Trick Or Treat

There are nights when the wolves are silent, and only the moon howls.  -  George Carlin, Brain Droppings

As regular readers know, Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Most of you have probably noticed that I try to do at least a few horror-themed columns every October, and a few even pop up at other times of year.  So in order to help y’all get into the spirit (hee hee) of the season, I’ve collected together everything on Halloween or horror-oriented topics I could think of.  First of all, there are my previous columns for the day itself: “Halloween”, “Samhain”, “All Hallows Eve” and “The Day of the Dead”.  “Moondance”  touches on very similar themes, and they’re also visited in “Saint Death”, in which I introduce you to Mexico’s Santa Muerte, the goddess of death.

One of the great pleasures of the season for me is horror fiction, and I’ve visited the subject a number of times which might surprise readers who don’t know me yet.  “Frightful Films” contains my list of the ten scariest horror movies and my favorite horror movies (which are not the same).  “May Eve” presented my picks for the scariest single episodes of TV shows, and “Walpurgisnacht” the scariest short stories.  I’ve also written quite a few horror shorts myself:   “Dry Spell”, “Friend”, “Mercy”, “Painted Devil”, “Pandora”, “Pearls Before Swine”,  “Ripper”, “Rose”, “The Screening” and “The Trick” all fall solidly into the category, and a few others (such as “Ghost in the Machine”, “Greek God”, “What Gets Into a Man…?” and this month’s “Monopoly”) are at least borderline.  I’ve also linked to two short-shorts from horror master Neil Gaiman, “Feminine Endings” and “Down To a Sunless Sea”, and a video wherein Gaiman explains a new tradition he’s trying to start called “All Hallows Read”.  You can even find two short horror films, “444-444-4444” and “Click”;  John Carpenter’s short spoof of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”; and other seasonal videos in this month’s Links #171, #172 and #173.  My column “Mass Hysteria”  compares the “sex trafficking” panic to that attending the famous War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938, and links a recording for your listening pleasure; “October Miscellanea” contains an item about horror comics and a listing of shows featuring vampire whores, “My Favorite Halloween Stuff” introduces my favorite monsters, horror novels, Halloween songs and more, and “Eros and Phobos” discusses the link between sex and horror.  Finally, you may like these striking Harry Clarke illustrations from the 1919 edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s  Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and this Poe-inspired short film called “The Boundaries of Life and Death”.

I’ll leave you with this selection of spooky links from previous columns:

Zombie links

• Because of zombies.
• The zombie defense.
• Wendy McElroy on zombies.
• The Kansas Anti-Zombie Militia.
• The man who believed he was undead.

Lovecraftian links

• Oklahoma City has been claimed for Azathoth.
• Dread Cthulhu leads his cult to milestone year.
• If “The Call of Cthulhu” had been written by Dr. Seuss.
• Newsreel of the Miskatonic University expedition to the Antarctic.

General horror links

• Nightmare of the week.
• Two-sentence horror stories.
• The great New England vampire panic.
• Would you have been accused of witchcraft?
• Giant mystery eyeball washes up on Florida beach.
• A legendary Serbian vampire is said to be on the loose again.
• Appreciate these horror photos, but don’t read the comments.
• Don’t just shorten your url; make it suspicious and frightening!