The Undertaker's comin'!

...and don't you forget it!

Haunted Hot Sauce Halloween 2011

Just a few days shots of my small display this year. More than quantity, this year was about lighting and ambiance.

Click Here to see the photos.

Or Click Here to see the fancy slideshow.

OUTSIDE: The entire house was illuminated by three blue spotlights hidden in the trees.

INSIDE: Red spotlights shone through the boarded windows which made the house scream "EEEEEVIL!" I didn't have time to detail the Styrofoam "boards" but that made no difference at night as they appeared as silhouettes when lit from behind.




WITCH JARS: I made a dozen of these quickly the night before Halloween. Hung at varying heights from the huge Magnolia tree and lit with tea lights, they were VERY effective in creating interest, movement, contrast and a ghostly atmosphere.




THE COFFIN UNDER THE STAIRS: Illuminated by a hidden red spotlight from above, inside this coffin is where I hid one of those sound activated "haunted hedge" shakers. Everyone that approached it was greeted by a violent shaking, rattling sound and guttural growls coming from within the coffin. My fog machine dispersed thick fog from under this coffin at regular intervals.



I actually got to hide in here for a while to scare trick-or-treaters.


THE CEMETERY: Each tombstone was illuminated by a blue/green LED light "expertly" duct taped to a spray-painted black paint stirrer stick and shoved into the ground in front of the tombstone. A few had LED candles and others had oil lanterns hanging from them.



One of my only "night shots".




The same shot the morning after.




The wilted and faded cemetery flower urns I made can be found elsewhere in my blog.




I realize that the inside of this coffin looks too "new" but at night, illuminated by the flickering oil lamp, that goes unnoticed.


SUMMARY: This year's display was creepy and beautiful. Red light streaming through the boarded windows, blue light illuminating the entire house, each tombstone illuminated by it's own blue/green light, flickering candles and oil lamp flames and glowing witch jars swaying in the slight breeze. Haunted organ music, crows and the moans of restless undead souls were heard.

I'll use the lighting tricks I learned along with much greater detail for next year so keep an "eye out" for Moonlit Hill Cemetery - Halloween 2012!


Click Here to see a few more shots!

Cheers! Enjoying some Halloween holiday Spirit(s)

I had no idea when I started toying around with the making of pumpkin spice liqueur that it would turn into such a fun and rewarding project! Cheers! Happy Fall! HAPPY HALLOWEEN SEASON!!!

NOTE: The original recipe for Pumpkin Spice Liqueur was posted here on HalloweenDrinks.net

I want my Mummy! (sort of)

THIS is maybe the most realistic looking prop I've seen from Spirit Halloween in a while. It hangs in a cloth box made to look like a crate. It's motion sensitive. When it's triggered the eyes light up red, it shakes and it goes into a sort of "comedy routine" which ruins the effect in my opinion. The voice sounds to me like George Costanza from Seinfeld.

It costs $99.99 which with a 20% discount coupon might be worth it if I can hack into it and make it growl menacingly instead of complain. It's supposed to utter 4 phrases but I've only heard one.

See more pics and a video HERE

Halloween T-shirts at Walmart

Impressive Walmart! The zombie one glows in the dark and they're only $5.50!

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale

It's that time again, when various pumpkin beers hit the market. I like the packaging of this one but I'm not getting any "pumpkin" from the taste. I've tried adding my own pumpkin spice syrup to beer but the sweetness of the syrup doesn't mix well with it. Maybe I should try adding just the typical pumpkin pie spices. (ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon) and leave out the sugar and water. Any recommendations?

It's corpsin' time!

I'm working on a half-corpse to possibly carry in the upcoming Dragon*Con parade on Labor Day weekend. She'll "interact" with the crowd and others throughout the day.

HauntedHotSauce.com website pre-launch

More content to come but you can order Haunted Hot Sauce now if you like.





See what we've dug up at www.HauntedHotSauce.com

FREE Hot Sauce/Perfume from ShellHawk's Nest!

