As promised a week ago here is the list of the Scariest Movies to watch on Halloween according to the Scary Jane readers. I was bombarded with emails on everyone’s choices, so thank you. Apparently you guys are really passionate about this. Overall I’ve seen and love the majority of these, but I am interested in the one or two of them I haven’t seen. I feel like quite a few were left off, but that’s just my opinion. If you don’t agree with these you have only yourself to blame because you didn’t send in your vote. So, here are the top ten Scariest Movies and the top ten Scariest Family movies that got the most votes in no particular order:

1.     Halloween (original)

2.     Scream series

3.     Psycho (original)

4.     The Changeling

5.     The Ring

6.     Evil Dead

7.     The Shining

8.     Seven

9.     The Exorcist

10.    Rosemary’s Baby

* Honorable mention to: Martyrs, The Haunting (original) and The Legend of Hell House

1.     Hocus Pocus

2.     Casper

3.     Halloweentown series

4.     Beetlejuice

5.     The Witches

6.     Scooby Doo (movies)

7.     The Nightmare Before Christmas

8.     The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It

9.     Twitches series

10.    The Addams Family (movie)

*Honorable mention to: Gremlins (I think this might be too scary for the little ones, though)

A while back a reader sent me the link to this group on YouTube.com. I have since listened to everything they have and have fallen in love with them. If you are having a party this weekend you really need to include them in your music. From what I can tell they are actually from Sweden, but you’d never guess it from their songs. Check out their website where you can buy all of their albums. The lead singer sounds just like Johnny Cash! Take a listen to Last Night Down By the Grave below. This one is on the slower side, but they can really get rockin’. My favorite is probably Halloween which you can find on their myspace page, but I really like Back From the Grave too. Well, hell I love them all actually. Give them a listen. You’ll be glad you did. Thanks Per Arne Iznogood for introducing me to this great band.

Years ago when we were first setting up the bookstore we were determined to find a full-size skeleton for an idea we had. Seems like it would be easy, right? Nope. At least not then anyway. All of the skeletons we found were not full-size. Most of them were 3 or 4 feet tall at the most. Finally we were forced to go to a medical supply company to get one. It looked great, but it weighed a ton and the bones were very sharp. It was so hard to move around without getting poked. I am very excited to see that finally a light weight realistic full-size skeleton finally exists for only $34.50. At 64″ it still isn’t as tall as I would like, but it is adult size so I can’t complain. Every year we take a few things from the store to decorate with at home. The skeleton quickly became one of those items. In the store she is set up in an antique wheelchair and sits near the window. We put a victorian looking dress on her with a Mrs. Bates wig. You know Mrs. Bates from Psycho? Gray hair in a bun? Anyway, we bring Mrs. Bates home every Halloween and set her up in a wing chair in our front window. We turn out all the lights and point a slow strobe light on her. We then tie clear fishing wire around her wrist and run it through a hook in the ceiling. Whenever an unsuspecting trick-r-treater comes to the door one of us sits behind the chair and pulls on the fishing wire to make her look like she’s waving. This really freaks the kids out and some of the parents too. I’m tempted to get one of these light weight skeletons too, so we don’t have to drag Mrs. Bates home every Halloween. Each time I set her up I think of the ending of Psycho when Norman has been arrested and is thinking to himself:

They know I can’t move a finger, and I won’t. I’ll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do… suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching… they’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…”

Right about now you are probably starting to give the pumpkins you bought a look. You know the look, right? The one that shows you are speculating how you plan on cutting the thing up. This can be a daunting task for anyone. I spend a lot of time on this very thing every year. I just get so bored with the standard jack-o-lantern even though it can be quite scary. You know the one they show during the credits at the beginning of the original Halloween? That one is so simple, yet so scary. Maybe it’s because I know what’s coming in the movie. Anyway, someone gave me the book Extreme Pumpkins last year and it has opened up a whole new world to me. This book is based on the website www.extremepumpkins.com created by Tom Nardon. If you’ve never heard of the site or the book you need to check it out immediately. He will get you so excited about carving your pumpkin!

It seems the popular Halloween T-shirt this year is the ones claiming the person wearing it cannot afford a costume. Considering that the three examples below cost more than $20 I think it’s crap. Obviously it is another case of a lazy persons costume. I say all of you people throwing Halloween parties this year deny letting anyone wearing these stupid costumes in to your party. We must unite against brainless pseudo costumes. If any trick or treating kid dares show up at our door with one of these on will get the door slammed in their faces! Just my 2 cents.

A reader sent this recipe in to me, so I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve never made these, but I can’t wait until later this week to try it. All you need is an eyeball jello mold, and a few ingredients. You can also use round ice cube trays or even the round artist pallets that you can buy in any art store. As long as you clean it thoroughly you can use anything that has the right shape.

Ingredients:

3 tsp of unflavored gelatin

Food coloring (blue, green, red and yellow)

Cooking Oil Spray

3 Tbsp low fat milk

1 1/2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tbsp imitation lemon or coconut extract. (your choice)

Cold and boiled water

Straw, cotton ball, toothpick and a container with a small spout for filling.

Instructions for Whites of Eyes:

Spray a small amount of cooking oil inside of the cavity of the plastic mold. Put 2  1/2 tsp of gelatin in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup boiling water. Stir until completely dissolved. Add 1/4 cup cold water and stir well. Stir in 3 Tbsp of low fat milk, 1/2 Tbsp of extract, and 1 1/2 Tbsp of sugar. Stir well. Using a container with a small spout, pour the liquid into the mold. Place the mold in the refrigerator overnight. After the gelatin solidifies, take out the white eyes.

