EASY-BAKE COVEN: GARGOYLE TONGUES By Punkin Nightshade

Hey, y'all. This is Petronella Nightshade, what am called Punkin, speakin to you through this computer blog, and today I am doin the Easy-Bake Coven. It's come to my noticin that folks like finger foods at Halloween parties, but Halloween parties for humans ain't the same as some of the ones in Morlock Heights, where you might be served real lady fingers instead of them little cake things. So I got up with our Mad Doctor, and asked him about finger foods what humans was likely to eat. Well, Mad Doc likes salsa and tortilla chips, and I swan he'll eat him a bait of them ever time he gets a chance, so I got to dabblin in the kitchen and come up with today's recipe, called Gargoyle Tongues. This here is real, real simple and don't take no time.

What's In It:4 soft corn or flour tortillas (or more if you are servin a lot of folk)
1/2 teaspoon of chili powder (or cajun seasonin, or cumin, or whatever is your favorite kind of hot spice)
1 cup finely shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (again, use more if you are servin a lot of folk)
1/8 cup chopped black olives
3 tablespoons salsa

What You Got To Do:Preheat the oven up to 450 degrees.

Sprinkle your hot spice evenly over your tortillas and rub it to coat them, then cut them into 4 wedges each.

Coat up a bakin sheet with some cookin spray and arrange your wedges on it, then sprinkle them with the cheese and olives. Bake them about 4 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, then top them off with a little bit of the salsa in the center (about 1/2 teaspoon per wedge). Serve these up on a servin tray or large platter.

Now of course these ain't real gargoyle tongues, as humans would not want to eat somethin made out of stone and bust up all their teeth, but they are right tasty. This here makes about sixteen Tongues, but it can be doubled up or even tripled up to make as many of them as you want.

So I am done here, and hope you are all enjoyin The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween. I shall be back soon with more cookin and such, and may blessings be on you and yours!

Sincerely,
Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade

THE LEGACY OF BOBBY "BORIS" PICKETT By John Rose

Welcome back to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and today's post is about a true icon of Halloween; the man who gave Halloween its own song of the season. That man is Bobby "Boris" Pickett, and the song, of course, is "Monster Mash."

Bobby "Boris" Pickett was born Robert George Pickett in Somerville, Massachusetts on February 11, 1940. Bobby had an idyllic childhood, all things considered; his father managed a movie theatre in Somerville, and the young Bobby received firsthand influences from such iconic actors as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, whom he idolized after seeing them respectively in Frankenstein and Dracula. At age nine, he began regularly imitating the voice of Karloff.

The monster kid grew up, and following an Army discharge in 1961, Pickett went to Los Angeles to try breaking into show business. Singing in nightclubs with a group called The Cordials, Pickett did impersonations to entertain the audiences between songs, and the Karloff voice naturally crept in. A particular crowd favorite was a version of "Little Darlin'" as done by Karloff, and his friend Lenny Capizzi suggested writing a novelty song around the Karloff voice. "Monster Mash" was written by Pickett and Capizzi in 1962.

The two approached Gary Paxton, who had sung lead on the Hollywood Argyles' hit "Alley Oop," to record and produce the song. Pianist Leon Russell played on the recording (done in one take), and many of the now-famous sound effects in the song were done by Pickett himself: the creaking door that begins the song is simply a nail wrenched from a board, while the bubbling lab effects are Pickett blowing into a cup of water with a straw. Pickett also appeared on chains, though not backed by baying hounds as the song describes, and Paxton styled the record as being by "Bobby 'Boris' Pickett And The Crypt Kickers."

When the record was finished, Paxton shopped it to four major labels, all of whom turned it down. Undaunted, Paxton pressed a thousand copies himself on his own Garpax label and began delivering them to radio stations across California. Eight weeks later, the Mash hit number one on October 20, 1962, and London Records, who had rejected the song, called Paxton to sign a deal.

