New Year New Props!

Happy almost new year to all!

I hope everyone has a happy and safe new years eve. I am looking forward to some big glasses of bubbly and lots of great food!

I'd say I have a few New Years resolutions this year but the one haunt related one would be to get cracking on props as early as possible. I have a lot of ideas for Grimlock Manor this year and we are starting to add a carnival aspect to it now so I'm really going to have to work on new props that fit that theme.

We want our carnival to be like a circus freakshow of sorts. Last year we started with a simple sign that read "Carnival of Souls" we had a clown carnival wheel with light up eyes (made from foam board) and a fun house blacklight maze but this year I really want to make carnival games, a freakshow tent and some creepy vending carts. I have really been inspired by The Haunt at Hellizondo, they do some amazing work with papier mache. This year they made a full merry go round with I believe it was 3-4 creatures which posed as the horses you would normally see. They did a few game stands and had a cool walk through corridor with a nice drop panel scare. Check out their website if you haven't already, very inspiring stuff.

I also have a cool link I'd like to add that has to do with a pretty cool prop from Haunted Overload that we are thinking about taking a stab at. Haunted Overload is the creation of Eric Lowther. He started Haunted Overload as a home haunt and because he didn't have enough space to expand his haunt outward he decided to build up and began making these 20,40,and 50 foot creatures which are just a sight to behold. Now HAunted Overload is a pro attraction and Eric has a lot of talented people working with him one of which is Rae Enslin who made and awesome Undead Horse prop for the haunt in 2009. Rae called the horse Mr. Dead. She made a website dedicated to the step by step creation of the prop which I find to be super cool! You can see it all from concept to completion and she details everything. It is an awesome tutorial if you ever want to build an undead horse for your haunt. Check it out here at Mr. Dead Tutorial.

I still have props sitting that are in the works but a Mr. Dead of my very own could make the prop list for 2011.  I hope to stay ahead of the game and really get cracking on things and I am looking forward to what 2011 will bring to Grimlock Manor and I hope everyone has a happy and safe new year!!

Mr. Dead

"Silent House" Movie at Sundance

Hi Everybody!

So I haven't posted since the contest came to it's completion. I want to take a quick moment again to say thank you to all who entered and signed up to follow the blog! We have begun to contact everyone to send out some cool swag so be on the look out and remember to keep checking in as we intend on running more contest in the near future. The next giveaway we have in mind is a 12VDC Wiper Motor...sound good?! Just have to think up the contest now!

So onto the post for today. Now I am not much of a movie reviewer. I mean I can't really do it up like my friend Johnny Thunder on Hauntcast does but I did come across what seems to be an interesting horror movie that I am not sure everyone has heard of just yet? It's called "Silent House" and it is from the same directors who brought us Open Water.

The official synopsis is as follows: "A hauntingly choreographed descent into madness based on the Uruguayan film "La Casa Muda". Laura Lau adapted the script, and Lau and Kentis co-directed a cast that includes Elizaberth Olsen, Eric Sheffer Stevens, Julia Taylor Ross, Adam Trese, Haley Murphy, and Adam Barnett. The press release promises that the film is "truly a unique horror experience with immediate intimacy and unsettling terror."

The most interesting thing about this film seems to be that it was only shot from one long continuous camera shot from a photo camera! That sounds crazy! I would just be interested to see how that would work out. It seems like horror flicks these days are really trying to break everything down to the bare bones and get to the core of what really scares us. It's that freaky factor over the blood and guts and gore.

I've added the trailer from youtube with a few links to various write ups. If anyone else knows anything about the movie please feel free to post about it but overall I think it looks interesting especially the very last split second of the trailer when she opens the door..whooooo scaryyyyy!!!

Silent House @ Sundance

Scary Christmas to All! We Have a Winner!

A HUGE Thank You goes out to everyone who entered the contest and signed up to follow the blog this month, we really appreciate it and we hope to continue to make our blog an interesting one to come visit every day. There were a lot of great answers given for the contest and we got some great laughs! It was truly hard to pick a winner but our congrats goes out to Wolfie for his Zombie Rendition of "Twas A NIght Before Christmas." Great job Wolfie!, and a great job to everyone else who entered. We will be contacting everyone shortly after the holiday to send out all the cool Zombie Swag!


