Haunted Eve's Halloween Blog

2026 Candy Conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:09:00 +0000

As most people are probably already painfully aware, inflation and food prices are through the roof. We joined a warehouse club back in 2023 so that we could get reasonable prices on 36 count cases of popular full sized candy bars. What cost $31 to $33/case in 2023, now run $42 to $43/case in 2026. Over the past 16 Halloweens of living in this neighborhood, we average ~ 100 trick-or-treaters/year. However, from 2021 to 2024, the average upticks to 123. And 2024 was our highest count ever with 142 trick-or-treaters. So we've been buying at least 144 full sized candy bars plus some bonus candy/emergency reserves because our development has been expanding in recent years, with 10 out of 33 future new homes already built over the past few years. We're rurally located in a town/county that is mostly agricultural (apples, corn, cows, and horses), so we also get a lot of car transported trick-or-treaters because many of the kids out here don't have access to large groups of homes. Last year, the weather for Halloween was the worst ever since living in our current neighborhood, and we only got 75 trick-or-treaters. We had a ton of candy left over. So you can see the "candy conundrum" we're in now. It's getting really hard to predict how much candy we need to have on hand for Halloween. Plus, we're really not happy with the quality of the common popular candy bars these days. Having grown up in the 70s we swear all those candy bars were much better quality back then. So we're planning on phasing out full sized candy bars and going with smaller sized but better quality individually wrapped chocolates for Halloween 2026. Potential candidates are 1) Tony's Chocolonely and 2) Ghirardelli Squares or a mixture of the two, along with either fun sized packs of Skittles or Sour Patch Kids Zombies for bonus/emergency reserves (Mr. Haunted Eve loves Skittles, and kids seem to really love Sour Patch Kids). 2 or 3 small pieces of these better quality chocolates are considered a serving size and actually come out cheaper in cost than a single full sized candy bar. Plus we get the flexibility of scaling down or up the hand out portions depending on how Halloween night pans out. If we get stuck with lots of leftovers, at least we'll enjoy eating them! 😉

The Forgotten Halloween Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:01:00 +0000

We've recently been watching seasons 1 and 2 of the Netflix series Wednesday and are just not loving it. It's watchable but it's not very good either. Having grown up watching the original Addams Family TV series and having really loved the two 90s movie adaptations, Wednesday just falls short of our expectations. There are too many similarities to other series and movies that fall into the same genre. 2004's Halloweentown High, 2022's Monster High: The Movie and its 2023 sequel Monster High 2 quickly come to mind. Even Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which was released in 2018, four years prior to Wednesday, has many similarities. As we got into season 2 of Wednesday (which is all over the place and far less focused than season 1), it appeared that Wednesday's executive producer Tim Burton borrowed some elements from his own 1999 movie Sleepy Hollow and his 1982 short film Vincent. Movies like 1993's Hocus Pocus and in particular, the "forgotten" 2001 Halloween movie, When Good Ghouls Go Bad also come to mind. We first saw When Good Ghouls Go Bad in the mid 2000s, most likely on the cable TV channel that was called ABC Family at the time (now known as Freeform) during their October Halloween movie marathon. We liked the movie so much that we bought it on DVD soon after. However as the years passed, the movie disappeared from Halloween viewing lineups on TV and even the DVD is now such a rarity that is sells for $75 or higher online. It turns out that many others were also fond of this movie and a documentary about the movie was released this past October: When Good Ghouls Go Missing

Minions & Monsters

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:10:00 +0000

Monster House 2013 Repost

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:35:00 +0000

This is a repost of a photo that we took of a "Monster House" way back in 2013 in Palmyra, NY. Decided to repost it after being reminded we had the photo after seeing Pumpkinrot's Monster House post today.

Merry Yule! 🦌🎄❄️

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 15:48:00 +0000

On The Last Day Of Creepmas 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 13:14:00 +0000

All I Want For Christmas Is Another Halloween!

Scary Christmas Folklore

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:10:00 +0000

The Grinch Versus Michael Myers

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 15:32:00 +0000

Creepy Victorian Era Santas

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 03:25:00 +0000

Creepy Anthropomorphic Pine Cones & Nuts

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:26:00 +0000

Creepy Victorian Era Anthropomorphic Christmas Puddings

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 13:47:00 +0000

Creepy Victorian Era Christmas Clowns

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:54:00 +0000

Gruß vom Krampus

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 13:19:00 +0000

Krampus comes on the night of December 5th. Have you been naughty this year?