The Mash re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 in both 1970 and 1973, and has since become the national anthem of Halloween. Pickett himself continued to write monster-themed songs, having a minor hit with a Christmas-themed version of the Mash called "Monster's Holiday," but none could match the success of his original. Nonetheless, Pickett was in demand for both Halloween performances and oldies shows, and even wrote two musicals with television writer Sheldon Allman (who created his own novelty horror album entitled Sing Along With Drac). One of these, entitled Frankenstein Unbound, was eventually made into Monster Mash The Movie in 1995, by the co-writers of the Disney/Pixar hit Toy Story.

Pickett died in 2007 of complications from leukemia, but his gift to Halloween lives on. One might consider him an "oft-sung" hero, since the Monster Mash still receives airplay at Halloween and is now a part of pop culture. Perhaps the largest nod of all came when Jerry Only, after taking the helm of seminal horror-punk band The Misfits, included the song in dynamically supercharged form as part of the 2003 album Project 1950.

Return with us tomorrow for The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and when you get to our door, tell 'em Boris sent you...

POST-MORTEM: Bobby "Boris" Pickett's website is still maintained at http://www.themonstermash.com. In pace requiescat.

Review Of THE MONSTER SQUAD: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION By Frankie Franken

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! Today I'm reviewing something we probably should have let you know about a little earlier, but now is probably even better since it's close to Halloween. After a long, long time unseen and unaired, the NBC cult-classic series The Monster Squad is now out on DVD in a 2-disc collection.

Bethany had reviewed the popular cult movie of the same name a while back, but there were some fans of this series who originally thought that it would be a movie based on this TV series, which ran for one season in 1976 on NBC's Saturday morning lineup. The Monster Squad is the story of Walt (Fred Grandy, who was also on The Love Boat and later became a member of the U.S. House Of Representatives for Iowa--such a checkered career!), a criminology student who works at a local wax museum, specifically in the Chamber Of Horrors. Walt builds a large crime computer in a nearby sarcophagus, which turns out to be a triumph of Mad Science, as the computer's oscillating vibrations bring to life the statues of Frankenstein (Michael Lane), Dracula (Henry Polic II) and the Werewolf (Buck Kartalian). Wanting to make up for being "hated and feared for centuries" due to all their wrongful deeds, the monsters join with Walt to create the Monster Squad, a supernatural crimefighting crew that investigates and defeats various supervillains. The show was created by Stanley Ralph Ross, who had written for the Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward.

While this show is definitely a product of the 1970's, and very cheaply made (the same storefront set is used over and over again in nearly all the episodes), it retains a certain goofy charm that more than makes up for its shortcomings. It's just fun, and not meant to be taken too seriously at all. Plus, the villains end up being the stars on occasion, as most of the baddies are played by such noted character actors as Avery Schreiber, Alice Ghostley, Vito Scotti, Marty Allen and Julie Newmar (who herself was the villain Catwoman on Batman). The other Grrls and I even found ourselves enjoying the monsters; though I don't really care for Creatures being displayed as dumb (and you can understand why), Michael Lane's version of Frankenstein is so good-natured and sweet that it made up for my usual dislike of such things. And we really liked the monsters being presented as the good guys for once. (Hey, monsters are good guys--and good Grrls, too!)

This show also has the distinction of being a really big influence on our Mad Doctor, who watched it fervently as a monster-kid and is enjoying having it again. Pick up The Monster Squad if you want something a little different for Halloween, and try pairing it with the Monster Squad movie for a cool mix of creeps and silliness!

I have to go now, but don't forget to come back tomorrow for our next post on The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! See you there!

Sincerely,
Francesca "Frankie" Franken

POST-MORTEM: Get your copy of The Monster Squad at Amazon.com by clicking here.

THE HISTORY OF TRICK OR TREAT By John Rose

Welcome back to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and today I thought we'd investigate some Halloween customs. Probably the best known of these is the custom of trick-or-treat, which is part of what Halloween really is about.

Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve, is the precursor to Hallowmas or All Saints' Day, normally observed on November 1. The custom of trick-or-treating has its roots in a late medieval practice conducted by the poor, known as souling. On Hallowmas, poor people would go from door to door and beg for food in exchange for prayers for the dead on All Souls' Day, which was celebrated on November 2. While this practice originated in Ireland and Britain, similar practices were also found as far south as Italy.

However, though many Celtic peoples such as Scots, Irish and English would eventually emigrate to America, the practice of souling did not become known in North America until many generations later, when a 1911 Kingston, Ontario newspaper noted that it was commonplace for young children to go street guising on Halloween in the early dusk. The children would dress up in a disguise and perform a song or rhyme for rewards of candies, fruit and nuts. Trick-or-treating gradually became more widespread as time went on, and evolved into the practice seen on Halloween today. (The trick, of course, was rarely practiced; it was simply more tradition than threat.) In 1950, five schoolchildren in Pennsylvania collected money during Halloween trick-or-treating to help children in post-World War II Europe, and donated the money to the United Nations' Childrens' Fund. This began the practice of Trick Or Treat For UNICEF, which is still conducted today, and has now raised over $188 million worldwide.

Today, many people trick-or-treat with their children and friends on Halloween. To help you take part in this old tradition, a few basic tips for trick-or-treat safety are as follows: Always be accompanied by an adult, wear a flame-retardant costume, and carry a working flashlight with you. Map out your route (your whole family should know what it is) and travel in neighborhoods you know (preferably your own). Walk instead of running, only trick-or-treat at houses with the lights on, and never trick-or-treat at strangers' houses. Parents should allow their children to use cell phones if possible and remind them to call home or 911 if there is an emergency, and should also check all their children's candy before allowing them to eat it. And stay away from pets, who can be easily frightened by costumes.

If you follow these basic safety tips, you can be assured of having a happy Halloween, with less tricks and more treats. Be sure to come back tomorrow for the next installment of The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween. We'll see you then, children of the candy corn...

POST-MORTEM: If you are interested in helping out with Trick Or Treat For UNICEF this Halloween season, you can find more information here. And don't forget to tell them the MonsterGrrls sent you!

EASY-BAKE COVEN: GRAVEYARD BROWNIES By Punkin Nightshade

Hey, y'all, this here's Petronella Nightshade, but most everbody calls me Punkin, and today I am presentin the Easy-Bake Coven for our 31 Days Of Halloween. Today I was thinkin that brownies would be a nice treat for a Halloween party, and so this here is Graveyard Brownies, which uses a basic brownie recipe but has got a little bit of a Halloween feel to it. This is also a homemade brownie recipe, but of course some folks has not got time to do homemade as everythin nowadays is all fast-paced and whatnot, so I reckon this will work just as fine with your favorite brownie mix if you are pressed for time. Just be sure you follow the package directions.

What's In It:
12 Vienna Fingers Cookies (or other similarly shaped oval cookies)
5 eggs
2 sticks of softened unsalted butter
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional: tubes of decorating frosting and gel, green cake frosting, crushed chocolate cookie crumbs

What You Got To Do:Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and grease up a 9x13-inch pan. Combine the chocolate and butter in a double boiler and heat it over simmerin water till it’s all melted. Take it off the heat and hold aside.

Beat your eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer at high speed for 10 minutes. Turn your speed down to low and add in the chocolate-butter mix and the vanilla, and blend it all together. Add the flour and salt and mix till everythin is all combined.

Pour the batter into the greased pan and bake it up for 30-35 minutes, or until the edges are dry but the center is still soft.

Now here’s what you need the cookies for: they are goin to be the gravestones. When you take the pan out of the oven, press the Vienna Fingers into the brownies so that they stand up like little gravestones. Space them out evenly, mind, so that when you cut the brownies up for servin, each piece will have one gravestone cookie. Let them cool for 20 minutes before you cut and serve them. If you are feelin artistic and such you can use tubes of decoratin frostin or gel to write R.I.P. on the cookies before stickin them in the brownies, or put some green frostin and chocolate cookie crumbs (for grave dirt) on top of the brownies to make them look more graveyardish.

