It’s that time again nostalgic nuggets! A little more than five years ago, I started this blog after writing for various horror outlets as a means to express myself fully as well as a useful therapy tool. Because, hey… nothing makes me happier than talking about Halloween, horror movies, and retro pop culture of yesteryear. Well, maybe except giving away stuff and this year is a doozy! Throughout the year, I scavage through antique, thrift stores, and the internet to find just the right treasures to give to one lucky fan during the Halloween season, and I think I may have outdone myself this time around. Nothing really makes me happier than making other people smile and boy I could use it this time around,
I recently lost my best friend of 14 years, my little old lady and emotional-support animal, Lydia. Things have been very tough for me since having to cope with this devastating loss so with this website reaching a milestone of five wonderful years and over 50,000 followers, I wanted to express my gratitude to those who offered some kind words during this difficult time. The same people who have been following my incoherent ramblings for close to a decade now. So thank you truly from the bottom of my dark heart for that. And with respect, I wanted to dedicate this Halloween haul to the little pup who always sat in my lap while writing these trash articles for you guys.
Miss Lydia Deetz Pauley
Now, that being said, from vintage McDonald’s Halloween totes to a retro Fright Night Bud Light Mug let’s get into the giveaway goodies!
BEHOLD. THE GLORIOUS HAUL FOR ONE LUCKY READER!
One winner will receive:
1990 McDonald’s Halloween witch tote
1987 Bud Light Fright Night Plastic Mug
1998 General Mills Count Chocula Plush
2006 Edition of HorrorHound magazine
Loot Crate Camp Crystal Lake Flag
TWO Trick R Treat Keychains
ONE Garbage Pail Kids Keychain
Basket Case Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Cassette Tape from TerrorVision
Vintage “30 Tales To Give You Goosebumps” Book
“The Others” Blu-Ray (this is so random, I know but screw it- It’s a pretty good movie!)
1990 TMNT Movie Topps Cards (Unopened)
Official Jaws 2 Topps Cards (Unopened)
Not a bad haul eh?
NOW HOW TO ENTER:
Entering is easy peasy, you MUST be following my Facebook page to enter and share this article. Make sure when you share, it’s public so it can be counted. And that’s it! You can share as many times as you want and each share is counted as an entry!
Bonus Entries:
Additional entries can be made by following my Instagram account and by either reposting the pinned picture of the giveaway to your stories and or feed and also tagging me along with the hashtag #NNgiveaway. If you’re not following me on IG,then for shame and you can remedy that here!
You can also enter on Twitter by sharing this article there with the same hashtag, #NNgiveaway.
Welp. I tried to make it as painless as possible. Good Luck! The winner will be announced on Monday, September 12th. 2022 on all three platforms and will be contacted via DM. Happy Halloween season nostalgic nuggets!
We’re just a little over halfway to Halloween, and every reader is entitled to one good reminder that this exists on the interwebs.
About ten years ago, the horror internet exploded with this never-before-seen footage from John Carpenter’s “immortal classic”, Halloween and I think it’s overdue to dig out those pumpkin seeds and resurrect this glorious footage once more. Uploaded on VIMEO by user Billy Kirkus, what you’re about to see is the FIRST ever Panaglide test by Dean Cundy and Ray Stella inside and outside of the Panovision studio right before principal photography began on the Halloween set.
Panaglide at the time was revolutionary and had only been used in three other films prior to Halloween, with Days of Heaven being the first on record to use the cutting-edge technology. As we’re all aware, the use of this continuous camera shot is all over the film, most importantly in the opening shots from little Michael Myers’ perspective.
In just under five minutes, Dean Cundy with Stella in tow operating the Panaglide gives us a demonstration via a test run before shooting the actual film with it.
Pretty cool stuff that should not be forgotten. And after being brought to the surface back in 2013, I’m still here talking about it almost 10 years later to remind you that it’s still cool as shit.
As a byproduct of the early 80s, one of my earliest home gaming memories was the Atari 2600. This beast of a console was the first system a wee Patti owned and was shared, albeit reluctantly, between my little brother and I. I can’t tell you how many times I would get the urge to play Kaboom or Haunted House, and find my 8-bit hogging 4-year-old sibling snotting all over the joystick playingFrogger.
The struggles of a one-console household is very real boils and ghouls.
