Blogtoberfest – Page 12

Blogtoberfest – Recipe: Fudge Skeletons

I love an easy recipe and this one you can make in the microwave!

Ingredients
8 oz (about 3 cups) semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup white candy coating or white chocolate chips, to decorate
Gingerbread man cookie cutter
Yield: 12-15 Fudge Skeletons

Preparation

1. Prepare a 9 x 13 by lining it with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Spray the lining with non-stick cooking spray. Make the paper/foil overhang the pan to use as handles later.

2. In a large microwave-safe bowl, combine the chocolate chips, condensed milk, and salt.

3. Microwave the bowl on high for 1 minute, then stir with a spatula. If the chocolate chips are not completely melted, return the bowl to the microwave and heat for another 15-30 seconds, then stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. It is very important not to burn the chips. Stir, stir, stir, stir!

4. Add the vanilla extract, and stir to mix it in. Scrape the fudge into the prepared pan and smooth it into a thin, even layer.

5. Let the fudge set at room temperature for 2 hours, or in the refrigerator for 1 hour, until it is firm.

6. Lift it from the pan using the foil as handles, and then use the gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut out body shapes from the fudge. Depending on the size of the cutter, you will probably get about 12-15 men from one batch. You can save the scraps to munch on, or chop them up to use them in cookie or brownie recipes.

7. Melt the white chocolate candy coating or white chocolate chips. Make a paper cone and pour the candy coating into the cone, or alternately, pour it into a zip-top plastic bag and cut off a small corner of the bag to use as a makeshift piping bag. *I use Wilton Royal Icing for this.*

8. Use the melted candy coating (or candy frosting) to decorate your fudge men with bones and skulls so that they look like skeletons.

9. Let the coating set completely, then the Fudge Skeletons are ready to serve.

Store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks.

Recipe courtesy of about.com

Blogtoberfest – Colors in Darkness Halloween Party

The 1st Multicultural Celebration of Horror, Paranormal and Dark Fantasy!

Come and Celebrate With The Fear! There will be contests, excerpts and more!

Have you marked your calendars? On October 29th, you must attend the first Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. Come hang out with writers of color who love spinning dark fiction, horror, paranormal and dark fantasy. If you like all things scary, , you’ll love the party that we have planned. Author excerpts, prizes, trivia and all around scary fun. Come and discover a new Gothic author, a super-scary horror author, or on the lighter side, a dark paranormal with a little romance.

Spread the word about this event…..click to tweet below….and see you at the end of October!

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[bctt tweet=”Come celebrate your fear! Multicultural celebration of horror, paranormal and dark fiction. http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

[bctt tweet=”Like scary stuff? Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. Stop on by! http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

[bctt tweet=” We’re going to have a wicked good time! Colors in Darkness Halloween Party. http://on.fb.me/1OQ2R8h” via=”no”]

Blogtoberfest – Scary Stories – Pet Sematary

Horror is different for everyone. I don’t think the “experts” can agree on what horror is and thus there are tons of movies and books that represent the horror

Cover of "Pet Sematary (Special Collector... — Cover via Amazon

genre, as it should be.

I also believe that horror is different depending on where you are in your life. What’s represents horror for a twenty-year-old might be old-hat to a forty year old. Books that resounded for me in my twenties are just “eh” now that I’m a lovely seasoned woman of a certain age.

But Stephen King’s Pet Semetary broke that mold. It’s just as frightening now as when I first read it many years ago.

Here’s the blurb

“Sometimes dead is better….”When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself…and hideously more powerful.

SPOILERS SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS sort of SPOILERS SPOILERS

My goodness, what a story. It runs the gamut from the “real-life” horror of the death of a child and the grief that follows, to the otherworldly horror that awaits when the family tries to alleviate the grief that follows the death of a family pet.