So I am done here, and hope you all enjoy this recipe from the Easy-Bake Coven. Don’t forget to serve these with tall glasses of cold milk, and I shall see you all next time for the 31 Days Of Halloween cause I am goin to have me a Graveyard Brownie right now. Blessings be on all of you this Halloween!

Sincerely, Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade

THE HAUNTED MANSION: FORTY YEARS OF FRIGHT By Bethany Ruthven

Good evening, darlings, and thank you for reading. Welcome to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween for 2009 (should you be just joining us) and welcome also to the first of our Haunted Mansion Mondays. This venerable institution is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, so today we shall enlighten you on the history of this fine old place.

When Walt Disney first began conceiving Disneyland, artist Harper Goff sketched an old haunted house on a hill overlooking Main Street as part of the concept drawing. Though this house never became part of the Disneyland that opened in 1955, a New-Orleans-themed area was planned shortly after its opening that contained a thieves' market, a pirate wax museum and a haunted house walkthrough. Imagineer Ken Anderson was assigned to work on the haunted house, and his first concept sketch of a distended antebellum mansion was met with praise by other Disney artists but panned by Walt himself, who did not like the idea of a run-down house within his clean and sparkling wonderworld. (As Walt said, "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside.")

The exterior of the Mansion was completed in 1963, but the Mansion would not open for another six years due to several story conflicts and Disney's heavy involvement in the 1963-64 New York World's Fair. With Disney's death in 1966, the Mansion underwent a massive redesign. Designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats were in constant disagreement over whether the Mansion should be scary or funny; in the end, designer X Atencio stepped in and combined both men's work to create a frightening and shadowy old house that nonetheless harbored a company of silly spooks and comical creeps within its aging walls. The walkthrough idea was abandoned when the Omnimover system used in Disney's Adventure Thru Inner Space ride at Tomorrowland was added to the Mansion and renamed the Doom Buggies. Built in such a way that the viewer can only see what is in front of him, and able to rotate a full 360 degrees, the Doom Buggies were a significant evolutionary stage for the Mansion.

On August 12, 1969, the Haunted Mansion was opened to the general public, bringing in record crowds. The attraction was so popular that when Disney expanded to build theme parks in Florida, Tokyo and Paris, the Haunted Mansion was included. It was an opening-day attraction in 1971 at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, and would become the Phantom Manor for Disneyland Paris. Clearly, this stately manse continues to hold much fascination for all its guests (one of which was a certain Mad Scientist of our acquaintance), and we MonsterGrrls are delighted to salute the Haunted Mansion. Cheers to all the Grim Grinning Ghosts within!

Do return next week for our next installment of Haunted Mansion Mondays, and of course, we hope to see you tomorrow for The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween. Why, it's almost as if your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding...

Regards,
Bethany Ruthven

NEW GHASTLY ONES EP AVAILABLE OCTOBER 15 By Harriet Von Lupin

Hi there, and Happy Halloween! Welcome back to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween for 2009! This is Harriet Von Lupin reporting with some news from our favorite haunted-house rockers The Ghastly Ones--they've got a new EP coming out on October 15th!

I had reported last year on these guys, and lately they've been real busy playing lots of shows and even rocking the Blast Off Festival in England last July, but now they're back from their graves and ready to rock! The new EP is called Gears 'N Ghoulfinks, and it's four brand new songs from the Ghastly Ones just in time for Halloween, and two of these songs are a preview of their new album coming out next year! Also, the EP will be available only on vinyl, so get those old turntables out and get 'em ready for your own listening party!

More information on this cool band can be found at their website here, and don't forget to pick up their previous albums Unearthed and Target: Draculon for your Halloween party music!

And that's all for that! See you tomorrow for more of The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! OW-WOOOOOO!!!!

Harriet Von Lupin

HAPPY HAUNTS MATERIALIZE By Frankie Franken

Hello, everybody! Gosh, can you believe it's time for Halloween again? Welcome to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and today I'm reporting on something special from one of our favorite places--the Walt Disney Haunted Mansion, which has turned 40 years old this year!