Scary Christmas Everyone!!!......


Twas the Night before Christmas and all through the Mall, Zombies shuffled up and down the halls
The dead gathered near the christmas trees trees and toy trains,
Milling about looking and for brains,
Up on the roof there arose such a clatter,
the dead took heed in hopes of grey matter
They shuffled and formed up like a pack of undead hounds,
not a thought in their head just following the sounds,
They dont know its Christmas or what that entails,
They dont decorate trees or bake a feast of entrails,
It is not a human or a future meal, 
who makes a ruckus on the malls roof of steel,
Knowing nothing but hoping to feast,
a hatch opened up just out of their reach,
and what should there cloudy decayed eyes behold,
But an undead figure like them suit stained blood red and and a beard full of mold,
his decay and rot could not hide his girth,
and he hefted a sack filled with items of worth,
He leapt down amoung them and gave each one a present,
each zombie was better because of his descent,
He led the shambling and broke wide the malls gates!
and unleashed on the town Zombies on Skates!
In true Christmas spirit he evened the odds
the zombies were faster and fresh for their cause!
the wobbly zombies were harder to keep in sights,
and more zombies survived that Christmas night,
Zombie santa had finished his work
speedy undead was his holiday perk
This Christmas all the zombies gained,
Now rolling undead on the lookout for brains!

Remember to Enter The Contest!

Hello my haunter friends!

Tonight's post is just a reminder that you have tonight and all day tomorrow until 12 Midnight to enter the "What Would A Zombie Santa Give As A Present Contest?!"

Simply go to the contest post which is a few posts below and give your answer to that question. You can give as many answers as you like. Be creative, be funny and have fun with it. I will be writing a post on Christmas Day and declaring the winner and the winning answer to the question.

The winner receives a cool Framed 11x17 Canvas Original Zombie Attacks Print by yours truly and Volume 1. of A Very Zombie Christmas. Anyone else who entered or who signed up to follow the blog this month will receive some cool Zombie swag but remember, if you are signing up to follow the blog or enter the contest than please make your contact information available or I won't be able to get in touch with you and get your mailing address to send out the swag.

There are a lot of really great answers and it is going to be hard to pick a winner but I am super excited that everyone is getting into it. I appreciate it and I hope to run more contest in the future as I  already have some really cool prize ideas lined up SOooo...Enter to win, stay tuned and stay scary!

Elaine's & The Ghosts of Cap May.

Good Evening Gals and Ghouls!

The question I have for you tonight is this... Do you believe in Ghosts!?

Being a haunter and fan of everything Halloween and Horror related I am also naturally into the paranormal as well. Am I a believer in the afterlife? Yes. Do I go hunting for ghosts? Not really. You see as funny as it sounds that I am a haunter who loves to give a good scare and I love going to other home and pro haunts during the season to get a good scare the truth is I would probably poop my pants if I actually saw a real ghost but it doesn't stop me from kind of looking for them which brings me to Cape May and Elaine's Bed and Breakfast.

The past two years my wife and I have started taking weekend trips to Cape May New Jersey and staying over night in various Bed and Breakfasts. I have to say if you are a haunter and you are looking for some great inspiration especially if you do a victorian mansion style haunt than Cape May is where you want to visit! We have really grown to love the rich history of Cape May but even more than that we have really grown to be fascinated by the various haunting stories the town holds. You see back in 1878 one of the most disastrous fires that has ever swept through any seaside resort happened right in Cape May. Almost half of the town went up in ashes. So many of the buildings burned down and so many people died. It is because of this traumatic event that many believe there are still some souls who continue to wander and visit their old stomping grounds. Once such souls name is Emily and she happens to reside at Elaine's Bed & Breakfast.

