Spooky Shit Round Up
October 2021
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It’s time.
The second annual Spooky Shit Round Up is here to get you ready and in the mood for the Halloween season. Not sure where to start your October journey this year? You know ya girl’s got you!
Creepy Artists
I’m not affiliated with theses artists in any way I just love their work and want to share it!
Lydia Jean makes some of the brightest, most fun, spooky art around. I started following her when she was participating in MerMay this past May and created eight spooky and colorful mermaids that kept popping up on my timeline. Since then, I’ve seen her making cryptids, haunted houses, spooky duo postcards and more. I’m bound to spend a fortune on prints and stickers in her shop and figure ya’ll should join me. But do it today or wait until next weekend cause Lydia Jean is taking a much deserved break from Sept. 25 - Oct. 1 and her shop will be down for a bit. But trust me, her work is worth the wait!
Who doesn’t love a creepy doll? Ashley Boyer, the artist behind Spookycutes, creates some of the best looking spooky cute dolls that I’ve ever seen. I actually became frustrated months ago when I tried multiple times over several shop updates to pick up one of her fabulous dolls but they just sold out too quickly that I had to unfollow instead of being sad I could never get one. But, I’ve come to my senses and re-followed because honestly, it just goes to show how talented she is and how loved her work is. One of these Spookycute dolls will be mine eventually but in the meantime, go give Spookycutes a follow and ya know…if you manage to grab me a doll I’ll love you forever.
Katie Gamb has creepy beautiful down pat. I wouldn’t say Katie’s exclusively a “creepy” artist but a lot of her work has some haunting characteristics that I think are gorgeous. I became a fan when she posted these skulls in peonies and knew I had to have a print…which I got and I love and I desperately want to pick up a couple more prints in the near future.
Before I got into crochet, cross stitch was my first love so when I came across Lindsay Swearingen of Tusk and Cardinal earlier this year I couldn’t help but follow her. She makes beautiful, creepy, cross stitches and even has a book of patterns coming out on Tuesday (September 28th) just in time for the spooky season…I already have mine pre-ordered. I love her work and especially love the vintage house picture frames she finds to fill the windows with her creepy cross stitch characters and rooms, you’ve just got to go check her out and if you like what you see, give her a follow and pre-order her book!
Fun Frights
Over the Garden Wall is. so. precious. Jonathan’s talked about it for years but I didn’t watch it until last fall and I’m kicking myself for not watching sooner. Wirt and Greg are very different brothers. Wirt is a a worrier while Greg is carefree. But together, they find themselves lost in a forest called the Unknown and must work together with the help of a bluebird named Beatrice to find their way back home. Along the way we meet characters that teach them lessons and show that things aren’t always as they seem, there are rock facts!, and sing-a-longs. I truly can’t say enough good things about it. Over the Garden Wall is creepy cuteness at its best. It’s a gentle look at death for kids and those who may find fear in it and adults and kids alike will love it. Over the Garden Wall is streaming on Hulu now…be prepared to want to start it again as soon as you finish!
Jim Varney made a lot of Ernest movies back in the day but none have ever touched my spooky little heart in the way Ernest Scared Stupid did. Ernest Scared Stupid finds Ernest and some local kids in a fight with a snotty troll who needs to turn kids into wooden dolls in order to bring back his troll brethren. Listen, I’m not saying this is a masterpiece but like…they got Eartha Kitt for it! That’s wild, right? Go give a little love to Jim Varney (RIP) and look up Ernest Scared Stupid on YouTube.
I refuse to believe that there is anyone on this planet who has not seen what I consider to be Joan Cusack’s best work but just in case…you’ve got to watch Addams Family Values. The sequel to the 90s edition of The Addams Family is so much better than its predecessor. Wednesday and Pugsley have to go to summer camp. Summer camp! The Addams kids! Where they sing the best Thanksgiving song to ever exist! Baby Pubert shows up with a Gomez mustache! Then you’ve got my girl Joan as Debbie (DEBORAH!) Jellinsky, love interest to Uncle Fester and black widow extraordinaire. Maybe it’s been a minute since you last watched Addams Family Values or maybe you’ve somehow managed to go your entire life without ever seeing…either way, head over to YouTube to rectify that immediately!
This movie….is not good. It’s not bad! It’s just incredibly predictable and pretty campy which is not something I would usually expect from James Wan (director of the first Saw, The Conjuring, and Insidious.) A woman starts having visions of gruesome murders with no idea why and is on a mission to stop them but the police don’t know whether she’s crazy, if she’s involved, or if she just might be telling the truth. We saw this one in theaters and boy did we laugh, which I’m not totally certain was what the producers wanted but that’s what happened. Malignant is streaming on HBO Max until October 10th if you want to get a few giggles out.
Stories to Chill You
This story made one of my rounds ups in 2020 and since I’m still thinking about it over a year later it only made sense to remind ya’ll to check it out. It came from the NoSleep Reddit thread, a subreddit that specializes in frights. A couple buys a ranch out in the country and befriends their elderly neighbors who proceed to tell them that the land in those parts…well it’s not quite right. There’s a spirit that keeps watch over the land and manifests itself in different ways depending on the season, each dangerous in its own way. A light, a bear attack, scarecrows, ghosts. The old couple warns the new owners and leaves them a list of rules to handle each event with the promise to check in on them. Of course the new couple thinks it’s all a joke, until the first light is seen in the pond on their property. You’ll just have to go to the thread to find out what happens! Or you can listen to it on YouTube below.
