Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

 As a 90s kid, I have a lot of memories and attachments to Halloween episodes of popular kids’ TV series of the time. Even if I didn’t necessarily like a particular series, or watch it regularly, I usually tuned into whatever they were offering at Halloween-time. I’ve often said, I’ll pretty much watch Halloween-relating anything. One such instance was with an early-90s Nickelodeon series called The Adventures Of Pete & Pete. I enjoyed this show to some extent, but I was a little young to truly get it at the time during which it initially aired. (It started in 1993,  when I would have been turning six, and ended in 1996, when I was nine.) I also wasn’t super into live-action shows, so I don’t have vivid memories of watching it, though I know I did. I just remember it being a show about two brothers, both for some reason named Pete, going on adventures that were sort of surreal at times. On a strange sidenote, I do remember contemplating the lyrics to the theme song  f...

  I don't think I ever understood the world's obsession with spring. Perhaps it's because I've always found new beginnings ominous, as opposed to exciting. You could say I'm averse to change. But then, autumn is a time of change as well, isn't it? Regardless of the reason, I never understood what is so exciting about baking sun and bright skies. Or how the flowers, in shades of pink, purple, yellow...or the green grass and leaves, for that matter, were supposedly more beautiful, more inviting, than the explosions of different shades of orange against a spooky gray sky.  Most people want to fast forward to this time of year, but I wish I could fast-forward through it. Spring and summer...what is so lovely to the rest of the world, is a time of physical and mental exhaustion for me. It's a strange thing, when I really think about it. The countdown to Halloween is longest in the winter months, as the clock resets. We cling to the memories of last Halloween, so ...

 Since I still can’t stop being inspired by the movie Haunt , (Go watch it if you haven’t yet, and then read my review in the previous post!) I thought it might be interesting to share the story of the one and only time I ever actually visited a haunted attraction. Yes, you read that right. Something relating to horror/Hallloween was a one-and-done for me.  Let me explain. I grew up very close to quite a few of the types of farms that people flock to during the autumn months, for pumpkin picking, apple picking, and spooky good times. Traffic in my area on a fall weekend is an absolute nightmare. But anyway, the biggest and probably most well-known of these farms is a place called Heaven Hill, still known to this day for their annual Great Pumpkin Festival, which, yes, I sometimes still attend as an adult. The first time I went to Heaven Hill, though, was on a kindergarten class trip. We’d spent the prior week learning about types of apples and different kinds of jack o’lantern...

 Yesterday, I was finally able to watch a movie I’ve been dying to see for a few years now: A 2019 film called Haunt. I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I, in real life, actually can’t go to haunts with live actors. It’s not a matter of being scared of the imagery or anything like that, but I have full blown panic attacks if I try. I think it’s more of a social anxiety thing to be honest; I’ve never quite been able to explain it, but, while I’d very much like to design one someday, or even work in one, I simply can’t deal with being a patron (one of my experiences will get its own blog post one day though) so I rely on things like YouTube walkthroughs and movies like The Houses October Built  to fulfill these types of needs for me. When Haunt was first announced, I actually assumed it would be something like the latter, only minus the found footage angle, which immediately interested me. However, since direct-to-streaming horror films are so hit-and-miss, I waited and waited...