Season of Shadows Blog » Costumes

Spirit Halloween Store 2010

John Wolfe — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:09:29 +0000

Spent a few hours in paradise a couple of days ago… well, paradise for a Halloween fanatic anyway. I’m in my mid-30s, yet I still get butterflies just walking through Spirit Halloween’s doors! As always, Chris (the owner of all three Albuquerque Spirit locations) and the employees were tremendously kind and helpful. I can’t say enough nice words about the people who work at my local Spirit shops.

Hope you enjoy the video tour. Just a heads up in case kids are watching alongside you: there’s some colorful language at the end of the vid, but I thought the clip was too funny to not include it (especially for a known potty mouth like me).

Music Source: “Darkly Everafter” from the album Grimm Tales by Nox Arcana

If you happen to be in the Albuquerque area and want to drop by Spirit Halloween, you’ll find them at 4610 Cutler Avenue, NE, (505) 872-2786 and at 1221 South Renaissance Blvd. NE (slated to open on Sept. 13th), (505) 872-2786.

On the west side, Spirit can be found at 10490 Coors Blvd. Bypass NW in the old Circuit City building — sorry, but I don’t have their phone number. If you go to the west side shop, ask for Harold (he’s the “Grim Greeter” in today’s vid entry), he’ll take good care of you.

Old West Costume Party

John Wolfe — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:44:49 +0000

In the process of scanning in some great old photos of Kelly for my ghost town video, I found this very cool Victorian era costume party photo. The shot was taken by Joseph E. Smith (the same man who took all the old Kelly pics) in 1887 at the Garcia Opera House in Socorro, New Mexico, which is about thirty miles from Kelly. I found this one in David R. Phillips book, “The West,” unfortunately, the caption didn’t say if the costume party was held in celebration of Halloween or not.

I had to cut the image down in this entry, but if you click on it, you’ll get the entire photo. While I’ve gotten to see a lot of old photos of costumes from back East, I think this is the first one I’ve ever seen from the Old West.

Halloween Face Paint in Motion

John Wolfe — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:13:28 +0000

Artist James Kuhn, aka bibleartwork on YT, has taken face painting to a whole new level with his amazing creations and the way he displays his work. In the following vids, James has turned himself into an animated canvas portraying Halloween-themed subjects.

A little skeleton action:

Some “Monster Cereal” action:

An Old-Fashioned Hallowe’en

John Wolfe — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:43:50 +0000

An amazing collection of vintage and antique photos and postcards accompany some haunting Celtic stylings in this old-fashioned Halloween vid by YT user, ZombieStomper4.

Unfortunately, ZombieStomper4 didn’t provide information as to where these images came from. However, I happen to know a few of the Halloween postcards are from Flickr user, riptheskull’s collection. And several of the old photographs came from another Flickr user, stevechasmar.

If anyone knows the source(s) for the remaining images, please let me know.

1960s Halloween Memories

John Wolfe — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:14:57 +0000

While I’m still partial to the very rare retro footage from the Halloween Yard Haunt in 8mm entry, I get a huge kick out of seeing any old Halloween films. This particular footage takes us back to the ’60s for a family’s costume and make-up prep, prior to sending the kids out for candy. It also gives a glimpse into the arriving trick-or-treaters and the “loot” the kids return home with at the end of the night.

Keep an eye out for the old black and white television in the background at 0:22 and the candy cigarettes (made to look like “Camels”) at 1:10! I used to love pretending I was taking a drag off of those things, followed by blowing imaginary smoke rings

Source: YT user, edandjanis

FOX 6 Halloween Hijinks

John Wolfe — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:03:48 +0000

I’m notoriously guilty of intentionally avoiding almost all newscasts and newspapers, whether they’re local or national. However, if I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, I’d absolutely be tuning into FOX 6 for Mickey Ferguson’s weather forecasts. Lately, he’s had me cracking up while watching a handful of his videos.

The two I’ve included in this entry came from Mickey’s “Halloween Madness,” but I’ve noticed he doesn’t reserve his comedic antics solely for Halloween week. After watching the station’s You Tube channel, it’s pretty obvious this is a year ’round thing.

In this “Hot Butter” segment, he reminds me of Will Ferrel.

“Halloween Madness” and “Hot Butter” source: YT user, MyFoxAL

On another note, I’d like to congratulate Annamarie D. of Rio Rancho, NM, Joe Fishel of Chicago, IL, and Jayson Nickols of Rowlett, TX. They were winners of the SkulBone Pumpkin Glow tees, which morphed into being the SkulBone Tribal Skull tees, due to unforeseen circumstances. Congratulations, guys, and thanks again for participating!

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Incredible T-Rex Costume

John Wolfe — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:19:40 +0000

Though these videos aren’t specifically about Halloween, I’ve always marveled at highly detailed costumes in the same manner I appreciate great Halloween prop work. This “Baby T-Rex” is a phenomenal creation with amazing detail, right down to textured skin and blinking eyes. The operator’s puppeteerring work, inside the costume, is nothing to sneeze at either.

The Rex is part of the “Walking With Dinosaurs” live animatronic program that’s currently on tour.

Source: YT user, ARfreshprince05

Source: YT user, museumcenter11

I love the kids’ reactions in both vids. You’d think a rock star had entered the building!

For more info on the animatronic tour and live show, visit DinosaurLive.com

Retro Halloween Commercials

John Wolfe — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:27:04 +0000

Both Halloween commercials in this entry are from the old Woolworth/Woolco stores. Ironically, I wore The Incredible Hulk costume featured in this first video, either for Halloween ’78 or ’79. That was probably the last year I ever dressed as anything other than the undead. From that point forward, my motto became “the spookier, the better.”

Video source: You Tube user, Del655

Video source: You Tube user, TurningGreenTV

A parent had to love going costume shopping at Woolco in the 70′s, only to hear their child say, “I wanna be Timmy ‘The Drunk’ for Halloween!”

Halloween in the 1960′s

John Wolfe — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:19:06 +0000

In today’s video entry, You Tube user robertwmartens has presented some old family footage of Halloween during his youth. Robert’s entire montage is sort of a wacky mashup of a lot of great 1960′s Halloween stuff, but the retro film clips of him and his family trick-or-treating are my favorites.

Though I didn’t start foraging for Halloween treats until twelve or so years after this footage was shot, from what I can recall, Halloween costumes looked about the same in the late 70′s.

Spirit Store Footage

John Wolfe — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:22:53 +0000

Last year, I included my Spirit Halloween video footage as part of the Halloween Haunter’s Reality series. This year, I haven’t filmed any Haunter’s Reality episodes because of the new live webcam feed, however, I’ll still be putting videos together between now and October 31st of my non-prop building activities. Hope you enjoy the Spirit Halloween visit.

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