David Bowie’s new album Blackstar will be released in January and the promotional video of the title track is, dare I say it, a space oddity. It starts with a dead astronaut and ends with a bedazzled skull and there’s a whole lotta weirdness in between.

(via Pitchfork)

As Paramount continues to beat the dead horse that is the Paranormal Activity franchise, part of their promotion for the latest installment involved a prank “open house” in which potential buyers experienced spooky-seeming events. They were able to use the house that Oren Peli used in the original film, which was a nice touch.

My thoughts on this:

– I’m legitimately surprised that nobody broke their leg and/or neck fleeing down the stairs, particularly the women in heels. I’d like to know how Paramount got this past their liability lawyers.

– As The Robot’s Voice points out, “Note that every single one of these participants does what NOBODY in a movie does when shit gets crazy – leave the house immediately.” Yeah; most horror movies would be five minutes long if everybody acted rationally.

– With the exception of the breaking mirror, which I assume was done with a big projection screen, most of these effects would be reasonably easy to DIY. It’d be fun to rig a few of them and blow houseguests’ minds (doubly so if you keep insisting that there’s nothing unusual going on).

This is, as The Robot’s Voice puts it, “An ode to David Bowie’s penis bulge in Labyrinth:”

I do think it would have been funnier done as a more direct Bowie impersonation/parody. But if you think a lack of fealty to source is going to stop me running a story about a Goblin King’s wang, you just don’t know me at all.

Pre-cisely.

Over on Facebook, intrepid commenter Bruno and I were recently discussing this article about the (possible) “new” trend of horror movies which feature unbeatable threats. The argument goes that, just as 50s horror movies were reflections of real-world angst about the Cold War and the atomic bomb, today’s fears of unsurmountable threats like climate change and economic collapse are producing horror where “the menace is ever-present, unsparing, and eternal. It’s to be endured, not conquered.” The two movies held up as examples of this theoretical trend are The Babadook and It Follows.

I responded thusly (spoilers for The Babadook):

I’m giving this kind of a cautious head-tilt. Functionally, I don’t see a lot of difference between the unstoppable slashers like Michael Myers and something like the Babadook or the monster in It Follows. I know the article mentions the movie characters’ belief that the horror has ended whilst the audience knows different, but clear back in the original Halloween (1978), the movie ends with Loomis and Laurie realizing that Michael isn’t dead. Indeed, I’d argue that The Babadook has a more hopeful ending than Halloween, because although the monster isn’t dead, it’s been vanquished and is more like a sulky pet.

He replied:

I appreciate your point and maybe both the article and my initial reaction are a bit of confirmation bias. Looking back to my horror consumption habits and that of friends and online communities, I see a bit of a rise in demand for non-closing horror, whether it’s Babadook or Lovecraft.

Trends in horror have a lot to say about their historical moments, and I wonder if we’re living in a sisyphean moment where closure is not an option, and so the experience of annoyance, angst and even horror are unbounded and unbeatable.

And then he suggested:

Here’s an experiment: what if we got a goth blogger with an active readership to ask her community what they’ve been reading / watching in horror that they would recommend? ;p

And so here we are. What say you, blog readership? Is there a noticeable trend in “unbeatable” monsters that bears out this idea? Even if there’s not, what have you been reading and/or watching lately that you can recommend?

Fun Size Horror specializes in short (under 10 minutes) horror films, and welcomes budding filmmakers.

Terrifying Tales slashed down to Fun Size! Fun Size Horror is a collective of filmmakers who have pooled their talents to bring you horror filled yarns. All of our shorts are organic and GMO-free, except for the Cthulhus; those have been genetically modified. Horribly, horribly genetically modified. Anyone can submit short horror films on our site and gain additional exposure through Fun Size promotions and connect with other filmmakers.

Their YouTube channel appears to have been up for about a year; the upload schedule seems to have been spotty at first, but it’s increased significantly in the past couple of months.

Here’s a recent entry, Conventional, about a fading Scream Queen who misses her glory days. It stars Karen Gillan, who also wrote and directed.

It’s time for another bunch of random stuff I want to share but can’t hang a whole post on. Some of them have no attribution, so if you happen to know the source for any of these please leave a note in the comments. (Click to view larger.)

	Cat Rump Coasters These crocheted coasters are by Gray Matter Artistry. Put your mug on a cat’s ass today!
	Magic: The Gathering Save the Date Cards From Reddit. You could theme a whole wedding around this concept.
	Bat Party Treat This simple party snack idea is part of a larger bat-themed party.
	Garden Loom This was on a Wiccan-y site with the caption “weave a spell.” I can’t find the original attribution for this image, but the idea is similar to this nature weaving project. It’d be an interesting addition to a garden, with or without the spellcraft component.
	Eyeball Manicure I can’t find the source for this particular design, but it turns out that eyeball fingernails are surprisingly popular. There’s a video tutorial for a basic design.
	Spider Skull Found here. This would be super-easy to do with bumpy chenille stems and a cheap plastic skull.
	Barbie Funeral I think that what I love most about this is that they’re all vintage Barbies. The watermark says “P. Schmidlin,” there’s a “Paolo Schmidlin” who shows up on Pinterest associated with Barbies a lot, but he doesn’t seem to have a website so whatever. Doesn’t matter; if you’ve got some old Barbies hanging around, now you know what to do with ’em. (Hat tip to Kitten Herder)
	Halloween Jokes I can’t find an original source for this. It made me giggle. (via Beth)
	Mrs. Lovett’s Pies Dahlia Jane made these using “Super Sculpey and liquitex paint and fingers.”
	Skull-and-Brain Cupcakes These are apparently a kit, available (in theory) from Amazon and World Market. You could also use the Nomskulls mold and ice a brain on top.
	Snake Squash I love that this Instructable says it was inspired by Calvin & Hobbes’ snowmen. That’s an excellent pedigree.
	Jack Skellington Dress This is a custom job by Nez of Darkspectre Custom Couture. Browse the site and her Facebook page for all kinds of other gorgeous creations.

