Monster Mash-up

I finally managed to carve my pumpkin--just in time to light the candle inside and lie in wait, with a basketful of bite-size candies (some of which I have already consumed) for the few trick-or-treaters who traditionally stop by my house on Halloween night. It’s too late now to bother making a big deal of this delightful pagan holiday in The Rap Sheet. Nonetheless, there are a few links still worth checking out, if--like me--you suddenly have some free time on your hands.

• Two horror movie quizzes, here and here.
• The Cinematical movie site has been posting Halloween-related stories over the last couple of weeks, about such hot topics as the greatest movie monsters of all time, non-horror flicks that can still “scare the crap” out of children, an obsessive-compulsive’s guide to the Friday the 13th movies, Halloween flicks that could ruin relationships, and the inevitable much, much more.
• Speaking of Halloween pictures, blogger Dave Nadler picks his four favorites here. And he writes here about what he says are the “two scariest books ever written.”
• At RogerEbert.com, editor Jim Emerson chooses four “undervalued scary movies” on DVD.
• And if you’re really ready to be spooked, the AfterEllen site offers a list of its 10 favorite lesbian vampire movies. (Yes, there really are 10--and more.)
• TV Squad selects the all-time scariest small-screen characters (another roster of 10), including players familiar from Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Doctor Who.
• In Criminal Brief, James Lincoln Warren takes a look back at early American fright fictionists, including the “first American writer of short stories, Charles Brockden Brown, [who] wrote stories of Gothic horror.”
• Meanwhile, The Little Professor’s Miriam Burstein scans the Web for free-access 19th and early 20th century tales of Things That Go Bump in the Night. (Which reminds us inevitably of our own similar survey from last Halloween.)
• And finally, Bill Crider points us to a Web page recalling “the worst Halloween costumes of all time.” Who ever thought it was a good idea to dress up as Tattoo from Fantasy Island and go out prowling for Mars Bars? Now, that’s scary.