Archive for the ‘other’ Category

As a haunter, I often debate about what candy to hand out on Halloween night.  It often ends up being the same stuff that everyone gets because of the amount of children that frequent the haunt.  I would love to hand out more original candy or the full-size chocolate bars, but it is just too costly.

What got me thinking about candy was a post I came about on the 11 Points website, titled, “11 Worst Things You Can Get Trick-Or-Treating“.  To summarize, although the site goes into greater detail, there’s a bunch of the obvious stuff (apples and the like), but at number four is Dubble Bubble.  This is the only thing on the list that I truly disagree with.  As much as that small piece of rock solid pink gum is hard to chew and almost immediately looses its flavour, I always loved Dubble Bubble, even to this day!  By the way, number one on 11 Point’s list was Milk Duds.  I’ve never received Milk Duds on Halloween, nor have I ever even tried a Milk Dud, but the name Dud does not inspire confidence.

As for the razor blade in the apple story that we all heard as kids, Snopes.com has a full report here.

Now I open this up for debate.  What in your mind is the absolute worst candy to get on Halloween night?  What is the best?  In my neighbourhood, I can recall a time when one house used to hand out cans of Coke.  Not anymore though.  And now all the candy we buy is nut free for the allergic kids.  Sorry Reece’s Pieces, I know kids loved you! 

Oh and gross or awesome?  This Blood Bag candy is $5.99 per dozen on Oriental Trading.

If you’ve been following the blog, you would know that we have been looking at projection haunting a lot lately.  First I spoke with Hallowindow’s Mark Gervais, where he hinted at a release date for Hallowindow IV.  Then I spoke with Dave Bates of the Bates Haunt, one of the founding father’s if you will, of projection haunting.  He discussed his Haunted Mansion-esque style.  You can read both interviews here:

Part One – Hallowindow
Part Two – Bates Haunt

In the third and last installment of this series, I spoke with Andrew Grant, creator of Scaremation, an up and coming window animation maker, who has a very different approach to his work.  Check out this video of his animations, from his very own yard haunt:

Grant is yet another Canadian and a member of the Ontario Haunter’s Club, along with yours truly.  Read my interview with him: Read the rest of this entry »

First Haunt on the Hill took a look at projection haunting with Mark Gervais of Hallowindow.  You can read all about it here!

This week we continue our inside look at outside projecting with Dave Bates of the Bates Haunt.  I came across Bates’ work on YouTube one day and was blown away at just how amazing his display is and to top it all off, he does it all using only ONE projector!  

Check out a video here, but I warn you, the song will get stuck in your head:

As with Mark Gervais, Dave was nice enough to let me interview him.  And here it is: Read the rest of this entry »

Hallowindow in action!

Today is full of greatness!  Or weirdness, either way it’s a good day at the haunt!  First I thought you should know that there are two more parts in my series on projection haunting still to come!  The first was last Friday’s interview with Hallowindow, the second will be on Monday when we take a look at The Bates Haunt and lastly, next Friday we talk to Andrew Grant of Scaremation.  So much projectiony goodness!

Now what’s been going on with Haunt on the Hill you ask?  You didn’t ask?  Well I’m telling you anyway!  I’ve been hard at work on props for this coming Halloween and have decided that you deserve a sneak peak at one that I am especially proud of. 

As any past visitor to the haunt can attest, we have never had an opening/closing coffin, although we have attempted to for the past five or so years.  Something always seemed to go wrong or break at the last minute, but I did not give up!  I got my hands on a MonsterGuts motor and set to work on the coffin.  It’s not done yet, some tinkering still needs doing and a good ole monster hand needs to be fabricated and attached, but otherwise, it’s working like a charm. 

Here is a video I took using my iPhone:

I’ll have more sneak peaks on props in the works over the next little while,  so keep checking back.  In the meantime, I must remind you all that I am looking for sponsors to help raise money for charity.  If you know of a company or business that would like to help out, please use the contact form on this site to get in touch with me.  Also, if you have a website, store, product, home haunt, etc… that you would like me to discuss on this site, drop me a line and we’ll talk.  I’ve already been receiving lots of emails from people, but would love to hear more from my fellow haunters!

Fangs for everything,
Rachel