When Disneyland opened the Haunted Mansion in 1969, the event was commemorated by the release of a special album from Disneyland Records, The Story And Song From The Haunted Mansion. Featuring Thurl Ravenscroft as the Narrator, the album told the story of two teenagers, Mike (Ron Howard*) and Karen (Robie Lester) who become trapped in the Mansion and are conducted by the Ghost Host (Pete Renoudet) on a spooky tour of the house and grounds, meeting Madame Leota (Eleanor Audley, who also voices Leota in the Mansion itself) and viewing the wild graveyard party where all the happy haunts sing a rousing chorus of the Mansion's theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts." This album was intended as a promotion for the Mansion, but it became a cherished childhood memory for many attendees to Disneyland, and was eventually reissued in 1998 on cassette as A Spooky Night In Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Now the original Haunted Mansion album from 1969 has just been reissued in CD form! That's right, Disney has put out a brand-spanking new CD release of The Story And Song From The Haunted Mansion, and just in time for Halloween, too! This cool CD not only has the story booklet painted by Disney artist Colin Campbell (which was included with the original 1969 album), but a special enhanced feature of the CD showcases Campbell's original paintings, and even allows you to print the images from your computer to create your own ghostly gallery! And as a bonus track, the official Disneyland Park version of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" is included too! Wow, what a groovy Halloween treat for all Haunted Mansion fans both past and present!

To celebrate the Haunted Mansion's 40th Anniversary, The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween will showcase the Mansion in Haunted Mansion Mondays! Each Monday we'll do a special feature on this cool attraction, which is a must-see if you go to any Disney theme park. So be here each Monday for Haunted Mansion Mondays, and don't forget to grab yourself a copy of the new Haunted Mansion CD for Halloween!

We'll be back tomorrow with more of The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, so see you then!

Sincerely,
Francesca "Frankie" Franken

POST-MORTEM: The Story And Song From The Haunted Mansion can be found at Amazon.com, purveyor of all fine things in this world or the Netherworld. To get your copy, click our title link above.

*Yes, that Ron Howard. --F.F.

EASY-BAKE COVEN: PUMPKIN DIP By Punkin Nightshade

Well, Happy Halloween, y'all, and welcome to the 2009 Edition of The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! My name's Petronella Nightshade, what am called Punkin by my friends, and since you's all friends you shall know me so. Me and the other Grrls and Mr. John what's our Mad Doctor was all talkin about what we was goin to do for this year's 31 Days, and I allowed as how I thought we ought to do some cookin.

Us witches is privy to plenty arcane knowledge and whatnot, but one thing what makes any witch worth her broom is her cookin. And somethin I was noticin was that there's a whole lot of witchly folk out there what is showin folks how to do good eats real quick and simple, such as that Martha Stewart, who I swan is an Elder Witch in somebody's coven if ever I seen one, and that Paula Deen, who reminds me a lot of the witch what runs the pastry shop round WitchHazel Township. So with cookin bein a magic all its own and bein taught to folks again, I am doin the Easy-Bake Coven, which will show y'all some treats you can make for Halloween parties, coven meetins, friendly gatherins, and all kind of merry socializin.

First thing I'm showin is this Pumpkin Dip, what turns up at a lot of the Mad Doctor's Halloween parties. It's real quick to do and right good eatin with gingersnaps and apple slices as accomp'niment, and is one of them recipes what don't take no time to make but makes folks think you spent a whole lot of time on it.

What's In It:
2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
1 box of powdered sugar, sifted
1 can of pumpkin
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger (or 3 teaspoons apple pie spice)
1/2 teaspoon (or more) ground cloves
Dash of nutmeg
I teaspoon vanilla flavoring

What You Got To Do:Cream together the cream cheese and powdered sugar. (For them that don't know cookin, 'cream' means to blend it all up till it's real smooth and creamy.)
Stir in the pumpkin and all the flavorins, makin sure to stir them all in smooth. Then chill it in the icebox (or refrigerator) till it's time for your gatherin. You can serve this in a pretty bowl with your apple slices and gingersnaps arranged round it real fancy. Graham crackers is good with it too.

