Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

 I've seen a lot of movies this year, probably more than I have in a long time. I pretty much exclusively watch horror and spooky things, with a few exceptions. It's just what feeds my soul the most. I don't claim to be an expert. I like what I like, I gravitate toward what interests me. I probably couldn't win a trivia contest but I could sure as hell talk your ear off about a movie if I love it, or hate it. Though I don't expect anyone else to feel as I do about anything. I enjoy conversation about these things. That said, I always tend to see a lot of division among horror fans when it comes to their opinions of horror media. It's very black-and-white a lot of the time. It's absolute love and devotion, or it's a hate-fueled rampage. Being neutral on a horror movie doesn't seem to be a thing. And while I am extremely passionate about the things I love, and can come away from a movie feeling like it altered my brain chemistry somehow (or, alternativ...

As you most likely already know, Halloween-themed movies are tremendously important to me. For most of my life, when I needed a dose of Halloween in the off-season, or even wanted to make an October afternoon feel extra special and anticipatory, I’d turn to movies that would immediately transport me back into the most important day of my year.  I will watch pretty much anything relating to Halloween, whether it’s a horror film, a tv special, something intended for small children, or pretty much anything in between. And over the years, across genres, I’ve accumulated some go-to movies that capture Halloween for me like nothing else, and can make my heart leap with excitement as if it were October 30th, on, say, any random Tuesday in May. These are the movies that inspire me, and keep me going even at the worst points in my calendar year. A few days ago, I had the absolutely amazing opportunity to view a new film called The Pumpkin Man before its general release. I’ve been following ...

 One of my absolute favorite pastimes is watching old Halloween content on YouTube. Most of my nights end with a compilation of vintage Halloween commercials, old Halloween safety PSAs, or Halloween specials from my youth. There's nothing I find more relaxing.  A few days ago, I suddenly had a memory of an old spooky cartoon I hadn't in seen ages, a movie I used to rent from the video store as a child called The Ketchup Vampires , and felt compelled to look it up.  Both  The Ketchup Vampires  and its sequel/prequel  Ketchup Vampires 2  are available on YouTube. And let me tell you, this unlocked some major memories for me! The original movie is dated 1995, so I would have been seven or eight at the time, depending on the month of its release. But I vividly remember discovering it at our local video rental place.  I had wandered over to the children's section while my mother looked through the new releases in the main part of the store. Looking rig...

 As you probably know, my taste in Halloween-y things ranges from things meant for people years (okay, sometimes decades ) younger than myself, to the darkest of horrors. I love spooky cute, but I also love a good gore fest, especially when it's set on Halloween night. It probably comes as no surprise that I absolutely love the Terrifier movies and particularly the character of Art the clown. And I consider myself extremely lucky to have caught Terrifier 2 in the theater on opening night. Before you ask, no, no one threw up or fainted at my showing. A couple of people got up and presumably went to the bathroom but I didn't see a sense of urgency in these people that told me they were about to toss their popcorn. At almost two and a half hours long, this is a movie some people simply may need a pee break halfway through. A few people behind me did gasp a lot, though.  Aside from a few moments that triggered my ommetaphobia, I got through it perfectly fine and thoroughly enjoyed...

 As I’ve mentioned before, I often spend significant amounts of time browsing through Halloween-themed movies on streaming services, hoping to find something that truly speaks to me. There’s a certain something that I look for in Halloween movies that I can’t quite explain, and I usually know, fairly quickly, when I’ve found it, or, also, when I haven’t. Not that certain movies aren’t fun watches even if they don’t have that something, and I’ll talk more about those types of movies in the future, but today, I stumbled upon a movie that will surely be added to my list of go-tos and really want to share it. This is a little movie that came out last September, called Bad Candy. A few people I know within the Halloween community have watched this movie, but I never hear anyone talk much about it. I won’t lie, I put it on today as background noise while doing some cleaning, fully expecting it to not hold my interest enough to want to actually sit still and watch it. I tend to get cranky...

