Trick-or-Treating the Web: 30 Links to Halloween 2013


September 25, 2013 — I do these link posts every season, where I scour the Internet for Halloween incarnated into bits of data and stored on servers across the planet. Actually, scour is the wrong impression. It's not that hard of work. It’s more like gently wandering through an apple orchard and plucking anything that looks interesting.

Anyway, I’ve always kind of suspected that these posts looked like a content dodge on my part. That it came off as me being too lazy to write something, that I'm instead offering up everybody else’s efforts at spreading Halloween.

There’s truth in that.

But the bigger truth is that there’s so much great and astounding Halloween stuff on the Internet that, honestly, every year I kind of want to celebrate the whole thing completely online.

And this is a small taste of what that would be like:

1. Look. Elvira has her own line of wine and soda.

2. An art book of classic monsters created using cosmetic make-up. Honestly, not as cheesy as it sounds.

3. Smithsonian Magazine does a history of scary clowns.


5. An awesome poster for Ray Bradbury's awesome book, The Halloween Tree.

6. A look at the Pop-O-Matic YIPES classic monsters board game.

7. You already know about the return of the General Mills monster cereals Yummy Mummy and Frute Brute, right? And the classic packaging of all five, including Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry, that are exclusive to Target? Ok, you already bought them, good for you.

8. The artist who sculpts wax and human bodies.

9. I totally want to go to the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall.

10. A look at the new and classic movies to be shown at the International Bram Stoker Film Festival in the UK.

11. One hundred cakes inspired by the films of Tim Burton.

12. This awesome person listed out all the Halloween television programming going down this season.

13. That time a serial killer won on The Dating Game (video).

14. You thought you knew how to decorate for Halloween? Check out the 400-year-old hanging coffins of Sichuan.

15. Twelve drinks you can make with Woodchuck hard cider, although their Fall cider is impossible to beat.

16. Oh, that's what it would look like if the Scooby Doo gang were real and fought zombies.

17. A short, animated version of Poe's Tell-Tale Heart.

18. The story of Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte

19. When The Misfits played in Boston 30 years ago. What remains of them is playing Halloween night this year at Boston's Wilbur Theatre.

20. The abandoned giant spider frame from 1975's The Spider Invasion has been stolen and smelted from the field where it has lain since the filming.

21. Want to see Edgar Allan Poe portrayed live? Here's the schedule for Rob Velella's October Poe events.

22. This is the one Sleepy Hollow, NY, event I've always wanted to go to, but have never made it.

23. Salem, MA, is getting some intense "living statues" for their October Haunted Happenings.

24. Count Orlok's in Salem, MA, has appearances from both Heather Langenkamp of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame and Kane Hodder of Friday the 13th and Hatchet fame this October.

25. First aired in 1986, here's The Real Ghostbusters Halloween episode, "When Halloween Was Forever" on YouTube.

26. Here's some spooky/awesome sidewalk art in Germany.

27. If Hi-C came out with horror-themed juice boxes, this is what they would look like.

28. A look at The Adventures of Pete and Pete Halloween episode. This is the only episode of the show that I've ever seen.

29. An interview with the Lizardman. Great quote: "How great would it be if I'm Lizardman and I can walk down the street past Zebraman and Crabman. That's a world I want to live in."

30. The perfect Halloween art of the Happy Undertaker.