Halloween Weird Western Image o' the Day: Hanging Judge

Today we have another from Deadlands, this time from the Reloaded game manual:

The Hanging Judges are ghostly monsters that appear at night and "arrest" people for whatever crime they feel like (could be having a mustache, for example).  They are, like most undead, practically invulnerable, requiring they be shot by a duly deputized lawman's gun to be put down.
That's okay, they'll be back again the next night...

A Mixed Saddlebag

I thought I'd just finish off with a mixed bag of costumes I looked up and what I think of them in general, for the amusement of myself, and possibly you as well.

First up, just a couple of cowboys.  Most Western costumes do not come with trousers, so on the models the most common choice of trouser you are going to see is a pair of blue jeans.  Historically, during the era, most men did not wear blue jeans.  The most common fabrics were wool blends or for cavalry types and laborers you'd likely find duck, a cotton canvas material (makes good protective gear).  Boots NEVER come with the costumes and the guns are always sold separately.  More than half of the costumes do not come with hats.  Chances are the costume is a duster or vest and a bandanna, and for this you will pay around $70.  Still, these are good generic "Western" options.  You could build something Weird West or Steampunk out of them.

"Hel-looo, ladies"

I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking Danny McBride attempting a cowboy.  This outfit looks like a Dude's Rodeo Special.  It's the sort of thing a cowboy would wear if he lost all self-respect, sold out and joined a lesser quality Wild West Show competing unsuccessfully with Bill Cody.  It's very modern in a Howdy Doody sort of way.  Make an effort, sir.

This here is yore basic John Wayne ensemble.  It's the sort of outfit you see in pictures of the Duke when you don't know what movie it's from.  It's a shirt, vest, chaps and bandanna, and the bandanna is in blue, just to be rebellious.  Chose this and you are going to have to get yourself a hat from somewhere, otherwise you'll look like an idiot.  Which is suggesting that you won't look like an idiot after you get the hat.  I don't want to be misconstrued, so don't make that assumption, hoss.  Speaking of Hoss, this is a good option if you are portly.  At least then you'd have a Bonanza thing going on, but you'd need a better hat.

 I don't name these things.  Somebody working copy at the catalog stores has that duty, and man are they bad at it.  This is your basic, low effort, Clint Eastwood job.  Except he's carrying a rifle, and the poncho is shitty.  Take a look at the description I have thoughtfully boxed for you.  This "costume" is a damn poncho and shirt WITH ATTACHED VEST.  That's it.  What vest?  I'm sure it's in there somewhere.  Extra points for the model not shaving for a few days to complete the sadness.

"When ah say 'draw', slap leather, ya owlhoot!"  I looked up several outfits that were labeled gunslinger or gunfighter and this was the best representation I could find.  It's pretty much an amalgamation of the ideas we have of fictional gunfighters.  You have the fancy waistcoat and simulated frock coat of a man of some refinement, plus that dickey to give you the illusion of a cravat or something.  But then you have jeans again and the hyper-Wyatt Earp mustache, which is not included.  Oh, and neither are the guns, of course.  The gun belt is included, however.  The more I look at this the more I want to see this guy get drilled in the street at High Noon.  If we put a few bullet holes in the waistcoat with some dried blood and did a corpse makeup or a skull we'd have a decent little Weird Western outfit going here. 

It's another gunslinger, actually.  I'd prefer this one with a tin star on the chest.  Make him into a town marshal or something.

Again, I don't name these things, but if that's what passes for quality work at the Halloween online outlets, I am in the wrong business.  The name alone makes my teeth grind.  Gambler Rogue.  As opposed to those upstanding paragons of virtue that other gamblers are.  You have a vinyl waistcoat with attached sleeves AND a dickey.  Already you are saying, "But Rook, why is this waistcoat so plain when the gunslinger up there has so much style?" and I don't have an answer for you.  Best of all you get chaps.  You've seen the archetypal gambler haven't you?  Doc Holiday in Tombstone is that archetype, as is Bret Maverick.

