Kestrell

I'm going to be a maenad for Halloween, and I would like to put together a spooky woods sound effects MP3 thing that I can play on an Echo dot and turn on and off using the Alexa app on my iPhone.

However, just looking through the sound effects MP3s on Amazon has gotten me only a handful of MP3s that I feel are suitable to "spooky woods," and I am wondering if there are resources online that sell something more suitable, like a 45-minute or hour-long MP3 of a theme such as "spooky woods."

I remember I used to have some readers who did sound design for local radio plays and similar project when I was on LJ: are you guys still out there? Any advice?

Sounds I'm searching for: wind and trees rustling, owls and other animals screeching, women/witches chanting and occasionally screaming...what other sounds say "spooky woods"? I figure after the first slow hour of trick or treating, the sound will be drowned out by the screaming of actual small demons, i.e., live children.

Also: I had a $50 gift card for Target and, although I can never find anything I want at Target, this month they had lots of Halloween stuff, including a five foot tall inflatable black dragon! Now, if you know any of the occupants of Melville Keep, you will probably agree with me that a giant inflatable dragon is totally us (failing the fact that we can't acquire an actual live dragon, that is). And it will look pretty kickass with the fog from my fog machine curling around it.

Only ten days until Halloween or, alternatively (according to Alexa), nine days, sixteen hours, and a werewolf howl. Allow Alexa to liven things up by turning on this skill. You can also then turn on the Halloween theme for further sounds and seasonal tips.
https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/spooky-amazon-alexa-skills-and-commands-you-can-use-to-get-in-the-halloween-spirit/

Also, if you have Sirius XM, you can request the Scream Radio channel, which plays spooky sounds and creepy stories.

From the announcement:

Are you looking for something unique and fun to do during Halloween weekend, then you will want to consider attending one of the audio described performances of Rocky Horror Show presented by Moonbox Productions during Halloween Week!

Moonbox Productions
presents The Rocky Horror Show
at The Lab, 25 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA

The Audio Described performances are at 8 PM on Friday, October 29, 2021 and Friday, November 5. (Pre-show description starts at 7:30.)

Tickets for the audio described performances are $20.
To order your tickets at the $20 price, contact
Kara Crumrine at:
Community@moonbox.org
All requests for accommodation will be prioritized.

ABOUT THE SHOW
Back by popular demand, Moonbox Productions will perform Richard O’Brien’s legendary cult classic, The Rocky Horror Show, at a pop-up theater in Harvard Square. Directed by David Lucey, Choreography by Daniel Forest Sullivan, Assistant Choreography by Joy Clark, and Music Directed by Mindy Cimini. Starring Peter Mill as Frank ‘N’ Furter (Elliot Norton Award Nominee - Outstanding Musical Performance 2019).
A humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the late 1940s through to the early 1970s, The Rocky Horror Show tells the story of Brad Majors and his fiancée, Janet Weiss, who get caught in a thunderstorm with a flat-tire and are forced to seek help at the castle of Dr. Frank ’N’ Furter, a transvestite scientist with a manic genius and insatiable libido. Brad, Janet, and Frank’ N’ Furter’s cohorts are swept up into the scientist’s latest experiment, a Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man named Rocky Horror, complete “with blond hair and a tan”. The night’s misadventures will cause Brad and Janet to question everything they’ve known about themselves, each other, love, and lust. With an irresistible rock ’n’ roll score, The Rocky Horror Show is a hilarious, wild ride that no audience will soon forget.

Moonbox Productions requires face masks and proof of vaccination or proof of a recent negative COVID test.

Kara Crumrine
Moonbox Productions
Director of Community/Accessibility Initiatives
community@moonbox.org
603-748-1693 (voice)
she/her/hers

Hold on to your seats, I just found out about this: someone made a version of Dracula entirely in ASL. The bad news is that of course it was an experimental 1970s thing and of course it has the expected poor quality, but you can find it on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si3cNB33Ui8
or, supposedly, on DVD
https://kingofthewitches.com/products/default-dvd

10. Ask Alexa to play the Aerye's theme song, "The Attic," by Professor Elemental

Here are the other nine
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/9-spookiest-things-alexa-can-do-on-halloween/

The Wild Hunts of Medieval Lore
https://www.medievalists.net/2020/10/wild-hunts-medieval/
Have you read?
The Wild Hunt by Jane Yolen - The best Winter Solstice read aloud book ever, plus you will never forget what a gerund is.
The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy by Penelope Lively - Captues that sense of the uncanny, definitely folk horror.
The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford - So much to love about this book, plus the elves are not annoyingly pretty.
Phantom Armies of the Night by Claude Lecouteux - One of the few nonfiction books I've found on the subject; the author is sort of the French Ronald Hutton

MurderBaby started off as a prop for my sinister harlequin costume for Halloween last year, but then MurderBaby followed P. home and now...MurderBaby is back!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1229087324130806&id=100010886508851

I'm going to try to insert a pic of MurderBaby and I, let's hope it works...

