Halloween In Sleepy Hollow

So this year we wanted to do something special for Halloween, so we packed up and headed to Sleepy Hollow NY! I was excited, as I've been a huge fan of the story for years, ever since I saw that Disney cartoon, and then sought out the original story.

The weather was supposed to be nice on Thursday and Friday, so we were set!

We got into town early and headed into Tarrytown to look around. The place was decorated to the nines, with scarecrows on every street lamp for like a mile. We ate dinner at a cool place called Horsefeathers. A little pricey, but very cool Halloween decorations and good food.

We stopped at Sleepy Hollow High School, where there was this cool sign:

We checked out the town--decorations are everywhere. This place loves Halloween like I do...

And you can tell this is a historic place. Such old, cool looking architecture...gives off a very gothic feel.

Then we headed to the Great Pumpkin Blaze. It was PACKED, but this is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen. A long, long trail full of various pumpkins. Tens of thousands of them. The pics above, and then below show you a small sampling.

Inspired by Bradbury's Halloween Tree?

We got back to the hotel late, so went to bed. A busy day the next day!

We had scheduled a tour of a well-known mansion.

It was cool, but to be honest--a little boring too. The tour wasn't so much about Halloween, but the grounds were decorated with stuff like these:

Then we had dinner on Main Street at a place called Main Street Pizza. A little tiny hole-in-the-wall. And the pizza sitting in the cases didn't look great, but we figured...let's take a chance. We ordered a whole pizza.

Man, that pizza was good. Damn good. Some of the best I've had.

Then we headed off into town. A couple of blocks were barricaded for a block party, so we went there and checked that out. Everybody's friendly. A good time.

Then to the Headless Horseman's Hollow. An outside/inside haunted maze thing. It scared the crap out of my kid. It was pretty freaky, but fun.

We hustled off to our last planned event--the lantern tour in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Started at 10pm, and ended after midnight. The cemetery is around 90 acres, and we walked with a group for over two hours. The guide was great--had a lot of interesting stories, including an anecdote about the mausoleum used in the Dark Shadows show that I loved as a kid.

Even took us inside that one...

Anyway, they wouldn't let us use tripods, so I had to get creative in order to get these shots. (it was WAY dark in there, so these are all long-exposure...without a tripod)

Anyway, I'll do another post to wrap it up with some more pictures. I recommend doing it if you've ever thought it might be fun--it is.

Vintage Halloween Pics / Pumpkin Carving Ideas / 1982 Masks Book

First off, this is always a cool feature on this site--the best pumpkin-carving ideas. Love seeing these, and wish I had the time to carve more pumpkins.

https://coolpumpkindesigns.blogspot.com/2013/10/more-epic-pumpkin-carvings-2013m.html?spref=tw

Here's a neat 1982 Halloween masks book I came across.

Sorry I've been lax on updating this, but with the release of my new movie Terrortory 2, things have been hectic. You can stream it for FREE here!
https://www.amazon.com/Terrortory-2-Richard-Cutting/dp/B07HR461QX/?tag=empyrecomics

Rare Topstone Costume and Masks

Topstone was a well-known mask and costume-making company that I talk about in the book, along with the amazing Ben Cooper stuff. Here's some masks and accessories that you don't see that often.

First off is this cool "Nate" mask from the movie "Creepshow"!

Here are some hands that Topstone made. I'm not sure whether they were for a specific costume(they probably were), but they're pretty cool.

This old man mask is super detailed. The side view makes me think that maybe this was based on an existing character.

I'm not POSITIVE that this is Topstone, but it certainly looks like it.

Vintage Halloween Photos Pictures

I know--it's been a while. I've been very hard at work finishing my newest film Terrortory 2, so have been neglectful...

So here's some vintage Halloween photos--everybody likes these, right?

I'll try to update a little more often...

 1950s

1954 

 1961

1944

 Unsure about the last two

Halloween Safety 1977 & 1985 / 31 Years of Halloween Commercials / Sexy Vintage Pics

Big apologies for my complete failure to keep this updated--this has been the busiest Halloween I've ever experienced in terms of movie and freelance work, so I've just had no time.

But here's a very cool safety video from 1977--look, kids trick or treating at NIGHT! Crazy. (I get a little cranky at kids who trick or treat at 5:30pm...some of us eat dinner, ya know? :) )



And here's one from 1985. I'd like to put all these safety videos together in one video and color correct them. Mebbe I'll do that someday...



This one's also a reminder to me because I want to watch them all tonight--31 years of awesome Halloween commercials!

And here's some cool Betty Grable(or possibly Anne Nagle?) Halloween publicity photos from way back that maybe you haven't seen.

Anyway, gotta go hand out candy to trick or treaters, and then head out to a party.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
(Never enough days!)

Halloween Cookies / Monster Silly Putty / Skeleton House / Brachs Candy Banner / M & M Lights

I know--eleven days into Halloween and I'm only just now posting? 

Been busy working on the movie, so it's consuming all my time, but I'll see how many of these I can get up this month...

Here's a cool Halloween cookie box from the 80's(I think). Front and back, and it includes a hologram pumpkin. Cutting edge technology, ya know?

I really wanna know what the cookies looked like...

Next up in some monster silly putty. I had the Dracula silly putty when I was young, which means these are definitely 1970-something.

What's this? A scene from some unknown Harryhausen movie?

Nope, somebody with some cool Halloween decorations. No idea who.

This is a cool, VERY long banner. Here's the whole thing, then the close up of the repeating pattern.

Lastly are these M&M Halloween lights. I don't see a lot of demand for these, which is probably why this is the only picture I've ever found of them.

Still, kind of neat.

Lastly, here's some cool Halloween screensavers and images you an download.
http://spirithalloweens2017.com/scary-halloween-images-2017-scary-halloween-wallpapers-pictures-hd/