Those are Gamblers.  Frilled shirt, fashionable waistcoat and fashionably cut jacket.  These men arrive by stage, hang out on riverboats, and like to live well, enjoying their winnings.  They project a sense of having money, which is always welcome in a poker game, and may be more than what they seem.  Chaps are for work, riding horses and sichlike.  When you think gambler you should think  fancy duds, a hidden derringer, and a slick attitude, not Wyatt Earp up top and then, ahh screw it, gimmie some chaps and a rifle, I might need to ride the range.  It's like a cowboy came into town to drink and whore and raise Cain, as they do, and then bought a new shirt.  It's sad. So sad.

Finally we have this guy.  Bartender Wild West Costume for Men.  Seriously, where do I get this part-time job of naming costumes "professionally"?  This stunning costume comes with a bow tie, they are very specific about that.  There is a vest with attached shirt, because it would have been too much of a chore to attach the bowtie, and there are arm garters (because what bartender WOULDN'T have arm garters) and an APRON (I can sense your excitement) and holsters.  Now our clever model has put a couple of bottles of pisswater in his holsters to make this a "funny" costume.  Please note that the beer mug and mustache are SOLD SEPARATELY.  Look, you might get by without the mug, but consarnit, you are going to need that jaunty stache.  This whole costume confuses me, which is why I saved it for last.
I'm trying to think of why you'd ever want to dress up as the barkeep at the Whore and Cuspidor Saloon.  Has this guy ever been cool in a western?  He gets about 4 lines, and two of them are "What'll it be?" and "We don't want any trouble here."
So I wracked my cabeza and thought, maybe, just may-be you want to throw a Western Themed Halloween Party and you want whoever is serving the drinks to look authentic, which he will in this outfit (or her, I'm not being sexist here...but she must wear the mustache, that's de rigueur), but that's it.  If you are hosting why would you dress as Short-Tap Bill?  You'd go the full fancy saloon owner route, wouldn't you?
Other than that, I got nothing.  There's nothing cool about being a postman or the guy that works at the livery stable or the telegraph operator.
Now undertaker has possibilities.  I'd go that route.  Good luck finding the components though.

Keep them pumpkins rollin'.

The Flesh Golem in Ravenloft

Remember when I said that Dungeons and Dragons, by which I mean the staff at TSR, is not particularly good at originality but is great at taking something you know and working it into the game?
No?
It's HERE.
Well in 1990 TSR took a well received first edition module called Ravenloft (1983, written by the creators of Dragonlance) an adventure where the PCs fight an ersatz Dracula named Strahd von Zarovich, and spun that into an entire campaign setting based extremely loosely on the idea of Gothic Horror in AD&D.  It was not particularly successful at achieving Gothic Horror since the ability to throw fireballs and swing +5 swords of instant death do not lend themselves to the atmosphere of horror, but it was quite popular all the same.

One of the hallmarks of Ravenloft was that the team over at TSR mined as much Gothic Horror literature, including the likes of Poe, Stoker, & Shelley, and films sources as they could to create their setting.  The setting being a big old Ruritania-esque Universal/Hammer films like Ersatz Transylvania, with other locations shoehorned in and running the technological gamut from prehistoric to Victorian.  Ravenloft has its own Dracula in Strahd von Zarovich, a few mummies, a plethora of werewolves, it's own Dr. Moreau and so on.  It also has its own Frankenstein and his creation in the form of Dr. Victor Mordenheim and Adam.

Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper at your service.

Adam is a flesh golem, but quite unlike the fellows we saw last time, this is a true Frankenstein "homage" (he wrote ironically).  Adam is intelligent, vindictive and quite evil, as well as being strong and near indestructible.  Unlike the standard golem, Adam is not really a shell for housing an elemental, which a wizard in the regular game can bind into a golem as a matter of course, but a unique creation.

Vic learns that when making a monster, you should probably make something you have a hope of beating just in case shit like this happens.

This gave rise to the Ravenloft Flesh Golem.  Of course it did.