Presently, the original Atari 2600 is pretty much a dinosaur (and looks like one too) compared to the sleek Playstation 5. However, Brontasauraus console boasted some graphics that looked like sorcery in our eyes at the time. Regardless of the now outdated sights and sounds of the Atari, the gaming system launched the beginning of household video games over 40 years ago, and hell, we need to respect that. Not to mention, hosted some pretty off-the-wall cartridges that embodied the glorious horror genre within them. Four decades later, and I still haven’t seen one damn Texas Chainsaw Massacre OR Halloween video game! Unless of course, you look towards the Atari 2600.
That being said, kudos to the breakthrough video game system that honored the horror genre in 8-bit fashion. So let’s look back at some of the coolest horror-themed video games the breakthrough gamer device had in its library, shall we?!
Halloween
First released by Wizard Video in 1983, The Shape was forever immortalized 2600 style with his very own Atari game. You actually don’t play as Michael Myers, but the “babysitter”, whom I can only guess is supposed to be Laurie Strode.
The object of the game is to save the children you’re supposed to be caring for from the Boogeyman. Who, by the way, is running through the house waving a knife all to an Atari-sized version of John Carpenter’s Halloween theme. FANTASTIC. You’re given three lives which are represented by jack-o-lanterns on top of the screen, of which will disappear one by one when you are caught and killed. The highlight of this game, and I’ve been known to purposely do this just for fun, is when you’re caught by Myers. Why? Because he decapitates you (as shown in the video below). Yes, ladies and gentlemen,this appears to be the very first video game decapitation in history. You only get a tiny bit of blood spurts from said kill, but nevertheless is extremely amusing.
Another horror treasure from Wizard Video brings the Tobe Hooper classic to the Atari world in 1982. Unlike the Halloween game, gamer roles are reversed and you actually get to play as Leatherface; with a chainsaw attached to his dick.
You basically just run across a field of cow skulls and wheelchairs trying to get to your next victim. It’s heavily rumored throughout the gamer community that the high-pitched tones you hear when a victim appears is actually supposed to be a girl’s scream. The chainsaw in the game is run on fuel, and when you press the appropriate button to run it, your fuel starts to deplete. When you run out of fuel, you lose a life. So, just an educated guess here, the point is to kill off as many people as you can before running out of gas.
It’s a fun way to murder ten minutes of your life. But one thing that really irked me about this game other than the inability for game developers to give Leatherface’s body a different color than the chainsaw, is the fact your character gets “stuck” quite easily. The obstacles I mentioned above, as it turns out, you better steer clear of them. If even one pixel of Leatherface breathes too close to these in-game hazards, you’re stuck for a good couple of seconds. It’s a total pain in the ass.
Developed by Fox Interactive Games in 1982, Atari Alien has no shame in hiding that it is, in short, a basic rip-off of Pac-Man. However, instead of dodging ghosts through a maze, you’re running from Xenomorphs, which is just way cooler anyway.
The in-game maze is supposed to be designed to look like the inside of a spaceship, and said ship is infested with adult aliens laying these eggs all over the place. Just like Pac-Man, the pellets littering the screen are eggs and can be destroyed by simply running over them. There really isn’t too much else to explain, as it really is just Pac-Man with aliens. Though if you enjoy the classic arcade game, as a horror fan you’ll likely get a kick out of something different from that floating yellow head.
Published by Data Age for Atari in 1983, Frankenstein’s Monster, for me TBH, is one of the more entertaining games to come out of the 2600 era of gaming.
The basic object of gameplay is to build a wall surrounding the monster before he comes to life. To do this, you have to climb up and down the screen grabbing bricks one by hellish one. Along the way, you’ll encounter a giant tarantula, bats, ghosts, and a lovely pool of acid. You know, normal creepy castle shit. If you build the wall before the timer runs out, you save the village below from a monster rampage. If you don’t make it in time, Frankie comes to life and destroys every damn thing in its path, which is kind of my favorite part anyway. If you get a chance to play, let yourself lose at least once.
Birthed by Activision in 1985, Ghostbusters for Atari 2600 comes one year after the theatrical release, and is fuckin’ fun as hell.
You immediately begin by trapping ghosts in front of buildings, which in most cases, takes the form of Slimer. All the while, a synthetic Atari version of the Ghostbusters theme plays in the background. The graphics when ghostbusting aren’t half bad considering the console, and the driving sequences with the Ecto-1 are not as stretched out as other versions.The greatest part, however, is when you finally get to the end and fight Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s goddamn hilarious because he just kind of jumps around in front of a building like a little kid.