My wife and I were given a Gift Certificate to stay at Elaine's two summers ago. It is well known to most who visit Cape May often that Elaine's hosts a Haunted Mansion Dinner every night during the summer. Our friends who gave us the gift certificate know that I am a haunter and they figured that my wife and I would love this so we eventually booked our room and off we went not knowing that we would be staying in what was reportedly the most haunted room in the house by the book Cape May Haunts which is written by D.P. Roseberry & Psychic Laurie Hill.

The setting of the evening we were to check in was something out of a horror movie. It was a torrential down pour with the loudest crashing thunder and streaking lighting I have ever seen! We almost didn't even go however, we made the trek and got there at about 9:30 PM. As I was brining in our luggage my wife Carolynn went to check in. I waited in the hallway. To my right was a small bar where I overheard a couple ask "By the way, we hear Elaine's is haunted. Is this true?" The host asked if the couple was staying at the inn and they said no so she said "oh, ok I'll tell you then. I just didn't want to scare you in case." I began to think "In case of what?" She proceeded to explain that a young girl by the named of Emily passed away in the house at the early age of 13. Her bedroom was room number 6 but she also had a play room which was room 4. Emily didn't die in the tragic fire i explained above however she was very sick. She would stay in her bedroom most of the time but go to room 4 (her playroom) when she wanted to see outside because there is a balcony that looks over the town off of room 4.

Well after listening to all this you can imagine I was eager to learn what room I would be staying in for the weekend with my wife and to my shock we got room 6!! At this point my wife had no idea our room was reportedly the most haunted nor did she know much about the haunted history surrounding Elaine's or even most of Cape May for that matter but I was only learning myself. I felt I needed to tell her and of course she freaked out! There was a slight moment of dread of staying in the room but we decided to tough it out and I must say it was one of my most interesting weekends I had ever experienced.

I kid you not when I tell you that throughout our stay we heard laughter, knocks coming from within our  closet, children running past our room in the hallway at 3 am and what sounded like a party going on right below us in the middle of the night and the thing about all this is that besides us there was only one other couple staying in Elaine's that weekend and they were in room 4!

All in all our stay at Elaine's hasn't stopped us from continually visiting Cape May and staying over and we have actually just received another gift certificate for Elaine's yet again so we will be doing a follow up there very, very soon! I highly suggest a mini vacation to Cape May if you have the chance. There are multiple ghost walk tours, night time ghost trolley tours and horse and buggy tours and so many ghostly claims to investigate while you are there not to mention some great shopping, eating and an awesome beach. For the haunters reading this, Cape May is a great trip for reference. Be sure to visit the Emlen Physick Estate if you go because the grounds and the decor of this place is simply amazing and a haunters dream! If I had the Emlen Physick Estate I don't know where I would start with my halloween display!

Below are various pictures from my stay at Elaine's, my trip to the Emlen Physick house and a few links for those who are a bit more curious. I hope you enjoy and stay tuned for my future visit to Elaine's which will probably take place some time this spring/summer. I hope to do a deeper investigation and see what results I can turn up!

The Cape May Fire of 1878
Emlen Physick Estate
Elaines Bed & Breakfast

Lunar Eclipse Time Lapse & Zombie Gear!

Tell me something my friends. You ever dance with the devil in the eclipsed moonlight?

Well last night was pretty cool! I didn't think I would be able to wake myself up to go outside and take a peek at the lunar eclipse but luckily I did and I was able to go outside and take a peek and man it was pretty sweet! The entire eclipse lasted probably about 2 and a half to 3 hours but I only watched for maybe 15 minutes or so until I was too cold to bare it anymore. I found some pretty cool time lapse video of the entire eclipse that I have posted below so if you missed out then check it out!

As I mention..I was pretty cold standing outside but luckily I had just the right attire to keep me semi warm and that would be my "Just Been Attacked By A Zombie Hoodie!" Yup you can get yourself a one of a kind Zombie Attack Hoodie at ThinkGeek.com It's a little pricy at $60 but I suppose it is better than any actual battle scars you would earn from fighting off the zombie hordes of apocalypse so go check it out. The Think Geek website itself is pretty neat and there are some other really cool Horror and Haunt related items on the site such as the Blood Bath Shower Gel, Horror Movie Shower Curtain & Bath Mat, Zombie Haiku Book and Zombie Shooting Gallery Desk Game.