One key feature of Ravenloft lore, certainly one of my favorites, is the resident Van Helsing, Dr. Rudolph Van Richten.  Van Richten wrote several sourcebooks for TSR starting with Van Richten's Guide to Vampires, and continuing through other monsters.  Golems are covered in his Guide to the Created.  In those pages players and DMs get far more information on the monsters than one would expect they would ever need.  The golems of Ravenloft (not just flesh golems, they have doll golems, scarecrow golems, bone golems...it's a big list) are not simple statues containing an elemental.  These are all twisted forms of life that begin childlike and then eventually grow into evil and vindictive monsters no matter how nicely you treat them.  It would seem the staff at TSR had missed much of the actual point of Shelley's novel, but they sure got the trappings down.

How is that thing not conducting electricity into everybody holding it down?

The guide to the created lists all manner of ways to create golems, but the art is definitely selling the Frankenstein angle all the way.

The story with Adam and Mordenheim is not totally Frankenstein, however.  In this version Mordenheim seeks to return his wife to life, he cannot successfully recreate life after his initial success, and Adam is linked to him so that neither can die if the other one is still alive.  Basically.
The initial art and descriptions of Mordenheim's monster are very much Shelley's descriptions of Frankenstein's own creation, each part perfect but the whole a monstrous being.  Later art would give in a bit to the film Frankensteins as we see below.  Personally I think that was a bad choice, as Adam's very novel-like look made him a solid homage to the Gothic Horror source material, and not just a prop.

Where is the tip of your nose?  Seriously, you look like Michael Jackson, and I think your head has gone a bit flat.

Despite the fact that golems can be made of anything, the Flesh Golem, and thus the Frankenstein angle, is definitely the star attraction in the Ravenloft milieu.

Frankie has just kicked that fighter's ass.  I don't know what the girls thinks she is going to do, but the old fellow has the right idea.  Tear ass.

Obviously, or perhaps not obviously, flesh golems are not players characters.  So the Guide to the Created included a small section on making PCs into FGs.  Of course it did.
Didn't I say that D&D does not lend itself well to Gothic Horror?  If you stat it, they will kill it.  Everybody knows that.
Which is probably why a spin off of Ravenloft was produced in 1994, entitled Masque of the Red Death, and was set in an alternate version of Victorian Earth called Gothic Earth, because gamers often need it right on the nose to get it.

And yes they have the actual Frankenstein's Monster:

And yes, he is a Flesh Golem.  But that's the enduring legacy of Mary Shelley's one great literary creation.  We call it by the creator's name.  We love the big guy.  This was her magnum opus; she dined out on this all the time.  One hit wonder, but what a hit!

And that's all I have to say on that.

Raise the pumpkin to the roof, the storm is at its most furious!  Live!  Keep it lit.

Halloween Weird Western Image o' the Day: Righteous Fury

Another from my Deadlands series of lazy posts:

A preacher dealing with some undead.
Many games have some kind of cleric type and Deadlands has that covered too.  The Blessed hand out much less healing and much more high holy asskicking, however.
As evidenced here.

Der (Flesh) Golem

Just in time for the Halloween season...

I was thinking about golems the other day.  Dungeons and Dragons, not known for originality, but great at taking a piece of property and running with it, introduced golems into the game early on.  Unlike the legendary Jewish animated statue, the D&D golem is an artificial construct created by a magic user and animated by an elemental bound within it.  That's not quite the Jewish golem, but it worked for D&D.  Golems are generally useful.  They are strong, tough, immune to most forms of attack,including many spells and while not exactly intelligent, they can be very useful for guarding things.  Golems come in many varieties, being made out of stone, wood, metal, clay, even glass, but today we are interested in the FLESH GOLEM.
The flesh golem first appeared, as far as I know, in the AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual and is basically Frankenstein's Monster.

See the image?  Yeah, that's Frankie.

The flesh golem was, originally, quite different from other golems.  It was healed by electricity and had a cumulative chance of going berserk in combat.  Again, that's pretty much Frankenstein's monster.  The flesh golem write up, in case you are interested, is below.