Iris Eye Color Instructions:

Put 1/2 tsp gelatin in a small bowl. Add 1 Tbsp boiling water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 1 Tbsp cold water. Add a drop or two of any food coloring that you desire, and stir. Use a straw to fill the iris craters by first dipping one end of the straw into the liquid. Then, place your thumb over the other end of the straw to trap the liquid in the straw. Release the liquid from the straw into the iris until it is filled. The iris will solidify in the refrigerator within minutes.

Making the Pupil in the Eye:

Mix the following food colors in a small bowl: 2 drops red, 1 drop blue, and one drop green.  Dip the end of a toothpick into this mixture. Jab the toothpick into the middle of the iris. Repeat the process until the pupil is large enough to see.

Making the Bloodshot Eye Effect:

Drop a few drops of red food coloring onto a plate. Take a cotton ball or a Q-tip and loosen the fibers so that they look frayed. Dip the cotton lightly into the food coloring. Lightly dab the white part of the eyeball until the desired effect is achieved.

Thanks to Ghoulgirl for this great recipe!

This caught my eye and my heart the other day. At first I was very excited by the idea of the Broomba, but then I realized that it is in fact just a Halloween decoration. We’ve all heard of the Roomba, right? The self-propelled vacuum? Well, I have hardwood floors and those don’t work well on them. I know, they say they do, but they don’t. When I saw this I thought: Yay! A self-propelled broom. Of course I didn’t stop to think how that would work. Anyway, once I realized this was not what I thought it was I was still happy. A haunted broom. It is sound-activated, so everyone will be surprised when it starts moving around cackling and playing creepy music. They also automatically change direction when they hit something. So, at your next Halloween party have a bunch of these scattered around and they’ll be moving around and banging into things constantly. It would be a riot. Unfortunately these have sold out for the season. I read that they were so popular that they will probably bring them back next year. Now if only it actually did sweep up the cat hair it would be perfect.

Throughout the month of October I start watching all of the scary movies that I love. There are many of them to get through before Halloween night hits. It’s not that I don’t watch scary movies all year round, but I like to watch all of my favorites at this time of the year. Of course the month always culminates in watching Halloween on Halloween night after the trick or treaters are done ringing the door. It is important to note that I love only the original Halloween. The new Rob Zombie Halloween was way too gory for me and didn’t give me the same chills that the original one does. I did actually like that they put a little more back story on the new one. It made it interesting to see what they thought had turned Michael into a monster. On the other hand that actually took some of the scariness away from the story. I don’t think I need to know that Michael had a bad childhood. It’s more scary to not understand how he became this way. Why can’t they leave the classic movies alone? There are thousands of books published every year. Why not pick out something more original? I’m still angry that they remade Psycho. I actually like Vince Vaughn a lot, but the new Psycho sucked big time and Anne Heche was horrible casting. That idiot couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. Anyway, everyone seems to have their favorite scary movie that they pull out on Halloween. Let me know what your favorite is. I also just love to watch Hocus Pocus with my daughter every year, so tell me your favorite family Halloween movie too. I want to compile a list of must watch scary movies and lets face it I want to see if there are any that I haven’t seen or forgotten about.

A few weeks ago a reader told me about putting a ring of ghosts around a tree. Years ago I saw this as well, but did not think it was scary enough, so I created my own version. This has become probably the most successful and popular decoration we do in our yard. The problem we ran into was that the tree we had in our front yard was in a corner, so no way to put a ring of anything around it. So we came up with putting a large black plastic cauldron in the center. Inside we put one of those small flaming pot lights. You can also just use dry ice inside or a small fogger. Next we bought six strong garden stakes about 48″ long and six 6-8″ Styrofoam balls. We then put the stakes in the ground and pushed the Styrofoam balls onto the tops of the stakes to look like a head. I personally did not think the white fabric was all that scary, so I found some cheap black cloth at the fabric store and bought six yards. I think it cost $1.99/yd. I cut the fabric into six pieces and then draped each head and stake with it. Not completely over their head like a ghost, but more of hooded cloak. Once I figured out how I wanted the fabric to sit I glued it down to the heads. I then safety pinned the fabric right below the head and then a couple more times all the way down to keep the fabric closed. I pulled up a corner from each one and then the one next to it and tied them together. This makes them look like they are holding hands. When I was done I also added some small cuts to the bottoms of the fabric, so it looked tattered. We then decided this wasn’t scary enough and wanted some sort of creepy music. We ended up downloading some scary sounding monk chanting onto a CD. We hid a CD player in the bushes, turned on the flaming cauldron and ta da creepy Devil Worshipers. Later we decided to spray paint the Styrofoam balls black, which made it look even scarier. Every year we pull this out and it is by far the one thing we get the most comments on. I even get a little chill when I walk by and hear the moaning chanting monks. Thanks Beautiful Kind for reminding me of this project.

I’m not a big fan of those plastic Scene Setter things in general. You know, the fake-looking pictures of bookcases and skeletons sitting on sofas that you put on a wall? They never look realistic. They are kind of the lazy man’s Halloween decoration. For those of you that use them here’s a question: Do you ever have someone walk up to one and try to take something off the shelf? Does anyone ever try to sit down on that sofa next to the skeleton? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Well, unless they’re drunk, I guess. That would be pretty funny actually. I might use one then if I knew some of my guests have a tendency to drink too much. Otherwise no. Now this Sound and Lights Witch Door Decor is a different animal all together. This is really cool and I would totally hang this up. First off, it looks scary which is already far and above the traditional scene setters. Secondly, it has motion activated sound and lights. The sounds are of a witch laughing and cackling and the eyes light up. Yes, I realize no one will mistakenly try to walk down the hall through the door. Unless of course there is liquor involved then anything can happen. For $14.50 it’s a cheap decoration that really sets a mood.