So I am done here, and blessings be on you and yours for this Halloween season. We'll be back tomorrow with more of The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween, and I shall be back soon with another recipe from the Easy-Bake Coven if I am not doin somethin else.

Sincerely,
Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade
POST-MORTEM: I am sayin thanks muchly to Mistress Sandi Wheatley, who shared this recipe with us for the 31 Days Of Halloween. Y'all enjoy! --P.N.

BETTER HAUNTS AND GHOUL-DENS: SHAWN AND LYNNE MITCHELL'S HOW TO HAUNT YOUR HOUSE

Welcome, foolish mortals, to The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! We're glad to be back for 2009, and extremely proud to present our favorite new home decorating book as the first post for our 2009 Edition--How To Haunt Your House, written by Shawn and Lynne Mitchell.

The Mitchells are a husband-wife team of accomplished artists and home-haunting enthusiasts from Pensacola, Florida, who spend every Halloween turning the front yard of their home into The Mitchell Cemetery, which has become a popular Halloween attraction in Pensacola. The Mitchell Cemetery was featured in Fearnet.com's 2007 series Route 666: America's Scariest Haunted Houses, and won Best Yard Haunt for 2007 from the Haunt X Awards (an awards series for home haunters). Now the Mitchells have compiled their mad science into a self-published book entitled How To Haunt Your House, which was released this year. There are already mutterings of a second volume of how-to's planned for 2010.

Folks, this book is nothing less than a skeleton key to the Haunted Mansion. The beautiful photographs of the Mitchells' work, as well as their clear, concise step-by-step instructions for turning your own domicile into a Dream Spookhouse to be reckoned with, makes this terrorific tome a must-have for the Halloween decorator. It shows you how to construct tombstones, cemetery fences, and small details such as fence finials and so forth using simple items such as PVC pipe, styrofoam and hot glue. You can build such items as an endless mausoleum, a perpetually-drinking ghoul fountain, your own Pepper's-Ghost effect (still used in the Disneyland Haunted Mansion to this day), working prop candles from PVC pipe and hot glue, and any number of tombstones that look miles better than the cheap stuff at discount stores. The Mitchells also have a website, www.howtohauntyourhouse.com, where this book can be purchased. The site also contains pictures and videos of the Mitchells' nutty doings and lots of cool downloads (one of which is a fantastic pattern for a seance-board tabletop!) for your own experiments and spooky doings.

We just can't say enough good things about this book. If you have an itch to create your own spookhouse for Halloween but don't know where to begin, this book is the item to have as a starting point--simple, precise, and absolutely amazing. Get your copy now.

If you're in the Pensacola area on October 31, the Mitchell Cemetery will be open from dusk until 10:30 p.m. at 6701 Penton Street, Pensacola, Florida.

To see the Mitchells' very beautiful fine art, check out their main website at www.rabbitholeproductions.com.

IT'S THE GHOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR...

Once again we announce our seasonal soiree of spooky statements for the 2009 Halloween season--The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween! That's right, folks, we're returning from the Monster Shop with even more daily news, reviews, essays and so forth for the Ghost Wonderful Time Of The Year, written by the Mad Doctor and the Grrls themselves!

Also, Punkin will report regularly in October with the Easy-Bake Coven, a series of darkly delightful recipes for various Halloween treats to serve at parties, gatherings, coven meetings, or just any old time this month! It all starts October 1st, so come on in... it's getting dark outside...

A FIELD GUIDE TO MONSTERS By John Rose

So a friend of mine and I took off for Jackson, as we needed to get out of the small town we live in for awhile. We made the rounds of our favorite shopping spots and visited Jason's Deli for a muffuletta, which for the uninitiated is a splendid Italian creation of ham, hard salami, provolone and olive salad dressing that has to be God's original design for the ham and cheese sandwich. (Some of it went home with us. For later.)

