… the scarecrow moved… we thought it was the wind, but it was actually a guy DRESSED like a scarecrow and he lunged at my friend and I with a big ROAR! We were only around 10 years old and it scared the living shit out of us…

We never went back to that house again for Halloween, but it was one of the coolest things I remember as a kid when I went trick or treating. That getup musta been really hot to wear.

Curt - Groovy Age Of Horror

For the first seven years of my life, I grew up in the country outside Johnstown, Ohio–by now I’m sure all of it must be a suburb of Columbus. We had an acre of land on this long road, and there was another long road parallel behind us, and it seemed like both of them were populated entirely by young couples like my parents who all had kids around the same ages as me and my (younger) brother. That made for a lot of fun in general, but it also permanently impressed in my mind what Halloween SHOULD be. Every neighbor was known and trusted. Clumps of kids who all were friends roved in costumes, trick-or-treating. And in the end, TONS of candy! Very Norman Rockwell, I guess, but it was a blast. Those were the days!

JA - My New Plaid Pants

When I was maybe fifteen, my two cousins and I turned the field behind one of their houses into an “Haunted Maze”. In retrospect it was probably the least scary thing ever, and we only got our assorted relatives to walk through it, but we had a blast doing it. The three of us each created our own scenes within the “maze”, which was really just some signs pointing them through the paths through the brush - my female cousin was a witch, and had a cauldron and cackled at them as they walked by; my male cousin was a chainsaw-wielding maniac who leapt out at them at the end and, if memory serves me correctly, used a real chainsaw which we all got in trouble for; I was a vampire who led them through and nipped at their necks. And yes, I do believe that was the extent of the maze’s attractions. Fun!

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I’d take the when I was 8 and went out as a ninja in a flimsy black outfit and stalked about scaring the SHEEEYIT out of everyone that came by. I knew I was young enough not to get smacked in the head by any adults. I just remember it being freezing cold and running about the local cemetery… This came to mind just yesterday as I was pushing my son in his stroller and going by another cemetery and commented…

“Damn, it is NINJA COLD…it must be October!”

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

For me it would be my sixth grade school year. Me and my friends playing NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET on the NES, and a late night of mom and pop video store chain video flicks and bags of candy.

Gary Wintle

When I tried to go trick or treating with my brothers and my broken foot. They dragged me around the street in a wagon until about 15 minutes into it when the wagon flipped back on a steep driveway and I cracked my head on the concrete. It was the first time I ever got to watch TV on a Halloween night…Well maybe not my favourite, but definitely the most memorable.

Thanks to all the contributors for sharing their stories. Do you have a particularly vivid Halloween memory? Tell us about it in the comments below.