The Night Monitor - "Black Stream"


So while I took the last few months off from any and all haunt projects, I did keep one toe in the water, and that was with music. My unending quest to find the best dark, horror, and ritual ambient audio will always be my 365-day-a-year connection to all things Halloween. I've long championed the use of this genre as the perfect background audio for haunt displays. The perfect amount of creepiness to set a truly menacing and dark tone.

One recent discovery is Blackpool, UK's The Night Monitor. "Soundtracking unexplained phenomena." Can there be a cooler description than that?? I perused their entire catalog and picked out quite a few ambient gems that have gone into the standard rotation here at the Cemetery. Tunes to really get the black-and-orange blood pumping.

I'll share a few more tracks in the near future, but I figured I'd start with my favorite of the bunch. An unsettling homage to the famous English cryptid, Owlman of Mawnan... 

From The Night Monitor Bandcamp page:

Cover story: 3rd July 1976. Cornwall, England. During a period of strange happenings in the area (including a sighting of local sea monster Morgawr on the same day) the mysterious winged cryptid known as Owlman makes its second appearance of the year, when two girls are startled by the bizarre bird monster while camping in the woods near Mawnan church.

Sally Chapman - "It was like a big owl with pointed ears, as big as a man. The eyes were red and glowing. At first, I thought it was someone dressed up, playing a joke, trying to scare us. I laughed at it, we both did, then it went up in the air and we both screamed. When it went up, you could see its feet were pincers."

Barbara Perry - "It's true. It was horrible, a nasty owl-face with big ears and big red eyes. It was covered in grey feathers. The claws on its feet were black. It just flew straight up and disappeared in the treetops."


  

100 Days...


Tick, tock...


  

The Nightmare


 


So here I am, enjoying these warm summer days when it hits. Out of nowhere...

It's October 31st, roughly 5:00 pm and dusk is approaching fast. And there I am, caught completely off-guard. Completely oblivious to the sudden realization that nothing has been set up in the front yard. Not one prop lit, not one tombstone placed, not one jack-o-lantern carved. The paralyzing panic is real. It's too late now. There's no way I can make it. I'm going to miss Halloween... 

I jolt violently from a deep sleep, sitting up in a sweat, trying to make sense of the completely dark room around me. After a few quick, shallow breaths it all becomes clearer. Sitting in the darkness of my bedroom on a summer July morning, I realize that I just had "my Halloween nightmare." Again.

It's been a few years since I've experienced my nightmare, but the thoughts of the upcoming haunt season (buried deep in the back of my brain while I take time away to enjoy the summer) have finally boiled back to the top. A warning that it is time to get back to work. Especially with the added pressure of haunt season number twenty and a need to do something really big.

I decided to take the summer off completely to prevent mental and physical haunt fatigue, and it was working rather well, but the internal alarm has sounded. Time to get back to it. Three months until the big night. It's now time to start planning, time to start sketching, time to start creating again.

It's time to fire up this old blog for another run in to the Halloween season. I have been sitting on a handful of posts, so I'll be dropping them shortly. It's the perfect way to get things going again. Come hang out for the annual black-and-orange transformation, I think it's going to be a great one! So much to do, so much to share.


102 days to go until All Hallow's Eve. Let's do this...