 Like many little girls in the 90s, I was in absolute awe of the Olsen twins. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were just over a year older than me, and it was so cool to see kids right around my age that were so famous. Like many, I was first introduced to them as Michelle Tanner on Full House , but it wasn’t long until they started producing and starring in a whole slew of their own original movies and series. One such movie was another Halloween gem from my childhood that seems to be mostly forgotten these days, a spooky adventure called Double Double, Toil And Trouble.  It’s worth noting that Double Double, Toil And Trouble was released in 1993, just a few months after Hocus Pocus. (And it actually accurately portrays the fact that Halloween 1993 fell on a Sunday!) But, because it was a TV movie initially, it was Double Double, Toil And Trouble that I wound up seeing first. And, surprisingly, it didn’t initially become one of my main go-to movies, for the simple fact that it actu...

 Today, I feel like discussing a slightly controversial topic within the Halloween community: The recent entry into the Halloween franchise, Halloween Kills. I have been a fan of the Halloween franchise since before I ever saw the movies, if that makes sense. We had a neighbor when I was very small who would play the soundtracks every year on Halloween night, from the time the kids started getting off the school bus until who knows when, after we’d all gone in for the night. It was almost surreal; for that one night, the entire neighborhood could hear the eerie music, if we were outside. I felt lucky in a way, and was, of course, intrigued to see the movies that it originated from.  I wasn’t allowed to until I was much older, obviously, but I would occasionally sneak peeks, as most of them were regularly broadcast on the cable channels in my childhood. The most common one I remember seeing was actually Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers , so much of the imagery that come...

 I decided today to watch and discuss a Halloween-themed movie that seems to have been long forgotten. It turned twenty this year, and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention it in almost that many years.  On October 20th, 2001, a movie called When Good Ghouls Go Bad premiered on what was known back then as the Fox Family channel, now FreeForm. I had been anticipating the movie’s premiere since the channel had first started advertising it. I wasn’t quite into horror yet, though I would be very soon, and I was still put-out that I wasn’t able to watch the Halloweentown movies (the second of which also premiered in 2001) since the Disney Channel was still a premium subscription channel at the time. I was so excited to finally be able to welcome a new, lighthearted Halloween movie into my life, as there really weren’t very many at the time besides the obvious Hocus Pocus.  When Good Ghouls Go Bad follows the story of Danny Walker, a young teen who’s just moved back to what i...

 It’s Christmas Eve today on the Gregorian calendar, so what better time to address something I often contemplate but never really talk about much: My love/hate relationship with the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was six when the movie first came out, and was extremely intrigued as, of course, my interest in Halloween was taking shape and this was a movie featuring characters that looked like walking decorations. The looks of some of the characters scared me a little at first (I have a vivid memory of checking behind the shower curtain for a lurking Jack Skellington every time I went to the bathroom for a couple of years.) but I did enjoy the movie, and was most in love with the characters of Sally and Zero. Nonetheless, as a young child, I always felt there was something about the story that I just didn’t quite “get”, so the movie was never a go-to when I was a kid the way Hocus Pocus was. In fact, I don’t think I gave much thought to The Nightmare Before Christmas until...

 I know that most of my posts here have been on the melancholy side lately. The first two months after Halloween are always the most difficult for me, as post-Halloween depression combines with basically being force-fed Christmas and then treated like there’s something wrong with me when I regurgitate it. (My attitude toward Christmas is at its absolute worst this year...I think the pandemic stress on top of it is just too much.) So, I decided I wanted to do a more upbeat post, and thought, what better way to get my mind on something else, than to do a movie review? And, because I was wanting to do something more upbeat, why not choose a movie that’s meant to be fun? So, today, we’re going to be talking about a movie I don’t see mentioned around the Halloween community much (or really at all):  Fun Size. I didn’t pay much attention to this movie when it was first released. It came out in 2012, when Victoria Justice was at the height of her popularity thanks to Nickelodeon, and...