If you’ve already seen the movie based off The Ruins you might be like, Jodi…this is a terrible entry. But hear me out. Yes, The Ruins movie is bad but The Ruins book is really good! It’s gross, it’s bloody, it feels hopeless, and it probably doesn't end in the way you think it will. A group of friends gets trapped at an archaeological dig site after the locals won’t let them leave the hill. Low on food, water, and unsure why they’re trapped, the group must work together to find a way off the hill or risk being another mound found under the ever creeping vines. If you like scary stories that might not have a happy ending, you’ve gotta pick this one up before the end of the season.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
A classic, amirite? I don’t care if this is technically a children’s anthology…this is still one of the scariest series of books I think I’ve ever read in my life. A lot of that probably has to do with Stephen Gammel’s accompanying illustrations but whatever the case, I’d be remiss to not include Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark this year. With memorable tales of Harold the scarecrow, the girl with the spiders in her face, or the bride who goes missing on her wedding day, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is an absolute must for the whole spooky family.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Ya’ll. I literally just finished this maybe 15 minutes before typing out this rec and there’s a good reason why…it’s fucking great! The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires wasn’t even on my radar until we started turning to Booktube this month looking for good horror recommendations and so many from last year put this one on the list. It follows a group of 90s, southern housewives who start a book club centered around true crime to add a little excitement into their lives. But when a mysterious new guy comes to town, things start going weird and the ladies have to decide how much of their safe, ordinary, lives they’re willing to risk to do the right thing. This story is tense, it’s scary, and it’s frustrating but in all of the interesting ways. Grady Hendrix really killed it and I actually already had two of his other works (The Final Girl Support Group and My Best Friend’s Exorcism) on my TBR pile without realizing he wrote all of them so I’m even more excited to pick them both up now. Definitely a great book for the Halloween season!
Shows and Movies to Make You Sleep with the Lights On
Haunted house attractions are not my thing. I may love scary shit but I do NOT love having people jump out at me in the name of a good time. However, I’ll gladly watch movies of other people having bad times in haunted house attractions and Hell House, LLC might be my favorite of that category. Filmed in a found footage style (which I personally usually love) we find out from the start that a haunted attraction within the walls of the Abbadon hotel ended their opening night with the deaths of 15 guests and employees. A documentary crew works to put together the happenings of that night with the help of the only surviving member of the Hell House staff and her footage of the month leading up to opening night. This movie is scary. There is a clown “mannequin” through out the footage that will unsettle you every time its on screen. By the time you find out what happened on opening night you’re practically on the edge of your seat. Tubi’s got the whole Hell House, LLC series of movies including the director’s cut of the first one…you’ve got to go watch it!
I need to preface this entry by saying this is a case of separating the art from the artist because I truly love this movie but the director is a full out piece of shit scumbag so I never know how to proceed when it comes to Jeepers Creepers. But, here’s why I think it’s still worth the watch. I vividly remember watching this at my 13th birthday sleepover. Actually, I’m pretty sure we watched it twice and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Both times! There’s no slow burn to this one, it’s pedal to the metal from the very start when a brother and sister are chased my some kind of monster on their road trip home from college. If you decide to check it out, you can find it on Tubi until the end of September.
Okay, so this one only came out today and I don’t have any idea how it’s actually gonna be yet BUT Mike Flanagan has become one of the best horror filmmakers of our generation (according to Jonathan and I agree) with his Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor series on Netflix and his run with the theatrical version of Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, Mikey Flan can do no wrong in my eyes when it comes to horror so I’m going on a leap of faith that you’re gonna wanna check out Midnight Mass. According to Netflix, “Midnight Mass tells the tale of a small, isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man and the arrival of a charismatic priest. When Father Paul's appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community – but do these miracles come at a price?” It’s out now so get your binge on and let me know if I was right.
Petrifying Podcasts
This isn’t the first appearance on a round up for either of these podcasts but it’s been so long since I’ve mentioned them that I think ya’ll might need a reminder. Scare You to Sleep is typically fictional stories submitted by authors or listeners or written by Shelby Scott, the wonderful, angel voiced host of the show. Obviously, these stories tend to be of the scary variety. I love Shelby so much, she even has a new show coming out in October and I can’t wait to see what it is. The stories are perfect spine chillers to lull you into some beautiful nightmares….if that’s your kind of thing (muahahaha.) Find Scare You to Sleep exclusively on Spotify!
Real life is usually scarier than fiction. And that’s the basic premise of Let’s Not Meet which takes listeners real life stories of scary experiences and turns them into a bedtime story. Let’s Not Meet is hosted and narrated by Andrew Tate and releases new episodes every Sunday. If you don’t mind a little real life terror that doesn’t chronicle any well known true crime the news has covered, this is definitely the show for you.
That enough stuff to start scaring up your October? If you’re looking for more Spooky Shit from me, check out last year’s round up or leave a question down in the comments! And you know I’m always looking for new fun frights so tell me what’s on your Spooky Shit list in the comments down below!