The first time I read the story the scene on the hill wasn’t so horrifying. You know why? Because I didn’t have children of my own. I think I was more touched by the death of the pet than I was by the other. However, when I read it now, that scene on the hill makes my gut twinge and jump. After reading it, I had to go “check on the children”. Having children of my own makes the following scenes more poignant and so much more touching.

Sympathy turning to empathy.

SPOILERS END (they were half-assed anyway)

My theory of horror if you’re “just watching” it makes it a lot less scary. “This could never happen to me because blah blah”. When an ordinary situation turns into a “horror” situation, something that could happen to anyone, something that is plausible (with a little “what if” thrown in) that’s when the true terror begins.

Pet Sematary is about grief, loss and at its core, the horror of not letting go and where it can get you.

Blogtoberfest – Urban Legends to Keep You Up at Night – Part 1

We all know ’em, don’t we? The friend of a friend of my cousin who….they all start out that way and always end badly for that sort-of person we kinda know. They even made a movie (or three) about it, then there was that television series that acted them out (badly) for you.

Let’s talk about a few of these, shall we? And remember to leave the light on….

The Clown Statue Murderer: An Urban Legend

The story of the clown statue murderer is an urban legend. It is not a true story but can spark fear in anyone who reads it. It has been passed around as a chain letter online since 2004.

Here is the story:

“A girl in her teens is babysitting for a family in Newport Beach, Ca. The family is wealthy and has a very large house – you know the sort, with a ridiculous amount of rooms. Anyways, the parents are going out for a late dinner/movie. The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in bed she should go into this specific room (he doesn’t really want her wandering around the house) and watch TV there.

The parents take off and soon she gets the kids into bed and goes to the room to watch TV. She tries watching TV, but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room. She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can’t handle it.

She resorts to calling the father and asks, “Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out.”

The father says seriously, “Get the kids, go next door and call 911.”

She asks, “What’s going on?”

He responds, “Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back.”

She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police. When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, “So, really, what’s going on?”

He responds, “We don’t HAVE a clown statue.” He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they sleep. He and his wife had just blown it off, assuming that they were having nightmares.

The police arrive and apprehend the “clown,” who turns out to be a midget. A midget clown! I guess he was some homeless person dressed as a clown, who somehow got into the house and had been living there for several weeks. He would come into the kids’ rooms at nights and watch them while they slept. As the house was so large, he was able to avoid detection, surviving off their food, etc. He had been in the TV room right before the babysitter right came in there. When she entered he didn’t have enough time to hide, so he just froze in place and pretended to be a statue.

Yeah. As I said earlier on a discussion group, between IT and John Wayne Gacy, I don’t have any time for clowns.

And another to make your hair stand on end. This is an oldie but a still a goodie:

The Killer in the Backseat….

One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes she noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on — the car was going to pass — when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.

Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, “Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!”

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

The moral of the story: Always check the back seat!

Yes, they’re (mostly) not true, but don’t they give you a shiver?

Pleasant Dreams!

Dahlia

Blogtoberfest – American Gothic Roots Music – Rachel Brooke

Welcome to today’s Blogtoberfest post! It’s another dark country/roots song by artist Rachel Brooke.

“Take everything you think you know about country music and throw it out the window. That pop rock crap y’all call country is nothing compared to what Rachel Brooke is laying down. She’s an old soul in the way Hank Williams and Memphis Minnie were, culling together both country and country blues into an album that is easily digestible for anyone who gets scared off by real country music. Etta James once said that the blues and country music were kissing cousins. Rachel Brooke is their love child.” -Chip McCabe

and

“Producing and playing most of the instruments herself, Rachel demonstrates her immense talent and diversity on this album. (Down in the Barnyard 2011) The song writing is top notch, her voice is eerily old-time-authentic, and the whole album has the ability to whisk you away on the country technicolor lullaby head trip that she has painted during it’s near-hour long set. Rachel is just hitting her stride, but with this release is proving that we should all be keeping our eyes on her.” –Shooter Jennings, ”- Moonrunners”