A flesh golem can be created by means of a magical tome or by a high level magic-user employing a wish spell, a polymorph any object, a geas, a protection from normal missiles and a strength spell. The latter case demands a level of magic-use of at least the 14th. The cost in materials is 1 ,OOO gold pieces per hit point of the golem. It requires 1 month to fashion the creature.  The creator of the flesh golem controls the monster, being able to have it follow simple commands (go ahead, stop, kill, etc.). The master of the

golem can have it suspend its functioning until a set event tokes place (such as someone entering its room).

However, for each turn of melee a flesh golem engages in there is a 1% per melee round cumulative chance it will go berserk, attacking at random anything in sight. The monster‘s master has a 10% per melee round chance of regaining control of the golem.

The flesh golem is very powerful and able to smash through doors and wooden structures of normal construction. For example, a flesh golem would break through an oaken door with iron reinforcing bands and hinges, in 5-8 melee rounds. It does 1 point of structural damage to wooden constructions only every 3 melee rounds. Normal weapons do not harm flesh golems, but magical weapons have normal effect. Spells of most sorts have no effect on such monsters, but fire

or cold based spells (such as wall of fire, fire boll, ice storm, etc.) slow the golem by 50% for 2-12 melee rounds. Electrical attacks restore damage to the golem in direct relation to the number of dice of damage normally done, i.e. a 6 die lightning bolt restores 6 hit points of damage which the golem might have sustained.

The link between Mary Shelley's creation and the Golem of legend is really an afterthought as no evidence exists that I can find to suggest that Mary Shelley had any knowledge of the legend or considered it in creating her story.  She does tell her readers, in the 1831 introduction to her work (reprinted after minor style changes by her) that discussions between her husband and Lord Byron on the philosophical nature of life, experiments attributed to Erasmus Darwin and Galvani and how those linked to it, and in the work Victor speaks of Paracelsus and alchemists and occultists all contributed to her creation.  Thus we can infer with some reasonable accuracy that Shelley's creation is not a golem by her understanding.  Regardless the Flesh Golem of D&D is clearly more than a little inspired by Frankenstein's Monster, particularly as seen in films.

"Wizard BAD!"

Golems are mere tools in AD&D, not player characters, which is a shame because what monster fan wouldn't have to have a go at being one of the classic big boys of monsters?  Universal Monsters Online, the defunct MOBA allowed players to play as Frankenstein's Monster.  He was a tank, by the way.

Looks a bit less a lumbering dolt than one would expect, doesn't he?  

Over the years and editions the Flesh Golem changed its look and some of its characteristics.  The 3rd edition is particularly nasty looking in keeping with the DungeonPunk stylings of that era.  Since they are made of scavenged body parts any single Flesh Golem might be quite an interesting mix of monster parts as well, as shown below.

3rd edition Flesh Golem, note the wires and such.

He's reading a book.  Are we supposed to believe he's intelligent?

Yet for all the obvious Frankenstein references, the Flesh Golem is not like our monster friend up there.  It is an elemental spirit bound into a flesh shell, not a creature animated by the fire of heaven itself.  It does not have free will and so does elicit our respect or sympathy.  It's just another monster for players to kill or use as they see fit.  It should be respected for it's natural toughness, but outside of that, nobody cares much.  That seems a crap way to pay tribute to a great inspiration like Frankenstein, and so it would be but for a little 2nd edition campaign setting called Ravenloft...

To be continued.

Night of the Living Dead Cowboys

I sort of promised you guys some weird west horror stuff at the start of the season so I need to deliver.

Now that's an undead cowboy right there.

 Thanks to an unfortunate continuing interest in zombies there are a few undead cowboy outfits on teh market.  I believe you would do better just getting some regular cowboy gear and some horror bit and making your own, but not everyone has that kind of time.  I understand.  I'm not judging.  Well, I'm not judging you, dear reader, but I'll judge the hell out of some costumes.
The whole Weird Western thing really lends itself to zombies and other spookiness well and there is something somehow appropriate about gunslingers and death in the same image.

It's really just a trench coat and a skull mask when you get right down to it.