On The 4th Day Of Creepmas

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 20:01:00 +0000

Making Creepmas

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 01:33:00 +0000

Creepy Carolers

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:36:00 +0000

These carolers count as "creepy as all get out" in our book!

Creepmas Season 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Let the 2025 Creepmas season begin!

2026 Haunt Character #3: Igor

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 00:23:00 +0000

For our 2026 Frankenstein's Bride themed haunt we had to come up with several other related characters besides The Monster and The Bride in order to make this theme work on a cohesive level. Igor was a tricky character to make. The inspiration for this mannequin was Igor from Young Frankenstein the movie and Young Frankenstein the musical, not the "Fritz" version from the classic 1931 Frankenstein movie. The physics involved with trying to recreate a classic pose using standard PVC pipe mannequin parts made building this mannequin an uphill battle. It took roughly 6 hours to complete and we're not new to this sort of thing! This is one of those "pretty much as good as it's going to get" prop builds. We have a PVC "hump holder" installed on the mannequin's back right shoulder area. We just have to find the right sized plastic bowl or plastic dome to mount on the "hump holder".

Marty Feldman as Igor

Cory English as Igor

2026 Haunt Character #2: Dr. Frankenstein

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 19:00:00 +0000

Dr. Frankenstein was not the easiest character for us to make. Our first version was without the wig and he looked like the Six Flags amusement park mascot "Mr. Six". We ordered the current wig based on an image of Peter Cushing playing Dr. Frankenstein. It unfortunately does not contain as much gray as advertised (suppose to be a 25% gray mix), but it will have to do. His pose and appearance reminds us a bit of the keyboardist from the German industrial metal band Rammstein. We were going to use long black rubber industrial gloves on this mannequin but felt that the hands blended in too much with the black rubber apron and got lost. This character will be standing over a sheet covered cadaver strapped to an autopsy table. Another change we had to make to the PVC pipe mannequin was to forgo the Spider Hill Prop Works spider joint shoulders. The shoulders originally looked too square/boxy, so we secured two 45 degree angle PVC 1" pipe connectors together for each shoulder for a more natural rounded shoulder appearance.

2026 Haunt Character #1: The Graverobber

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:18:00 +0000

As we move things from this year's yard haunt from our garage into our basement, we also start working on next year's haunt characters as the PVC pipe mannequins get freed up. Meet the first character for our 2026 Frankenstein's Bride themed yard haunt: The Graverobber. The plastic prop spade we purchased was far too short for him to be leaning on, but we were able to swap in a custom length of 3/4" PVC pipe. The spade just needs to be spray painted next summer. We're going for a more realistic look for our 2026 haunt theme. Really happy with how this one turned out. He will be standing in the graveyard behind a recently dug up wooden casket (our 2009 built wood coffin prop).

Pumpkin Portraits 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 02:15:00 +0000

Local Area Haunts 2025 Part 6

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 01:02:00 +0000

Edgar Allen Poe Speakeasy Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 13:46:00 +0000

We attended the Edgar Allen Speakeasy Part II last night, this time hosted at the Historic German House in Rochester, NY's South Wedge neighborhood. We attended Part I at the Little Theater in Rochester's East End neighborhood last year. It was another phantasmic show. We were delighted to hear they will be returning again in the future with Part III. There are multiple tour dates across the country. Check the Fever event website for it appearing at a city near you or at the show's website.

Our Halloween 2026 Yard Haunt Theme

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 17:10:00 +0000

Halloween 2025 Postmortem

noreply@blogger.com (Haunted Eve) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 03:06:00 +0000

Despite Mother Nature throwing everything she had at us tonight (the weather got worse after the sun set), we still got ~75 trick-or-treaters. Not our lowest count, but this was the second lowest count after 16 Halloweens at this house (2020 was the lowest count of 53 due to the pandemic). We had several props knocked over and damaged by the wind and had to pivot and use LED faux outdoor rated pillar candles in our jack-o'-lanterns due to the strong winds and driving rain. The faux 3" outdoor pillar candles actually looked better than real candles in the pumpkins (see photos below), so we're thinking that's going to be the norm for our haunts. We're going to have to retire some prop staples and reengineer some things for future haunts as a "lessons learned" from the past couple days of horrible weather.