Halloween Archives | Otaku No Culture

What’s on Stage for Halloween Victoria 2024? The Scares Don’t Have To Be Real

Instead of offering the usual list, the focus here is what live theatre performances are being offered this year for a fun filled Halloween Victoria, BC

Halloween Victoria at the Legislature Buildings

Just what has changed this year for Halloween Victoria is that there are some new acts involved in celebrating the season and some fond returning staples. While this list is not meant to be comprehensive, the focus is with what live theatre performances are being offered over the same ol’ same ol’.

In a nutshell, they include Discover the Past’s Ghostly Walks, Galey Farms’ Festival of Fear and Ocean View / Saanichton Corn Mazes Fright Nights. It seems some local neighbourhood style events have disappeared, and they might make a comeback when nobody is worried about Covid. But as for other semi-regular shows, they are mentioned in the Honourable Mention section.

Also, thanks goes to the Theatre Victoria Facebook group for helping me compile this list. Presented in alphabetical order are:

ATOMIC VAUDEVILLE PRESENTS:
CABARET #88 CRONE-O-PHOBIA

Join Victoria’s own Wyrd Sisters Kelly Hobson and Amanda Butler on a journey to the Crone Zone featuring cats, tradwives, and a bucket of pig’s blood. They will be asking questions like: Who is Perry O’Menopause? What comes after Brat Summer? And what’s that Blood Moon all about?

All this and more in Atomic Vaudeville’s first Halloween Spectravaganza at our new venue, Fellowship Hall!

Atomic Vaudefille Crone

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Top 13 Spooky Comic Books for the Halloween Reading Season

There’s much more titles to find in Diamond Press’ Previews showing what other scary reads are available for this spooky reading season coming up! What we offer is our top picks.

Elvira Ready to Slash for the 2024 Halloween Reading Season This year, comic book publishers have a nice collection of series being released from now unti November, marking the All Hallows Eve reading season. And there are a lot more in the trade paperback front, which includes reprints like a manga style take on Nightmare Before Christmas to salivate over!

I could list them all, but it would be tough to say which works I want to read over others as that pile of shame just keeps growing, as I should at least must read the first issues, or that collection when that trade paperback comes out. This list considers two titles released not for this season, as I feel they make up what trick or treating is about.

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When Dark Harvest Tries to Deliver a New Urban Myth

Although this film won’t give rise to a net urban legend, it does well to say be careful in what you wish for, than reap, with Dark Harvest!

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Available on VOD and Amazon Prime

At long last, the film Dark Harvest is ready to reap! As crops fail, and one sleepy, unknown mid-western town needs to find the means to survive, just what they must do is literally the stuff of nightmares! The novel by Norman Partridge draws from various sources, and it’s only that not only I approve of, but perhaps also Stephen King!

Here, David Slade’s adaptation of the book is gentle on the ideas. Although it’s very weak in giving the supernatural terror an appropriate background story, I just went with it. It’s rare to get a creature that might give Michael Myers a run for his money. This new terror’s hatchet job is far more gory and flick of the wrist than what the other shambling mound of muscle can do, and I believe part of his origins may allude to some relationship with Spring-heeled Jack.

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Riding a Dark Horse Halloween with these Trio of Releases

The big reason why I love celebrating a Dark Horse Halloween is because they offer frightful stories that’s worth revisiting time and time again.

This publisher never fails to knock it out of the park with their themed All Hallow’s Eve releases, and I’m always excited to check out what they got every year. If there was a way to rename the tradition to a Dark Horse Halloween, I’ll be voting it in! Ever since they released The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings (2003), Witchcraft (2004), Dead (2005), Monsters (2006)–four different anthologies–to the market nearly two decades ago, and usually outside the season, I was hooked!

One of this publisher’s earliest specials, titled Drawing on Your Nightmares Halloween Special (2003), featured stories from Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith, Eric Powell, Brett Matthews, and many more. To track this publisher’s history with the coming of the All Hallow’s Eve is a joy, and I’m glad to learn they are going to release a regular anthology starting this year!

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Cutting into Why Spirit Halloween The Movie Was Made

Spirit Halloween The Movie ranks right up there with Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, but minus the music.

Available on Google Play and Amazon Prime.

Anyone who bought a costume or decoration from the Spirit Halloween store will get a chuckle out of the fact this company wanted to produce one big commercial. It’s appropriately titled, Spirit Halloween The Movie. If that idea isn’t scary enough to convince people to shop at their stores, then I don’t know what will.

This work may get viewers wanting to look for those costumes and items seen in the motion picture to wear or place in their front yard. As much as I love the season and looking at what others can set up, there’s a difference between comic versus supernatural frights; the only way to understand this film is to accept that they’re venturing into one of those carnival style haunted houses often set up for this season, and it has every trick in the book to disorient you.

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An Interview with Sandy King of Storm King Comics

Sandy King and John Carpenter are a powerhouse couple behind Storm King Comics, and we got a chance to interview King.

Sandy King of Storm King Comics Sandy King is certainly not overshadowed by her husband and filmmaker extraordinaire, John Carpenter. Together, they are a powerhouse couple who’s out to make a unique stamp in not only comicbookdom but also cinema. She’s not only co-producer of her husbands many works, but also the first woman founder of the comic book publishing company, Storm King Comics . Before this shift to publishing, she worked with legends of cinema like Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann to name a few.

“I feel like I’ve been lucky enough to work with amazing auteur filmmakers in a wide array of genres,” said King. “In the animation world, I worked for Lewis Hall and Carlos Gutierrez on a film called ‘Anti-Matter,’ which won the first Student Academy Award. With John, I’ve done some pretty classic horror films, including ‘They Live,’ which I think was an important film for our times.”

There are not many filmmakers today who can say they’ve made dramas (Killing of a Chinese Bookie with Cassavetes), comedies (16 Candles with John Hughes), westerns (The Long Riders with Walter Hill), animated films and horror movies.

This company got its start when Thomas Ian Griffith came to her and John with an idea. They spent two years learning the ropes, and talking to those who know the industry before getting anything printed. “The result was our first book, John Carpenter’s Asylum . It won awards; it was fun to do, and we’ve never stopped. Probably our most popular title is the annual anthology we publish every October, John Carpenter’s Tales for a HalloweeNight,” said King.

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