On our way out of Jackson we stopped in Ridgeland to visit the newly relocated Barnes & Noble, which has gone from its former nondescript shopping center location on County Line Road to being the crux of a huge, bold, and above all expensive neo-Renaissance Stepfordian complex, which all Sweet Potato Queens are sure to go gaga over, and probably have. But no amount of exquisitely constructed fake architecture can subvert the monster quest for long, and it was in B&N that we discovered A Field Guide To Monsters, written by Dave Elliott, C. J. Henderson and Rick Leider.

Purporting to be an expansion of a pamphlet originally written by Abraham Van Helsing, the Field Guide To Monsters is written and created in the style of a modern field guide, with useful proportional scales and classic photographs of each subject, an intelligence gauge (represented by brains) and full disclosure on all traits, abilities, weaknesses and so forth. Not content to just mention traditional or classic movie monsters (though all the favorites are here in various incarnations), the Guide includes a full complement of modern ones as well, including the Serial Five (Jason, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface and Hannibal Lecter), the Serial Wanna-Bes (Candyman, Pinhead, and Horace "Shocker" Pinker), Buffy's Vampires (Angel, Spike and The Master, who is unfortunately misrepresented by a photo of the Gentlemen from the episode "Hush"), separate entries for "Zombies" and "The Living Dead" (as it should be), the often-excluded entry for Dragons, and for some reason, Shrek. However, no Sweet Potato Queens are mentioned.

There is a lot of snarky humor in the Guide, which most of this book's reviewers on Amazon had a problem with, but I say that if you are in the midst of a pack of roving werewolves who are trying to tear you apart, it does you good to laugh. Also, the book is sturdily assembled, so if worse comes to worse you can smack them with it, which is a technique that also works well with Sweet Potato Queens.

A Field Guide To Monsters is available here at Barnes And Noble in its 2008 edition for the nice price of $7.98. The 2004 edition can be found at Amazon here. Buy a copy now, for the life you save may well be your own.

DISCLAIMER: No Sweet Potato Queens were harmed in the writing of this post.

Yet.

WHEN LOVE GOES HORRIBLY WRONG: A FEW DARK TREATS FOR VALENTINE'S DAY By Bethany Ruthven

Good evening, darlings, and thank you for reading. Someone once asked me if it is possible for vampires to love; the answer is yes, often to our detriment. We unlive for so long (vampire hunters, crazed priests, and foolhardy heroic souls notwithstanding) that we often lose those we love to simple mortality, or because they resent our rather flawed eternal youth. Such is the reason I have refused to sire anyone; a vampire's immortality is not worth the price. That being said, I do believe very strongly in love, and understand its necessity in the world.

Valentine's Day, however, is entirely another story. I would sooner give an over-the-top Arbor Day celebration than waste one moment on this truly miserable and wretched holiday, which serves not only to line the coffers of candy makers, greeting card sellers and flower merchants but also tears love from its lofty pedestal and reduces it to a miserable, crippled, blind animal crawling on all fours. Worse yet, it strips the spontaneity and joy of love away and places would-be and longstanding lovers in horrid thrall to one another, viciously pressuring them to make everything just exactly right, or else all is lost. But Valentine's Day reserves a special hell for those who are alone, forcing them to experience the cruelty and misery of watching those happy couples in celebration, look in vain for their own significant other, and feel the twist in the heart at finding no one there.

As you can see, I feel very strongly about this.

However, much of the traditional wretchedness of this annoying season has been dulled somewhat by the movement in recent years of like-minded friends (i.e. Valentine's Day Scrooges such as myself) gathering to celebrate their own friendship for the day, and if you are inclined to watch a movie, I present here a number of cinematic pleasures for Valentine's Day, with our own special monstrous flavor. (As it were.)

