October Pairings (#OctPairs): Movies & Drinking Games

happy-halloween1

My Halloween card from last year. Please print it out and put it on the fridge as some Halloween love from me! But watch out! The pumpkin bites!

Since we paired books and candy last week, I thought we’d pair movies again. And what’s better than watching scary movies with friends and playing drinking games? (Doing a wooden jigsaw puzzle at the same time? Maybe.)
drinking gamesA while back, a friend of mine gave me the book Drinking Games by Terry Burrows. I thought I’d look at the games and pair them with Halloween movies.
The games in the book are organized into four sections: Words, Actions, Cards and Dice & Coins. Since I’m not into props while watching movies, let’s see if we can’t find pairs for Words and Action games.

I’ve linked the names of the movies to where you can stream them on amazon. It costs around $2.99. So if you get really excited and want to start right now, just click on the link of the movie you want and start playing.

Words

      1. Initial Thoughts: To play this game, one player asks a question. In our emily roseversion, let’s say the question has to be about the movie or Halloween, and each player has to give a two word answer. The two words have to start with their initials. Example: If the question was What will they find in the woods? My answer could be Many Bones where Frank Clark might answer Feral Cats and Earl Thomas might answer Eagle Talons (my first thought was Eager Tyrannosaurs, but I wasn’t planning on pairing with Jurassic Park). If a player can’t answer within five seconds, they have to drink and come up with the next question. This game will most likely go well with any scary movie. Since it’s about the players’ names, I think I’ll pair it with The Exorcism of Emily Rose. You might come up with a new rule like if you can’t think of an answer with your own initials you can use E. R.
      2. rhyme or reason: This looks like another fun one that can be adapted tonightmare on elm our Halloween fun. The first player says a word, for our purposes, let’s say it has to be a word that has to do with the movie. The next person clockwise in the circle must either come up with a word that rhymes or one that describes what it does. Example: I say “axe” then Doug Baldwin says “chops” so then Russell Wilson can say either “cops” or “feeds”.  If a player can’t come up with a word that works, it’s time to drink and come up with the next word. I think I would pair this game with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) because of that creepy nursery rhyme.

PiranhaActions

  1. fish face: Each player selects the name of a fish and lets the other players know their type of fish. No two players can be the same fish. The first player says, “I’m a (says their fish name); you’re a (someone else’s fish name). That player repeats the phrase saying their fish name and then choosing another fish in the group. Players have to talk without showing their teeth. If anyone gives the glimpse of a tooth, they have to drink.

For obvious reasons, I would pair this game with Piranha [Roger Corman’s Cult Classics].  Though if you want to expand the rules to include sharks, you could pair it with Jaws or Sharknado.

2. drinking with the simpsons: Most of the drinking games I found online were like this one. In the book version, you watch an episode of The Simpsons. The rules are simple: you take a drink any time a list of things are said or done. There are games like this for lots of scary movies. You can find one for Halloween at Film Drunkies tumblr and cheezburger.com promises The Ultimate HalloweenHalloween the movie drinking game. And here’s a post that says it’s The Official Drinking Game For Every Horror/Slasher Film. You could try it with every Scream movie or the entire Friday the 13th series.
Another online game with “drink when” rules is for Hocus Pocus. POPHANGOVER.com professes to having The Ultimate Hocus Pocus drinking game.hocus pocus
Drinkwhen.ca has this style of drinking game for a lot of great Halloween movies from classics like The Shining and The Silence of the Lambs to newer greats like Get Out and What We Do in the Shadows. As you can see there is a game for every Halloween movie.
But what if you are trying to get fit and don’t want to drink beverages all night? I even found a game for you. Over at POPSUGAR Fitness they came up with a horror movie game where they linked things that happen in horror movies to exercises. I think I might try this for my workouts the next couple weeks.

I hope you enjoy trying some of these fun October Pairings this Halloween season. If/When you’re on Twitter, please head over to #OctPairs and share some of your favorite October Pairings.

 

*I apologize that this did not get out last night as planned, but my power went out and stayed out for over 16 hours.

#Writober Day 5: Why is there always a cabin in the woods that isn’t mine?

Cabin in the woods

Ahhh, The Cabin In The Woods, not only a great movie in its own right, but also the setting of my favorite horror comedy Tucker & Dale vs Evil.