Now you might be able, without the benefit of CGI, to pull off a decent Death Marshal...

But you just ain't gonna pull off Ghost Rider.  That's okay, you can still do some pretty nifty costumes if you have the time and the skill.  Your choices are not limitless if you want this to work.  A ghost cowboy is pretty high concept, but you could manage it.  Your basic two are the skull and the zombie.

They are not great, but they have potential.  The more complete of the two is the zombie on the right.  Buy that and all you'll need is an appropriate shirt, boots and gun.  The more whimsical skull on the left requires you provide the exact same items.  Between the two of them the zombie is more fantastic with the skull embellishments on the hat, belt and collar of the duster.  If you are going for a really Weird Western look, that'll do it.  The other guy is less fantastic, but the poncho, hat style and the noose all "tell a story" as the judges of Face Off would say.
I may or may not have said this before, but you don't want to spend all night explaining your costume to people.  A costume should be either an immediately recognizable archetype, the oft-mentioned visual shorthand I keep harping on, or it needs to immediately tell a story.  When you look at the zombie guy, unless you are up close, he's just a fancy gunslinger.  When you look at old Poncho over there you get a story.  The skull, the cut noose, the poncho evoking images of Clint Eastwood in spaghetti westerns, it all combines to tell us a story.  Somebody gave this cowpoke a hemp necktie and he liked it so much he kept it.  And he's got a mad on.

Weird Westerns combine westerns with things like steampunk, science fiction, aliens, and of course, horror.  You can definitely have some fun with the concept and with a little time and effort either of those could be the basis of a unique expression of your own, which I highly recommend.

Yeehaw, keep them pumpkins rolling.

Doing It Piecemeal

So you don't want to purchase a whole cowboy outfit.  Or worse, you've realized that the outfit from the catalog is missing a few pieces, probably what you felt were the most important pieces.  Or perhaps you already own a few pieces of cowboy gear that you feel are good enough for a reasonable costume at that special Halloween party where everybody gets drunker than Cooter Brown and you just want a passable outfit.  Don't worry none, they got ya covered.

A fine mustache is something we associate with the Old West.  Now not everyone has the time, or in my case the genetics, to grow such a fine bit of facial hair.  I mean, I have friends that forget to shave for just one day and wake up looking like a ZZ Top impersonator, but not me.  Nope, If'n I want to look like Wyatt Earp, I'm going to have to buy a mustache, like the one above.  That's your basic handlebar western look, exaggerated a bit.  But just a bit.

Above we see Wyatt Earp himself.  That's a fine 'stache indeed.  See the way he's cleverly trimmed his facial hair, like a human topiary, to produce what experts call the "flying walrus" form?  The fauxstache above isn't a patch on ol' Wyatt's natural flavor-saver.  If you have the genes, I recommend you grow your own.  Mustaches were quite in vogue during the era, you know.

Well it's a vest.  Now I personally call them waistcoats (pronounced weskits) but that's me.  Vest is the accepted American term.  We associate vests with the Old West thanks to cowboy movies.  Oh, they were worn, historically, during the era to be sure.  A man wearing a waistcoat can safely remove his coat and still be considered dressed, as opposed to in a state of undress, in polite society.  So why the hell would a sodbuster or cow puncher bother having one on while riding the range or working the field?  And why wear it open?  Well, John Wayne did it all the time in his movies, and who are we to argue with the Duke?  This is a pretty shitty option, however.  The faux cowhide patches and the fringe just scream, "I'm a dude that's come out west and want you to think I'm a tough guy."  Or possibly, "I'm looking for a date, cowboy."

Better, hoss.  This vest is more in line with what I'd expect to see.  The fauxstache is decent too.  Your basic Earp economy model.  That hat looks a bit sad, don't it?

About the saddest damn thing known to man...

I don't know what to say.  It's a black bib style shirt popular with cavalry soldiers.  It's being worn by the tenderest of tenderfoot sugarpants nancy boys, however.  If he thinks the whip is helping his cause he is sadly mistaken.  That's just asking for the jokes I know you want to make but are too polite.  Don't worry, we don't judge you, the reader, at the CP Ranch.  Unless you show up dressed like that, in which case get ready to run home crying, which if you dress like that I suspect you do anyway.

