Metatron Omega - "Ecclesia Universalis"

Here's one from all the way back in 2017, but Serbian artist Metatron Omega's beautifully haunting Ecclesia Universalis still holds up as a ritual dark ambient Halloween classic. A truly perfect dark atmospheric track for a cold autumn night.

Enjoy...

The Highbury Cross Tombstone Prop

With less than two weeks to go, I was able to quickly knock this cool little tombstone prop out!

I saw the original 20" foam tombstone two-pack at Lowe's, specifically eyeing the cross tombstone. As I sat and thought about what to do with it, I realized that it was pretty uniform and getting a second stone and gluing them together would give it the thickness and realism that I'm always putting into my cemetery display. So I grabbed a second two-pack and made my way home to get to work on it.

The other stone in the pack was a cool carved woman figure. I'm not sure what to do with them just yet, so they are going into storage in the basement for now...

So the first thing I did was glue the two cross tombstones together back-to-back, and luckily they lined up pretty closely. I then quickly spackled out the seam all the way around, as I wanted this to look like one stone. And after a quick sanding the stone was ready for the next step.

I then took a separate piece of foam and quickly made a simple epitaph, printed it out, attached it to the foam, and then carved it with a Dremel. The finished plaque was then glued to the front of the stone, and once dried was ready for paint.

I gave it my standard three-color paint job: first, a full coverage of dark purple-black (just a color of paint I happen to have on hand), followed by an overall dry brush wash of white (leaving all the recessed areas black and giving the stone a natural, aged grey look), and then finishing with a sparse, dripping patchwork of green to give it an organic, weathered, mossy feel.

The final step was drilling two holes into the bottom and inserting two pieces of old pex-pipe PVC that I had on hand. These pieces act like sleeves that will slide over dowel rods inserted into the ground, holding the tombstone in place.

And before calling it done, I decided to add a coating of dense spider webbing to really give it an aged look. I have been having success with the new Web Caster Gun spider webs on my earlier props this year, so I added another coating of the hot glue webs to this stone. And again, I was really happy with the results.

A completed tombstone in about two days, and the short size of it will fit nicely among the other larger stones, breaking up the uniformity of tombstone sizes across the display.

40 Years Ago Today...

Okay, so this one was technically released in February of 1986, but calling it "today" fits better with yesterday's post...

As I have gotten older, I have become a much bigger fan of Samhain, Glenn Danzig's lesser-known band between the Misfits and later, Danzig. Darker and more mature both lyrically and musically than the Misfits, and still more punk/deathrock than the straight metal of Danzig, I find that I'm listening to Samhain much more often.

And "today" marks the 40th anniversary of Samhain's third release, November Coming Fire. There's just something so unique to the raw, haunting sound to Samhain's music that makes it a staple every October season.

Happy Anniversary, Glenn!

16 Years Ago Today...

I just found out that 16 years ago today, Ghost released their debut album, Opus Eponymous. How can it be that long?? It seems like it came out yesterday...

I was fortunate and discovered the band early on, just as this record came out and was immediately hooked. The incredible costuming and that retro sound was something unique and I instantly became a die-hard fan. 

Fast forward 16 years and the band carries on, releasing more records and becoming a bigger and bigger phenomenon. I have collected a ton of their music and have seen them live 6 or 7 times, but I just keep coming back to this one. It was pretty groundbreaking when it was released and it has the rawest, least overproduced and most authentic 70s metal sound of any of their releases. Don't get me wrong, there is a long list of amazing tracks that came out after this, but for me Opus Eponymous is still the king.

Happy Anniversary, Tobias!

Throbbing Gristle - "Hamburger Lady"

Just like last year, I can't go the entire month of October without posting one of my all-time favorite ambient industrial audio tracks. Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady" is so dark, raw and visceral, and still just grinds on you even 49 years after its initial release.

Add to it the horrifying nature of the lyrics (less "lyrics" but more a reading of a grotesque account of a fictional burn victim - hence the "hamburger"...) and the reverberation and repetition in which they are recited just adds to the unsettling nature of this track.

But it's just so good. Like an accident that you can't look away from, you'll just keep listening to the grating, repetitive dirge of this song. A perfect creepy element to take us through another Halloween season.

Enjoy...

Scream Through The Past - A Collection Of Vintage Haunted House Advertisements

This post is "Halloween Zines-adjacent." I was perusing Instagram a week or so ago and came across a post about books for Halloween inspiration (I can't remember who posted it now, or I'd give a proper shout-out). One book, Scream Through The Past - A Collection Of Vintage Haunted House Advertisements, by author Jeremy Warlen, was one that I had never heard of before. And the cover art, featuring classic old haunted house ads from the newspaper IMMEDIATELY caught my attention.

I did a quick check at the evil empire (Amazon, of course) and was surprised to see it in stock, so I grabbed a copy. Two days later I had it in hand, ready to dive in!

Now I have to point out that one of my fondest Halloween memories growing up was coming home from school every Friday in October and grabbing the Friday insert from the local newspaper. It was a separate section listing all of the entertainment events going on for the weekend. I would fiendishly scour each page, obsessing over the black-and-white haunted house ads. I still remember the smell and feel of the ink as it transferred from the newsprint to my little fingers. I would mark the ads that had the creepiest names, boldest claims and scariest clip art and then beg my parents to take me and my friends. And living in northeast Ohio in the 80s meant that there were a TON of haunted houses to go to!

So imagine my surprise to find that this book, which appears to be a brand new October, 2026 release, is from Cleveland! And it references haunted house ads from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Akron Beacon Journal, the two newspapers I used to scour every Friday in October. These ARE the ads from my youth!!! Was this book written just for me?!?!

The Haunted Schoolhouse & Laboratory, Bloodview Haunted House, Hudson Haunted House, and even Hinckley's Haunted Hollow (one of the first and most memorable haunted houses that I went to as a little kid!). It's all in here!

The book itself is bare bones and straightforward, and almost zine-like in its simplicity. Page after page of black-and-white haunted house ads, each referenced with which newspaper and year of publication. And that's it. A quick intro blurb and 80 pages of classic ads. But that's all you really need for this. A quick blast of Halloween nostalgia harkening back to a simpler time. And the simplicity of this book perfectly encapsulates that feel.

So if you're in the mood for a fun look back at Halloween haunted houses of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, give this book a read. It fills a very narrow niche, but it's still a worthy addition to your Halloween book collection.

Grab Scream Through The Past - A Collection Of Vintage Haunted House Advertisements from Amazon.