Want some FREE Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein's Made in Hell Hot Sauce and a mystery sampling of 13 Gypsies Perfumery's sample size scents? Then you'd best get on over to ShellHawk's Nest right away! There's only a few more days to enter the contest!







Visit ShellHawk's Nest Now! Tell her that The Undertaker sent you! ;)

Haunted Hot Sauce Lineup 2011

The Haunted Hot Sauce lineup, 2011. Left to right, RottingFleshRadio.com's Mortician's Mold Hot Sauce, Ghoul Drool Green Hot Sauce, Fleshfeast Hot Sauce, Fleshfeast 2 Hot Sauce, Undertaker's Undead Hot Sauce, Fleshfeast 3 Hot Sauce, Doyle's MADE IN HELL Hot Sauce & HELL-Razor Habanero Hot Sauce!

Pumpkin Spice Liqueur: Vintage Bottles

I'm extremely happy with how this entire project turned out! I'll continue to make this and if there are any changes to the recipe, I'll post them.



This photo is a little washed out but you get the idea. I let it sit in a big bottle for a couple months and then poured it into smaller bottles. The liqueur cleared up a LOT leaving the sediment in the bottom of the big bottle and giving the final product a nice orange color and clarity.

Graveyard Earth & Coffin Wood Wax Melts

The earthy fragrance of freshly turned graveyard dirt blended subtly with the smell of aged coffin wood! Yes, your house too can smell like Moonlit Hill Mortuary...and isn't that what we all want? (Just a little something I whipped up. Might toss these in as freebies in upcoming orders.)

The Undertaker's Pumpkin Spice Liqueur Label

Labels I made for my pumpkin spice liqueur. I'm using the pumpkin one because it looks more vintage but you will see the undertaker "logo" again.

Something WICKED...

Something WICKED this way comes!


Fresh from a label re-design, a new toe-tag and a creepy, "burial shroud" bottle topper comes HELL-Razor Habanero Hot Sauce! Available very soon on HauntedHotSauce.com.

Do it yourself embalming w/ HELL-RAZOR!

I just finished designing the last of my new hot sauce labels. Behold the new HELL-RAZOR Habanero Hot Sauce label.

Pleasure to some, pain to others...the hellish heat and robust flavor of HELL-RAZOR Habanero will embalm you alive!

It's a hot sauce! It's a Halloween prop! NO Halloween party table will be complete without HELL-RAZOR Habanero! Even if you don't like hot sauce, you know somebody who does. Each bottle will come topped with aged cloth, tied off with a toe tag and if you so desire, you can get it sealed inside a handmade cedar coffin that's stuffed with mausoleum moss with a few novelty maggots thrown in for good measure.(ok, sales pitch done.)

All that's left is to photograph the bottles and launch the new site already!

The books that created a haunter!

I'm gradually rebuilding the collection of books that I read as a child, books that shaped my young mind into the Halloween/horror/haunting junkie that I am today. Each were only a few dollars on amazon but to me, they're priceless!


Arrived today...13 Ghostly Tales!


Purchased a little while ago, this book was an indispensable part of my monster-making childhood!

NEW (Old) Haunted Hot Sauce Bottle Style!!

Revealed for the very first time is the prototype bottle in my NEW (old vintage apothecary) style! What do you think?


The zombies have been redrawn on every product! New, aged, more authentic toe tags!


I still have some tweaks to do on the aged cloth bottle toppers but overall I'm VERY excited about the new look!


I think everybody will LOVE this! I poured my undying soul into this project.

It's a hot sauce! It's a Halloween prop! You NEED this for your Halloween party table! And trust me...the hot sauce is the BEST, thickest, most robust hot sauce you will EVER taste! It's my labor of love! Here's a link to my products and a heat scale.

AVAILABLE VERY SOON at HauntedHotSauce.com!! Stay tuned!

If you'd like to be informed when the site launches, simply send an email to TheUndertaker@HauntedHotSauce.com saying "Let me know when the new site launches"

Incidentally...Thank you House Bloodthorn for the rough-edge die-cut idea. Right now I'm doing that with fancy scissors but when I have these labels printed I'll apply it for real!