My mistake.  THIS is the about the saddest damn thing known to man.

Chaps are a functional piece of outwear used to protect the trousers and the legs beneath them.  They are typically made of a durable material such as duck, leather or hide and are useful when working or riding through brambles, mesquite groves (the mesquite is a tree, well several species of tree, native to the Southwestern portion of the USA and Mexico with thorns on it that can get over three inches long and rip your shit up) and working around cattle.  These are shiny costume chaps that look like paper and have the stupidest looking fringe in the world tacked on.  Chaps can instantly say "cowboy" to the viewer, so they are an option, but these are like adding an orange water gun to your authentic cowboy outfit.  All people are going to remember is how damn fool stupid you look.

There are many more options I haven't covered here.  You can acquire all manner of convincing and not-so-convincing sixguns for your costume, get a lariat, definitely get some boots (especially since there are no costumes with boots as part of the package on the market) and you are going to need a good hat.  Honestly a bowler hat is a good historical choice, but again nobody will know why you did that, so stick with the classic.

So you can be a Western character, but are you a Weird Western character?

I feel like something is missing...

Halloween Weird Western Image o' the Day: Ghost Train

Trains are to the Wild West what ships are to Pirate stories.
By which I mean that they are cool and a major part of it, but you almost never see any action on them.

"Woooo Wooooo" went the ghost train...

Trains are great Western MacGuffins.  You can rob them, you can protect them from robbery, you can use the building of railroads as the plot thread of your ongoing television series...heck, PEG made a whole miniatures game based on the concept called The Great Rail Wars.
What better kind of train for the season than a Ghost Train?

Brings a Tear to the Eye

You want to talk about some sad shit options, take a gander below, pards.

I'm afraid to even comment.

Okay, now that's just insulting.  The Western genre has its fair share of natives, usually as bad guys but there have been a few films and such to try to give equal time to the plight of the natives.  And then there is this costume.  What tribe is this, exactly?  I think it is the Birkenstock tribe, but I can't be sure.  Do you have any idea how cheap a pair of moccasins are these days?  They couldn't come up off of ten bucks to get this guy some convincing footwear?
Funny bit of history here, but once the White Devils started trading with the various tribes, the tribes took to wearing White Devil clothes a lot.  However we have stated that you need a visual shorthand to sell the costume idea, so I'll let that go.
That costume, however, I will not.  Could I find something worse?

"Hola, amigos!  I'm dressed as a racially insensitive prick."

Si, I can.  What we got here is yer basic Frito Bandito.  You have the weirdass serape, the sombrero, and the full Fu Manchu mustache that people who have never met a Mexican think makes up your basic Mexican.  Extra points for how white the guy is that is wearing them.  I am officially calling this worse than our native buddy up top.  Although, to be fair, we do an awful lot of stupid cowboy costumes too.  Why didn't I call those racist?
What's up with the one pant leg tucked into the combat boots and the other not?  This is a pretty shitty costume anyway, never mind the cultural implications.
We can do better, right?

HELL+YEAH

Hell yes we can.  Oh but that is a great outfit.  Sure, it's for Dia de los Muertos, but then that's syncretism with Halloween.  There is nothing bad I can say about this guy.  The mask is superb, at once invoking the symbology of the dead and the celebration of life that Dia de los Muertos represents.  The mustache and the smile really sell it.  The mariachi outfit is festive but slick, the simple black and white with splashes of red make this a wonderful choice.
I feel honor bound to show some embarrassing white people choices now...

Yeeha, I'm an asshole!  This is one of those far too expensive for what it is costumes.  It's a one-note joke. You wear this to the party and at first you get a chuckle, sure, but as the night wears on you are that annoying asshole whose costume is taking up three chairs and making noise because it requires an integrated fan to stay inflated.  So now you are uncomfortable and people are having to push your inflatable bull-ass out of the way to get to the beer cooler and this doesn't seem to be as good an idea as it did at first.  So naturally you shed the costume.  People who didn't see you in the mighty Toro del Jerkoff costume want to know why you are wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts and a dinky cowboy hat.  Oh, and flip flops, because you had to borrow footwear.  Best to avoid, but at least you won't be this guy...

