Bring on the Ghouls Scream and scare events have long played a part if the Halloween celebrations in the USA and Fright Nights have now spread to the UK, with a number of seriously frightening events being organised for this weekend.
HallowScream UK, features at Crealy Adventure Park, Exeter, Devon EX5 1DR. Opening Thursday, 29 October through Saturday, 31 October. There will be spine-chilling rides in the dark. The breath of death will brush against your skin as you drop into the unknown and vile creatures from hell will stagger into your path as you are entertained by live bands and DJs.
Scare Kingdom Scream Park, produced by AtmosFEAR! Scare Attractions is situated at Hawkshaw Farm Park, on the A59 between Preston and Blackburn, BB2 7JA; it is just minutes from the M6 junction 31 and sits in the shadow of the dark foreboding Pendle Hill, home of the Pendle witches. Some lovely walks in this area but not during Halloween! Scare Kingdom is open to those who dare visit this grizzly realm until 5 November, when the kingdom will be awakened from the dark by a spectacular firework display.
Children under 10 can enjoy a spellbinding Trick or Treat, cooked up by friendly witch sisters Toil and Trouble, 45 minutes of interactive theatrical experience. featuring songs and games designed to enthrall the young ones. Families and young adults looking for an adrenalin kick will find their blood runs cold as they experience Dead Alive: Legend of the Pumpkin Man, a fright fest set amid 8 acres of rotting mist covered cornfields, where lies the ghostly ruins of Strangleweed Hollow.
More witches gather at Burley in the New Forest, when the annual Halloween festival is celebrated on Saturday, 31 October.
SAW - The Ride comes alive and offfers the ultimate horror experience on the world's most terrifying rollercoaster at Thorpe Park, KT16 8PN, which has again been transformed into a world of twisted insanity, with Fright Nights running until 1 November.
If you know of a Fright Night event near you, click on the permanent link at the end of this post and let us all know about it by leaving a comment.
Halloween will soon be upon us and as the southern hemisphere rejoice in the return of spring, Jack O'Lantern festivals are again lighting the dark northern nights. Mike (djkane12) made this video of the 2008 Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze Festival, Hudson Valley, USA.
The Hudson Valley event features more than 4,000 individually hand-carved, illuminated pumpkins. The breathtaking display meanders through a riverside landscape, confronting visitors with illuminated snakes, a giant spider web, an undersea aquarium, super-sized dinosaurs and even a colossal Stonehengeall made of pumpkins!
The festival runs October 2009, 3-4, 10-12, 16-18, 22-25, 28-Nov. 1. More information
Liverpool, this year's European Capital of Culture, will be celebrating its annual Halloween Lantern Carnival in Sefton Park Liverpool on Friday 31st October. Enjoy some great public art from the Liverpool Lantern Company.
I recently referred to a list of Halloween events in the US but if your in the UK, how about making a scary visit to Warwick Castle, whose haunted towers and turrets are said to have been inhabited by a host of ghosts and ghouls for hundreds of years.
Between 25 October and 2 November, 2008 families can be entertained with ghost stories of a haunted castle and follow spooky Halloween trails full of creepy characters. Or, you can enjoy an eerie, after-dark, Ghosts and Ghouls Alive Supper being held on 31 October and again on 1 November, 2008. Warwick Castle is not far from Stratford on Avon and Oxford.
All nature's seasons seem to be coming earlier and earlier each year and we are having an ealy Fall, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Halloween, which used to be celebrated on 31 October, is now celebrated with pumpkins, Jack O'Lanterns, witches, ghosts, goulish decorations and parties being seen throughout October.
Beth J. Harpaz, AP Travel Editor, has produced an interesting list of US events, designed to make America seem even more scary than normal!
Here is a nice event for Halloween. At 6:00 PM on Sat. Oct. 27, 2007, in Toronto, Canada and simultaneously around the world, there will be an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Simultaneous Dance. Of course, being Halloween, the dance routine has to be the famous Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', which appropriately celebrates its 25th anniversary this year; doesn't time fly when your a Zombie.
Thousands of people in cities around the world are learning the 'Thriller' dance and if your not already involved, you can check out a participating event near you by going to the Thrill The World website.
The current record is 197,569 young students doing the Hokey-Pokey at 681 locations across Canada in April 2002.
I have just watched South Africa beat Argentina in the Rugby World Cup semi-final to join England in the final and I guess that they started as favourites to win but I have just learned of a South African success that probably wasn't foreseen; a group of South African farmers have just beaten the Americans at their own culinary delicacy, winning the Guinness World Record for the biggest pumpkin pie ever made. The previous American record weighed in at 920 kg and the new record is a salivating, 1150 kg. Over a ton of pumpkins was used to make the world record breaking pumpkin pie, which is to be distributed among the poor. More yummy information about the pie.
Fall is an important tourist season in the USA,. To consider how important, consider that nearly 8 million visitors are expected to visit the state of New Hampshire alone, enjoying nature's annual color spectacular and of course, buying their Halloween pumpkins. There is a Pumpkin Carving Festival in neighbouring Vermont, which includes a world record attempt for the Most Pumpkins Being Carved Simultaneously. I doubt they will be carving anything like the 3,000 pumpkins used at Van Cortlandt Manor, Croton-On-Hudson, NY, where Halloween is celebrated with the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze in October. Artfully carved Jack O'Lanterns are arranged in different scenarios, including a bottom-of-the-sea aquarium and a scarecrow avalanche.
Just a 10 minutes drive south, in Sleepy Hollow, they celebrate Halloween with the tale of the headless horseman who rode through the grounds of Philipsburg Manor in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, written by Washington Irving.
Scream and scare events have long played a part if the Halloween celebrations in the USA and Fright Nights have now spread to the UK, with a number of seriously frightening events being organised for this weekend.
Children under 10 can enjoy a spellbinding Trick or Treat, cooked up by friendly witch sisters Toil and Trouble, 45 minutes of interactive theatrical experience. featuring songs and games designed to enthrall the young ones. Families and young adults looking for an adrenalin kick will find their blood runs cold as they experience Dead Alive: Legend of the Pumpkin Man, a fright fest set amid 8 acres of rotting mist covered cornfields, where lies the ghostly ruins of Strangleweed Hollow.