Embalming Fluid! It cures what ails 'ya!

A few photos from a Halloween party that I attended a couple years ago.


Embalming fluid...responsible for that winning smile!


Something on my lip? Where?

FrankenScents! It's it's ALIVE!!!

www.FrankenScents.com is alive, Alive, ALIVE!!!

In a post last month I told you about www.FrankenScents.com (is that name not BRILLIANT!?) that offers cool, creepy products to scent your Halloween fog, props, costumes and displays!

There's no better Friday the 13th gift for me than seeing the FrankenScents.com website alive and open for business! I placed my first order today and I strongly suggest you do the same!

Go to www.FrankenScents.com and check out Dr. FrankenScents' fine selection of scent spritzers, incense and fog additives to make your fog machine spew out any of over 25 different scents!

( Scent list and descriptions here )


If you're not sure which scents you want, order some (or all) of Dr. FrankenScents' "Test Tube Sniffies" for only $0.79 each + very nominal shipping.

In addition to scent related products, Dr. FrankenScents Halloween Emporium offers all kinds of haunt supplies, novelties, props and effects!

Check out www.FrankenScents.com! Tell them The Undertaker sent you!

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with FrankenScents.com other than being excited about new, creative, fun Halloween products and wanting to make all of my props smell like Zombie Breath!

Hot Sauce label: new design

My original labels, printed on brown craft paper.


And the potential new label design.

What do you think? Do you like the direction the new labels are going? Or should I stick to the kraft paper look. I can add blood spatters and/or mold to either version now because I'm doing these in Photoshop.

The Undertaker (Me!)

I just stumbled across this picture of me as my Undertaker character taken at Dragon*Con last year.

A corpse escapes?

Taken on a recent trip to the local cemetery.


A better photo of that amazing Celtic cross!

CALL of the DEAD! Epic coolness!

I love the way this is shot...love the subject matter...love the random stars involved. Epic coolness.

Pumpkin Spice Liqueur - finished!

Another batch of pumpkin spice liqueur is finished. I used brown sugar this time and less simple syrup so the end result is darker, richer and stronger!

I think I need to start another batch! This time I'll go back to using the white cane sugar so the color is a little less dark and murky and more orange and pumpkin-y!


I'll let it sit in these bottles for a while so the remaining pumpkin sediment settles. Then I'll re-bottle into smaller bottles, label and enjoy!


Cheers!

Making Skulls

I've decided to try my hand at making a latex skull mold so I can cast my own expanding foam skulls year-round. I purchased a kit from Smooth-on and have filled in some of the deeper recesses in my skull with clay to make removal of the foam skulls easier. I'll carve the finished skull copies with a Dremel tool to re-deepen those areas.


My skull and the directions.


The skull's recesses filled in a bit with clay to make releasing the skull copies easier.

The next step? To secure my skull to a smooth surface, apply a mold release to the skull and start coating it with layer after layer of thick latex.

More on the Halloween 2 Phantom Jam

In March of 2009, 300 of us "costumed extras" We were bussed to this abandoned fertilizer company in Newborn GA. to film the Phantom Jam Halloween Party scene for Rob Zombie's Halloween 2.


Apparently, we're here!


We caught glimpses of Rob as he raced back and forth between buildings. Later, some of us would get to work with him, up close and personal.



Made some friends!


On our way into the ultimate Halloween party...the Phantom Jam!!! With your host...ROB ZOMBIE!


Inside the ultimate Halloween party! We jumped and screamed and partied to the sounds of Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures!! (for 2 days)


The MC for the Phantom Jam was Uncle Seymour Coffins! This guy is an absolute riot!




Some posters created for the Phantom Jam.

All-in-all, it was an amazing experience. The big toe on my left foot is still numb from wearing monster boots for 2 days. And in one instance, Rob put me in a particular spot in front of the camera because he "liked my zombie contacts". (I had already removed them and my red, bloodshot eyes underneath were far scarier than any contacts I could have bought) Good times!