Season of Shadows Blog » Zombies

Alice, Sweet Alice

John Wolfe — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:17:47 +0000

Last year, when Ethan Black was super generous in giving some of his Halloween artwork to Season of Shadows for a giveaway, he went above and beyond by presenting me with his original, amazing zombie piece, called “Alice.” For a year, I’d been drooling over a pic of Alice the way most men slobber over a centerfold model. Ethan eventually got wind of my infatuation with his zombie-ette (I think that’s the politically correct term for a female zombie), and slipped her into the giveaway goodie box without my knowing it. One of the best surprises I’ve ever received; there was all this great artwork waiting to be given to SoS visitors and mixed in with it was a note from Ethan saying Alice was all mine — talk about being bowled over!

It’s just such a great piece — hands down my all-time favorite when it comes to graveyard, zombie-corpse artwork. Looks as if it jumped right out of the pages of a wonderful old dark, comic magazine like “Creepy” or “Eerie!” I have plans to one day get some Season of Shadows t-shirts printed with Alice gracing the front, though Ethan has tried to talk me out of using the image, because the t-shirt would have to be a non-spooky white color. Sorry, Ethan, but I still have tunnel vision when it comes to having “her” incredible image represent SoS clothing — even if the shirts are white and just a limited printing as giveaways to all the great folks who visit regularly.

What can I say, I’m obsessed with Alice. Anyway, for now, she sits framed, overlooking my desk, until I can get her displayed on the threads of my willing visitors.

If you haven’t swung by yet, be sure and checkout Ethan’s cool, new blog.

Also, if you’re a fan of old horror films, you’ll recognize my word play in today’s post title. A bit of trivia: The movie, Alice, Sweet Alice, dates back to 1976 and was one of Brooke Shields first films.

Related Posts

Yard Haunters

Bob’s Burgers: Zombie Lovin’

John Wolfe — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:47:00 +0000

Recently I’ve become hooked on Fox’s new animated series, Bob’s Burgers. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about a screwball family and their adventures running a hamburger joint. So far my favorite episode was week two’s “Crawl Space.” Overall, the entire episode was pretty funny, but the part that cracked me up the most was when Tina (Bob’s oldest daughter) makes a weird confession regarding her nocturnal mashup of Night of the Living Dead and zombie lovin’.

Perhaps a clip is in order to better explain her predicament. This entire vid is about Tina specifically, but her hangup regarding night terrors/confusion over being aroused by zombies begins at the 0:54 mark.

Source: YT user, FoxBroadcasting

If you got a kick out of that, the entire Crawl Space episode is available for the next few weeks at Fox’s site.

Zombie Scare Prank

John Wolfe — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:47:02 +0000

As a little kid I was frequently the recipient of pranks being pulled by a couple of legendary pranksters–my uncle and grandpa. Once I grew old enough to turn the tables, becoming quite creative with my own pranks, they weren’t happy about spending time with me anymore. Combining scary stuff and practical jokes is right up my alley, no wonder today’s vid grabbed my attention immediately!

Source: YT user, billtvshow

Now, a great zombie prank and funny reaction aside, I hope these guys didn’t do anything to harm the grounds of the cemetery ’cause that’s definitely not cool. When Michael Fox says, “…me and Steven are covering up Jason, here in this old grave,” I’m hoping he meant “grave.” It appears that they didn’t do anything to desecrate the location and they simply laid Jason down in a depression, covering him up with leaves.

Halloween’s Sauce-y Undead

John Wolfe — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:35:04 +0000

Got a hankerin’ for a feast of flesh? How ’bout a thirst for some drool from a ghoul? Or perhaps you have a more discriminating palate and you’d prefer chowing down on a less than fresh side dish of death. If that’s the case, some scrapings from a moldy corpse should be just what the mortician ordered. This is the point where backup vocals interrupt my bizarre, morbid descriptions with a, “Shut Your Mouth.” And then I respond with, “I’m just talking about Haunted Hot Sauce.” Once again I’m showing my age, but this time with a “Shaft” reference.

In all seriousness, “FleashFeast,” “Ghoul Drool,” “Mortician’s Mold” and “Undertaker’s Undead” are all hot sauce flavors available at HauntedHotSauce.com. While I’ve only tried Ghoul Drool, I’m positive the other flavors are just as delicious. The creator of Haunted Hot Sauce, Victor “The Undertaker” Ives, is a consummate professional when it comes to creating incredible sauce, not to mention his wonderfully creative eye for detail in marketing and packaging his products.

Each bottle comes in its own creepily cool, hand-made cedar coffin, equipped with moss and fake maggots! In fact, I love my Ghoul Drool’s cedar coffin so much, it still rests on the workbench in my shop for inspiration.

I don’t recommend products very often in my blog entries, but Haunted Hot Sauce is one that I’m very proud to endorse (for free). If you’d like to place an order before Halloween, I’m sure “The Undertaker” can accommodate you.

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.