"Hardy, pardners, I'm Marshal Douchebag, town Marshal of Dipshit Springs, population one."

The description of the "costume" calls it a "Classic Cow Hand", but if that is so then why is he wearing a tin star?  The mustache, oversized gun and shirt don't even come with the costume, which means this man made an INFORMED DECISION to make it as douchey as possible.  I reckon he thinks he's some kind of sheriff, which is problematic for me because any county that would vote this idiot into office is no place I'd expect to last too long on the frontier.  Combine this with Poncho up there for a couples theme that will be sure to win no votes at the costume contest.  I imagine that about halfway through the night ol' Marshal Dipshit is going to shed those chaps and hat, and once again we are left with a half-assed costume on some dude that thought he was being clever.

You have no idea how many words I had to add to the blogger spellcheck dictionary for this article.  Damn, blogger, read a book.

Keep them pumpkins lit, pards.

BG Williamsburg Howl O Scream (Part 3)-Booze and Haunted Houses

It is not that it was hot, but that the sun beat down so strongly that we took refuge in Grogan's where Kitty had a sangria in a collectible tumbler that lights up like a rave.  I had a cider because I like cider.

She's purposely vamping it up in this picture.  Blood lite, bwa ha ha.

After getting drinks in, we stood in line for an hour waiting for Unearthed to open.  Here is a shot of the vapid twenty-somethings we were standing behind.  This group was smart enough to smuggle a fifth of Bacardi into the park in a souvenir drink container, however.  I did find myself impressed that one guy made it all the way through the haunted house, jump scares and dark stumblings and all without spilling a drop of his beverage.  That's class and gives me hope for the young generation.
Afterwards we exited into the still-not-dark 6 PM Howl O Scream and began to work our way through the now "frightening" TERROR-Tories.  I quoted that because they are not frightening.  Again.
This kid-friendly bullshit really gets on my nerves.

See the giant fake pumpkin?  The fellow standing in the foreground is a park employee.  He will take your picture with his spiffy park camera and then later you can purchase said picture from a shop in Ripper Row.  Does BG not realize that people have phones with cameras in them now and don't give a whit about quality of the shot?  We've come to see the world at that odd 45 degree selfie-angle, we frankly find a well framed shot to be less than aesthetically pleasing.
I get it.  The park needs the dosh.  BG has raised the price on parking, raised the price on refreshments and added smoked turkey legs and churros, two things you would not expect to find together, in every snack bar.  They worked up a card game to sell for the Unearthed event and advertise it with giant tarotesque cards in the Unearthed haunted house and across the park.  They are really trying to get every last cent they can.  All so that they can bring you...

A scary clown!  That's my finger, by the way.  I mock you, scary clown.  Ever since the Hunt Club Farms corn maze incident, I have mocked you, scary clowns.
A few years back they did a whole scary carnival evil clown thing in Italy for Howl O Scream.  They weren't scary then either.  Nothing is scary about a scary clown.  What is scary is a normal clown in a place where he has no business being.  Like working at Victoria's Secret.  Or running for public office...yeah, I know, that was too easy.
Still not dark, but 6 PM had hit so...

Grrr, pirate!  This was one of the pirates in Ports of Skull (why is ports plural?) that wandered about saying pirate things and scaring passersby.  This reminds me of a bad pirate Halloween costume, to be honest.  They said things like, "Yar" and "We be wanting brains" or something.  I wasn't listening.
Which is bad since you are all counting on me to have been listening to bring you this report.
As the twilight slowly came upon the park we headed to Cut Throat Cove, a pirate theme haunted house.  Kitty then asks the obvious question: "How are pirates supposed to be scary?  We like pirates."
I asked the next obvious question: "Then why are we going to queue up for the haunted house?"
To which she sagely replied: "Because I want to see it."
We like pirates.

