Tag Archives: scary movies

Thinking About #Writober

It might already be a zombie vampire. Watch Out!

I got in the Halloween spirit a little early this year. Yesterday, I was tweeting about Readers Imbibing Peril. It starts the first of September, but I always forget until October. So in one way I’m early by only starting a couple weeks late. This year’s group book is The Sundial by Shirley Jackson. I started reading it just after watching the first episode of the new season of Slasher and something was oddly familiar. I think I’ll finish the book and then see if Slasher really is mangling it. I haven’t picked any other scary books to read this season yet, but I do have a bunch of thrillers on my kindle. Readers Imbibing Peril also has a fun photo challenge this year and a BINGO card. Oh, so much Halloween fun!

I also went through a list of the top 200 horror movies of all time on Rotten Tomatoes and made lists of movies I haven’t seen yet that looked interesting, or at least were famous, and movies I want to watch again. I would have to watch two or three a day (don’t have time for that). But at least I won’t have to search for something to watch for a while.

Usually for #Writober, I create a collection of images on Pinterest and challenge myself, and you who want to join me, to write a piece of flash fiction inspired by the image each day of October. The first and second years I actually came away with some finished flash fiction. The last few years I haven’t gotten much past a one or two sentence microfiction each day. This year, since my focus is revision, I thought I might choose about six of my favorite microfictions from previous years and expand them into flash and or short stories. I think Ray Bradbury’s schedule of a story a week is much more doable than a story a day, especially when I’m doing OctPoWriMo as well and writing a poem a day.

So that was the working plan for #Writober, but then I saw A. M. Moscoso’s Halloween Prompt Challenge over at MY ENDURING BONES and those all look like fun. So now, the working plan is to go through the last five #Writobers and pick my favorites to revise and turn into stories, and to pick some prompts from the Halloween Prompt Challenge to write new stories to, too.

When I went to Pinterest to link to last year’s images, I noticed I had been collecting images for this year, so I filled up a folder for #Writober6 in no particular order for you to pick and choose from when you’re in need of inspiration. Since I’ll be going back through all the #Writobers to find my favorites, here are links to each of the collections:

  1. #Writober
  2. #Writober2
  3. #Writober3
  4. #Writober4
  5. #Writober5

I hope all of that creepy, scary goodness gets you in the Halloween spirit, too. Or you can bookmark it, and come back when you’re ready 👻

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.