Zombie Zombie

John Wolfe — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:16:04 +0000

Usually I steer clear of posting anything that contains violent acts — I love spooky stuff, creepy things and suspenseful horror, but I’ve always been unwilling to promote any depictions of violence or gore in my entries. However, tonight’s post does contain a little bit of those elements, but for the most part it’s minimal and only happens between toys.

Zombie Zombie is essentially a stop motion nod to John Carpenter’s The Thing, using G.I. Joe action figures. The sets are amazing in this film and the stop motion action is very impressive, especially considering the limitations of action figure limbs.

Yo Joe! They’re coming to get you (Barbara)!

Source: YT user, JeanCarpentier

Zombie Blood Giveaway

John Wolfe — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:33:24 +0000

Update: 6/5/10 The Zombie Blood Giveaway has closed. Thanks for entering. I’d like to congratulate Andrea of Collinsville, Oklahoma and Gene Savage, also of Collinsville, Oklahoma. They each won a packet of Zombie Blood. I was amazed when Andrea and Gene responded with their shipping info and both happen to live in Collinsville! I guess The Sooner State was hungry for zombie blood.

Since posting this entry yesterday, I’ve been getting A LOT of bogus automated entries and it takes quite a bit of my time to sort out the legit entries from the bogus ones, so I’m shutting down comments on this post and am going to move the location for entering the Zombie Blood Giveaway to another blog entry (check under the Guidelines for Entering section to find the new link). Everyone who entered on this page is accounted for and is entered in the giveaway.

For those of you who were curious about trying Blood Energy Potion, after reading my Drink Some Blood entry, you’re going to love this giveaway. Harcos Laboratories is back with another cool addition to their “Blood” line of energy drinks. But this time their horrific beverage comes from beyond the grave—and they’ve been kind enough to provide me with two pouches to give to two of Season of Shadows visitors.

Loaded with the living dead’s lime-flavored corpuscles, Zombie Blood lends a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘going green.’ Here’s a description of the product straight from the hard working folks at Harcos Labs: “Zombie Blood contains the extra strong green zombie blood cells that helped zombies to become the strongest, most horrifying scourge on the face of our planet. These cells temporarily give you zombie strength in the form of additional energy for sports, long workdays, late night studying, or ironically, killing zombies with a cricket bat.”

In all seriousness, Zombie Blood is a lime-flavored beverage that contains protein, iron, and is a great source of electrolytes. It also contains 80 mg of caffeine (similar to the amount found in drinks like Red Bull). Currently, I have two 100 mL pouches to give to two separate winners, and after speaking with Jon at Harcos Labs, there should be a few more coming my way soon to give out.

A huge thanks to Jon and everyone associated with Harcos Laboratories for their kindness in collaborating on this SOS giveaway. Please, show them some love by checking out their site, Living With Bloodlust, and if you enjoy their product, be sure to recommend Zombie Blood this summer and during the upcoming Halloween season.

Guidelines for Entering

Please, only one entry per household. Duplicate entries from the same IP will be deleted. These giveaways are really based on the honor system, but I do my best to make it as fair as possible for everyone. There’s no catch here, everything is free–including payment of shipping and handling for the “Zombie Blood” pouches–I cover all costs. To be entered, leave a comment showing your interest.

When leaving a comment, be sure to include your correct e-mail address and be certain to keep track of your spam or bulk folder after the drawing closes, just in case. Each winner of the Zombie Blood pouches will be contacted through the e-mail address that’s registered with their comment. I will never share addresses, provided by entrants, with any third parties and you’ll never receive unsolicited mail when entering.

This “Zombie Blood” contest will end at 11:59 PM (Eastern Time) on June 4th, 2010. All legitimate entries will then be assigned a number in the order they were received. Two numbers will be randomly drawn to determine the winners.

Both winners will then be notified, via the email addresses they provided, no later than June 6th. If one, or both don’t respond (with their shipping information) within two weeks, then one (or two) more number(s) will be drawn to determine the new winner(s). Upon receiving their permission, the winners’ names will be featured at the top of this post.

The new post for entering the Zombie Blood Giveaway is under the Haunted Garage entry.

If you would like to see your Halloween/paranormal product, website, or business promoted through SOS, and you have some appropriately themed items to give away, please contact me.

Zombie in the Basement

John Wolfe — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:34:20 +0000

While digging around inside an abandoned home, a young woman “falls” for a zombie-like ghoul in this very cool claymation piece.

Source: YT user, cartoonoctopus

Halloween Groundbreaker Update 6

John Wolfe — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:29:58 +0000

Took some footage an hour ago of the almost finished corpses. The remaining detail work will be spread out over the next three nights.

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for three days, but my absence will continue for a while. There’s still a lot of prep to do for the haunt, but I’ll definitely be here wishing everyone a Happy Halloween on the 31st.

Halloween Groundbreaker Update 5

John Wolfe — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:46:15 +0000

It’s been around ten days since my last Halloween groundbreaker/corpse update. In that time, I’ve added a lot of texture to the front of the skeleton. Once again, I’ve gone with the torn, sinewy look. Of all the techniques and styles of texture I’ve tried during the last three Halloweens, this one has grown on me the most.

Thanks for checking out the update. I’m headed back to the workshop after posting this entry.