Yesterday a couple of sister horror fangirls and I watched "Addams Family Values," which is as fun as ever --one of our number had never seen it, imagine!!-- and we all agreed we wanted to live in the Addams family mansion, or at least, heavily borrow from its interior design.

I realize that there are lots of movie suggestions being posted this time of year, but I thought I would add my own, because these are six films that I feel are tragically underrated and even rarely mentioned. In a couple of cases I would almost call them lost classics. Speaking of lost classics, has anyone else ever come across mention of an unreleased film starring Christopher Lee and Donna Riggs in a film directed by Roddy McDowell, based on Midsummer's Night Dream?

1. City of the Dead aka Horror Hotel (1960)
Christopher Lee as a professor of occult studies somewhere near a town that obviously stands in for Salem: how do I love this movie, let me count the ways
https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/kbatz-christopher-lee-delights/

2. Tam Lin (1970)
Directed by Roddy McDowell, soundtrack by Pentangle, Eva Gardner as the aging faerie queen (I want her wardrobe!), a young Ian McShane as Tom Lin and Stephanie Beecham as Janet—I swear, when I first read about this film I thought I was hallucinating, especially as no one to whom I’ve raved about it seems to have seen it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam-Lin_(film)#Production

3. The Nightcomers (1970)
Stephanie Beacham stars in this one as the infamous Miss Jessel opposite Marlon Brando as Quint, and I don’t even know how I managed to find this film on cable TV when I was a susceptible young teenager, because Quint is a bad, bad man, who really likes tying his girlfriend in knots, literally…

4. Baffled (1973)
If you like occult detectives (as I do), and Leonard Nimoy (as I do), this is a British made-for-TV movie that was supposed to be the pilot episode for a series, and I weep at the loss.

5. Spectre (1977)
Directed and written by Gene Roddenberry and starring Robert Culp and Gig Young as a pair of occult detectives who end up at a mansion which resembles what you might get if you crossed the Addams Family mansion with Playboy Mansion, and the slashiness between the two male leads, not to mention Majel Barrett as Lilith, add an additional layer of “Am I hallucinating this?” to the experience.

6. Simon King of the Witches (1971)
Set in psychedelic 1970s Los Angeles, this story literally follows Simon, a ceremonial magician, through the stormdrains (where he lives) and the mansions of LA as he pursues his desire for godlike powers. A weird mix of camp and references to real magical rituals, I would recommend not taking mind-altering drugs before watching this, but we’re pretty certain that Grant Morrison did
https://ultraculture.org/blog/2013/04/17/simon-king-of-the-witches/

I've been working on a Green Woman mask for Halloween, collecting bits and bobs to layer on to it, but I just had a thought regarding the perfect accessory: I think I need an ax!

There are two good reasons for this:
1. I love the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight poem, and
2. there's a song by the Flash Girls which came out a number of years ago titled "A Girl Needs a Knife" and, while the basic lyrics are in the title, I have always added my own lyrics such as a girl needs a stick (i.e., white cane), a girl needs an accessible flamethrower, a girl needs a Death Star, a girl needs a sentient talking black hole (based on a John Varley story).

Oo! I just thought of reason 3: I could do the Jack Nicholson scene from The Shining!

So...I'm sure I could find a really nice toy ax on Amazon, any suggestions? If it costs less than ten dollars, I'll probably go for it.

A Girl Needs a Knife" by the Flash Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXAjq0cNKB0

Those who know me have probably heard me say on more than one occasion that Halloween and Valentine's Day are really just flip sides of the same holiday, involving chocolate, costumes, and fear.

So, Amazon has just come out with a number of Alexa skills for Valentine's Day, including florists near you and a romantic playlist.

I was thus inspired to say, "Alexa, be scary."

And she began making whooshy wind and wolf howl sounds!

Romance really is in the air.