She snapped this picture as we approached the entrance to Cut Throat Cove.  Now let me set the scene for you.  Some haunted houses have a theme, some have a story, and some are just a random mash-up of spooky shit.  A house with a story should have a theme as well, but it might be a story to tie together a random mash-up of spooky shit.  Here is what the official map has to say about Cut Throat Cove: Join the ship wrecked crew of a pirate ship and see if you can survive without having to walk the plank.
Egad.
So here is how it was executed, this story.  The crew shipwrecked waaaaayyyy inland, built a town out of the bits of ship, decorated it with eviscerated bodies, guts everywhere, some headless, limbless torsos and then they hang out in the pirate shanty town saying "Arrgghhh" and threatening to make you walk the plank to...the empty Roman Rapids channel?
It was the sort of place I'd quite like to hang out, actually.
Of the two haunted houses we did, this and Unearthed, much of the decor was accomplished with hanging strands of jute and what I think was supposed to be the pirates intimate apparel hanging on clotheslines to dry.

Now fully dark we went to Demon Street and there be the dragon!

Pretty spiffy looking in the dark with the red lights and smoke machines.

Red lighting and faux flames gives Demon Street the look of Hell.

Jack may be gone, but in his place we have this Devil DJ, standing atop a flaming skull and spinning tunes.  A disco remix of "Dragula" was playing as we arrived and a pair of lesser demons, imps most likely, were dancing in front of it.
I did not know devils spoke Ebonics.  Learn something new every day.
Unlike the Lady Gaga laden music of Jack in Ireland in years past, this is a more leather jacket, devil music crowd.  I suppose I can appreciate that.

St. Micheal.  Just threw that in for flavor.

This is one of the scarecrows that flanked the giant fake pumpkin above.  At night, bathed in blue light, mouth aglow, and the sounds of pre-recorded crows playing constantly.  I dug the vibe.

And here we have a wendigo.  In the Wendigo Woods this animatronic "awakens" in its cage, roars, rears, and shakes violently for about a minute.  It's a nice piece.  I like the antlers for verisimilitude.

And here is our friendly giant pumpkin at night, now fully Jack-o-ed.  A noble guardian against the horrors that might seek to escape from the park.

Bonus shot: Turkish Delight, which is oddly a teapot and cups.  This is your basic vomit-inducing spinning ride found in Italy.  We decided to give it a whirl (puns are free at the Pumpkin, folks) after leaving Cut Throat Cove.  I love a spinning ride, but the sun beating down on my head and my horrible allergies usually combine to make me miserable after riding.  The cool night air, however, made me immune to such and it was most enjoyable.
We also rod Curse of Darkastle because you have to ride that.  To not do so would be like going to Disney World and not riding POTC or HM.

That's this year's Howl O Scream, folks.  Not as good as previous years, I'm afraid.  I've seen many changes to the park since InBev bought AB creating AB-InBev, and I am not saying that the one is the cause for the other.  I am saying that my first trip to Howl O Scream was during the Scare Is Everywhere days and it truly was.  Plus the choices of decorating the zones seemed a more logical fit.  Things have to change, I get that, but all-in-all I found Ripper Row and Wendigo Woods to be a disappointment.  Demon Street was a Hell of a party atmosphere (again, puns are free) but not so Halloween to me personally.  Ports of Skull was more like the sort of place I'd just hang out, but it could stand to be a bit more beachy.

Still not scary, and I really wish they'd do something with the train.  I maintain that they are missing out on a great opportunity with the train.  All that back lot real estate, moving through the woods and such, makes a great opportunity to put things.  Even static monster, the likes of which they plaster all over the rest of the park, would be an improvement over nothing.  Heck, through a spooky soundtrack over the speakers that the conductor uses to tell you your next stop.  Anything.  A ghost train.  Something.  Instead it is just a wasted opportunity year after year when they could be upselling the park, which is clearly what they want given all the other junk they pimp in the shops.

That's my review, done in 3 parts.  Happy Halloween and keep your pumpkins lit.