First up is a pair of traditional favorites recommended by my Grrl-friend and colleague Frankie Franken, The Bride Of Frankenstein from Universal Pictures and Hammer Studios' Frankenstein Created Woman. While neither are love stories per se, TBOF does look into the theme of the Creature's longing for acceptance and a friend. Of course, love is fickle, as the eventually created Bride spurns the Creature, leading to her own destruction at the hands of same. (Sometimes love hurts.) Frankenstein Created Woman is another chapter from Hammer's Dr. Frankenstein cycle, in which the good doctor (Peter Cushing) revives a disfigured woman named Christine (Susan Denberg) and transfers the soul of her wrongfully murdered lover Hans (Robert Morris) into her body. The resuscistated Christine/Hans, of course, immediately takes revenge on their murderers. I can also recommend 1985's The Bride, which eschews James Whale's ham-handed notions of sexual satire for a more satisfying ending to the legend of the Bride, as Eva (Jennifer Beals) and the Creature (Clancy Brown) reunite in the climax.

Of course, young love is all the rage on Valentine's Day, and one movie that stands out in this respect is Carrie, based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King. Tormented daily by unpleasant classmates and her own religiously zealous mother, Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) finally wreaks a terrible revenge on her entire school after her discovery of telekinetic abilities, but not before discovering kindness and love from a remorseful Sue Snell (Amy Irving) who sets up her boyfriend Tommy Ross (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom. Despite Carrie's being elected prom queen, her telekinetic abilities are set in motion by the vengeful and spoiled Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), who has plotted a terrible prank involving a bucket of pig's blood. The resulting (and quite wasteful, to my eyes) denouement sets off an unparalleled wave of destruction for everyone who has ever hurt Carrie. This watershed of the horror genre, while very much a product of its time, has many universal themes of acceptance, redemption, vengeance, and longing for same. Carrie was remade in 2002, starring Angela Bettis in the title role; either is worth watching but the 2002 version follows King's novel much more closely than it's predecessor.

For those who require something geared to the holiday, I have 1981's My Bloody Valentine and 2001's Valentine. The Monster Shop can properly recommend neither as both are slasher films, but MBV is regarded as a cult classic and an example of Hollywood's attempts after the success of Halloween and Friday The 13th to create a number of holiday-themed horror films. MBV is the story of a mining town called Valentine Bluffs, whose claim to horror fame is its legend of Harry Warden, a miner who was trapped in a shaft collapse and went mad, exacting a bloody Valentine's Day revenge on his guilty crew foremen and threatening a return to Valentine Bluffs if the holiday was ever celebrated again. Naturally, several years later some kids decide it's time to hold a Valentine's day dance, and, well, you can guess the rest. Despite it being a summarily convoluted and thoroughly unscary movie, we in the Monster Shop hold a certain soft spot in our hearts for Valentine, which stars David Boreanaz of Angel and Bones fame and is the story of a young middle-school outcast who is beaten and humiliated at a Valentine's Day dance and plots revenge on the five girls who rejected him. Though the resulting film plays out much like Slasher Flick 90210, this is the only horror film we have found whose masked killer gets a massive nosebleed right before committing murder.

Finally, we present one absolutely fabulous movie: May, starring Angela Bettis in the title role and directed by Lucky McKee. May is the story of a poorly socialized young lady with a lazy eye whose attempts to create relationships within her life go terribly awry, further confusing and demoralizing her to the point that her misgivings explode into full-blown psychosis. Within each of those relationships, she has been attracted to some physical feature about the person, so when she goes off the deep end, May thus begins to collect the body parts she admires from the various people she has sought friendship from in hopes of creating the perfect friend... and McKee and Bettis have subsequently created the perfect Valentine's Day horror movie. Wrong in all the right ways, May deserves to be included within our soiree of savagery.

So there we are. And if I have offended anyone with my remarks about this holiday, please be advised that although it is never my intention to offend the general public, where Valentine's Day is concerned I really don't care if I have. Do enjoy these tastes of horror dark-chocolate on this day, and remember that love comes in many forms not requiring a small naked winged child with a quiver of arrows. (Honestly, those ancient Greeks were clever souls, but once in a while anyone can throw a wobbler.)

Regards,
Bethany Ruthven