The cabin in the woods in today’s photograph was built in 1888 and is located inside Mt. Rainier National Park. Before you get to Paradise, there is an area called Longmire where strange bubbling wells were visited for therapeutic purposes, but have all been abandoned.

What is your cabin in the woods story? Does it include stereotyped teenagers and aliens or a serial killer? Or is it a Lovecraftian tale of psychological torture?

#vss: very short story

I had always wished for this; complete isolation in a cabin in the woods. My neighbor had the same wish; and larger teeth and claws.

#OctPoWriMo

Today’s theme: Finally I understand

I Reap What I Sow

Slowing down, eyes to the ground, I discover

Tiny shoots creeping, reaching slowly, grow

Trying, testing, churning, always more to learn

Patience in attentive silence harvests triumph

Produce, ripe, plump and plucked, continues to transform

Mulching, composting, burning with next year’s vision

Tastes combining the known and unknown spark delight

 

#FlashFicHive

Stronger Noun/Verb Swap

flash fic day 5

In May of 2015, I discovered a fabulous book called The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How to Solve the Mysteries of Weak Writing.

While reading it, I was inspired to write about finding and replacing weak verbs. I included many links to stronger active verbs. I recommend giving it a look to help you with this challenge.

Happy Writing and Reading. I hope you’re enjoying #Writober.

October Pairings (#OctPairs): Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles and Spooky Movies.

Little shop of horrors.jpg

I was writing my morning pages at the end of September (hard to believe that wasn’t even a week ago) and started thinking about things that go together with Halloween movies and books. I remembered an October when I manufactured artifact puzzles. I would put on scary movies while I separated the puzzle pieces and boxed them up.

I no longer work with the day to day of the business, but I still love the puzzles and recently designed the pieces for The Scream by Edvard Munch. So for my first October Pairing, I want to talk about which movies I think go well with my artifact puzzle designs. If you are a puzzle lover, like me, or are having a gathering for The Holiday,  you should have enough time to order a puzzle for Halloween.

starry nightArtifact Puzzles – Van Gogh Starry Night

Everyone knows this image. It’s a poster in a dorm room. So I tried to give it a twist. I swirled and whirled all of the signs of the zodiac into this puzzle then added the symbols, too.

If puzzling with the kids, I would pair this with Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and once the kids have fallen asleep I would put on Zodiac and Suspect Zero.

garden of deathArtifact Puzzles – Garden of Death

I love this image. This puzzle was one of my early designs. It includes a multi-piece monster plant and a Jack-o-Lantern. It’s a perfect pairing with Little Shop Of Horrors.

My mom gave me a great Halloween noises CD that came with a DVD of the 1960’s version of Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and I was happily surprised by a young Jack Nicholson (as pictured in the lead image).

 

creature ladder

Artifact Puzzles – Justin Hillgrove Creature Ladder

This image makes me smile. It’s fun. It’s whimsical. And monsters. I designed some of my pieces to represent these monsters, then their neighbors became their own monsters, and so on . . . The puzzle is a monsterfest!

This is a shorter puzzle, so the first time, during family fun-time, I would pair it with the monster squad

then after the kidlets have gone to bed, how about going full Cryptid with laughably horrible films like: Loch Ness Terror and Abominable

Or a Bigfoot comedy like Strange Wilderness

Artifact Puzzles – Waterhouse Lady of Shalott

Waterhouse_Lady_of_Shalott_edge_1024x1024

The Lady of Shalott is a ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Like his other early poems – “Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere”, and “Galahad” – the poem recasts Arthurian subject matter loosely based on medieval sources.

I find this image haunting. So while working this puzzle, after the kids have gone to bed, I recommend:
An American Haunting and my mate’s personal favorite The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Edvard_Munch_-_The_Scream_-_Google_Art_Project_1024x1024
And of course, The Scream – you can sign up to get an email when it’s in stock!

It’s not available yet, but I worked hard on it because I love it!

At first the movie pairing is obvious:
Scream
Scream 2
Scream 3
Scream 4

But then you’ll notice the symbolism and want to watch TrollHunter.

#OctPairs

There you have it. My first offering of October Pairings. I hope you find the same joy in movies and puzzles as I do. When I started making these puzzles, I was surprised how they became the center of every family gathering. They bring people together, and they’re fun to do alone.

What fun things do you think pair up well? Let me know at #OctPairs on Twitter. Or here in the comments.