Well it's time to wrap up tonight's post but a quick reminder again to be sure you enter the "What Would A Zombie Santa Give as a Present" contest a few posts below. Just answer the question with any funny/creative story or one liner and have yourself a chance to win some cool swag. Also, if you simply sign up to follow the blog we here at Grimlock Manor will be sending out some cool swag in the mail. Contest ends Chritmas Eve night at 12am and the winner will be announced in the Christmas Day Blog so stay tuned and stay scary!


Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Contest Update, Shout Outs & Lunar Eclipse!

Hello Me Haunters!

I hope all has been frightfully well! I am looking forward to Christmas and New Years to be here already. Don't get me wrong because I do love this time of year (not as much as Halloween!) but it is definitely stressful at times which I am sure you can all agree. I just want to get some free time back so I can get back to some real work on my props for the 2011 season, luckily I can still sneak in a blog post every other day or so.

So on to todays news!

First up is the contest update. We have about ten total entries thus far which is pretty cool considering I am still a pretty new blog. I absolutely appreciate everyone who has entered thus far and I encourage anyone who hasn't to please not be shy and throw up a post. Just answer the question "What would a Zombie Santa give as a Christmas Present?" Just be creative and have fun with it and who knows maybe you will win the 11x17 Zombie Attacks poster and Vol. 1 of "A Very Zombie Christmas!" I've posted actual pictures of the items below all ready to go out to the winner who we will announce on Christmas Day! The Zombie poster is in a nice glass frame ready to hang in your home or work office, man cave, evil dungeon or dragons lair and the comic is all ready to be a permanent fixture on the side of your porcelain throne! Also, be sure to sign up to follow the blog because even if you don't win the grand prize I will be mailing out some zombie swag to all who sign up to follow so getch ya some Grimlock Manor Zombie swag and sign up today!

Next up I want to give a shout out to some Vloggers and Bloggers out there real quick. I've only just begun home haunting in the last three years so I am playing catch up with a lot of the great haunt blogs, vlogs and websites out there. I can't post them all but there are a few recently that I've gotten really into that I just want to note in case you haven't heard of them yourself and hey if you know of any or have one yourself that you want me to check out please let me know because I am sure in the future I will do some some more in depth write ups on these and others SOOoo...recently I have really been into Steve's Haunted Yard, Steve gave us a shout out in his most recent blog which was super cool so please check him out Here and at his website Forgotten Cemetary. Also I am sure you all know Johnny Thunder who gives us those awesome horror reviews on Hauntcast well he has a really cool blog called the Midnite Spookfrolic. It is such a great read and he keeps it updated regularly. Speaking of Hauntcast I love, love, LOVE this podcast. There are a lot of podcasts out there that come and go that talk about halloween related topics but Hauntcast is really all about us home haunters. I've written about it before but please support Chris Baker The G-Host with the most and his whole cast of minions over at Hauntcast. Finally there is the Bloodshed Brothers. The brothers blood do a Vlog (video blog ) almost ever day. During Halloween they are hard at work on their home haunt and in the off season they will still try and throw in some hallowen related news but they also do movie reviews and have even started with some haunt product reviews but whatever the topic is you can rest assure it's always a good vlog.

Wow! This is a long post ok so to finish it all up if you didn't know tonight is a Lunar Eclipse which only takes place when the sun, earth and moon are all perfectly aligned. This is a pretty amazing event seeing how the last Lunar eclipse was 371 years ago!  Unlike a solar eclipse which only can be seen for a few moments a lunar eclipse can be viewed for several hours and you won't require any special glasses or equipment like you would with a solar eclipse because a lunar eclipse is perfectly safe to view with just your eyes. So if you feel like take a look at one of the earths most amazing event's then keep your eyes peeled between the hours of 1:30am & 5am. Should be cool!

Alrighty then! Remember to post your answers to the "What would a Zombie Santa give as a Christmas Present?" contest in its' post which is two below this one and sign up to follow the blog for some free swag! Stay Scary!