In 1985, Marty McFly and Doc Brown went to the “future” of October 21, 2015. Today is Back to the Future Day, baby.

Weirdly, despite having been born a good 20 years after the movie was made, Shadowboy and his best friend are both huge BTTF fans. It goes without saying that this year they wanted to go as Marty and Doc Brown. And this is the year that it finally happened: Shadowboy broke my heart and requested a costume consisting entirely of premade clothing. (He came close a couple of years ago, when he was the 11th Doctor, but at least I was able to make his tweed jacket by hand. This year…bupkis.)

Fortunately I was able to console myself with Shadowboy’s friends: His best friend wanted the “future” version of Doc Brown rather than the white coverall worn in the first movie, and Shadowboy’s other friend, for whom I traditionally also make a costume, announced that she wanted to be a frog. (She resisted any suggestion of something that would tie in with the other costumes, such as a poodle skirt, but such is life.)

For the pieces of Marty’s costume I tried to be reasonably screen-accurate. In the movie, Marty wears a red T-shirt layered under a Tattersall shirt, a jean jacket, and the iconic orange vest. I happened to get Shadowboy a Hill Valley High T-shirt as a gift for his birthday, and realized that it was the right color for the costume. So even though you’ll never see the lettering, we know it’s an authentic BTTF item. The Tattersall shirt was a cheap number from Amazon, found after comparing Tattersall patterns until my eyes crossed. After scouring thrift stores for a jean jacket with no luck, I happened to remember that I had an ancient one stuffed in a closet. So that’s an honest-to-goodness vintage 80s piece, brought 30 years into the future the hard way. The vest was from Land’s End, another birthday gift (Shadowboy had a very BTTF-heavy birthday, at his request; he even got some Calvin Klein underwear). The jeans were…y’know…jeans. The sneakers were sneakers. I’m really mad about not being able to make any pieces of this costume, you guys.

Doc Brown’s costume was a mid-80s stab at what 2015 fashion would look like. I’m not sure if I’m sad that they were wrong or not. He wore a long jacket, matching short pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and a transparent necktie (which only shows up in publicity photos because it’s really hard to photograph).

The shirt was Simplicity 4760, with the pockets omitted. I couldn’t find a fabric pattern that matched the one in the film, so I just picked an appropriately garish one. The jacket was a modified nightshirt from the McCall McCall’s M5992 pattern. The pants were McCall M6973, lengthened by several inches. The necktie was made freehand with clear vinyl and swearing. The wig was a costume-shop Mad Scientist’s Wig (I wonder what Einstein would think about his hairstyle being shorthand for “mad scientist”) and the glasses were a serendipitous discovery in Shadowboy’s toys; they were included in a novelty coloring book that was supposed to be “3D.”

And then there was the frog. I spent weeks scratching my head, trying to figure out something that said “frog” that was not a shapeless one-piece green overall thing. Shadowboy and his friend had a couple of years where their costumes were all overall-type things and I swore a blood oath to never make another one. Whilst I was haunting fabric stores to pore over their pattern catalogs, I’d occasionally see fabric that struck me as froglike and would buy a yard just in case.

I finally decided that my best option was a costume that looked like a frog sitting on a lily pad. The main part of the dress was Simplicity 2817, with a bodice and sleeves made of different material. I welded that to the “petals” from Simplicity 1305, half of which used the same fabric as the sleeves. I also made a little Kermit-the-frog-style neckpiece using much smaller petals.

The underskirt was tulle in a seafoam-green made from Simplicity 1122, which gave the skirt some bulk and made it look like a floaty lilypad. The headpiece was made freehand by attaching some stiff cardboard to a headband, blanket-stitching green felt to cover the cardboard, then gluing on some oversized googly eyes I found at a craft store. I completed the look with green striped tights.

My sewing room is covered in glitter and I’m still picking bits of tulle out of the serger, but overall I’m quite pleased at the results of my labors. Here are a couple more photos of the trio: Sitting, Standing.

Since we’re sneaking up on Halloween, this seems like a good time to do one of those open-up-the-floor-to-the-readers posts. Here are some spooooooky questions for you to answer in the comments. Or don’t. See if I care. Jerk.

1) What’s the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

2) Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not? (Also, how do you feel about UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?)

3) What’s your worst fear?

4) What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read/movie you’ve ever watched?

5) What’s your favorite Halloween candy?

In this affecting short film, an alien schoolchild studies primitive human ruins.

There’s also a “making of” video.

(via BoingBoing)

This spooky short is a ghost story about a girl you can only see when you hold your breath.