Remembering -- The Nightmare on Henry St. “Part 5” HAPPY HALLOWEEN

© Halloween 1992 was an awesome time on Henry St.   I created quite a few new additions that year.  That year’s original prime example of Halloween horror at its finest was my creation of Punkinhead.  He stood about 4 feet tall, black hollow eyes with a maroon glaze of reflected blood from horror beyond another dimension that humans dare not even think about.  With a dead skull like face with a forked blood stained tongue.  His teeth carved from the dead remnants of thick heavy rotted pumpkin vine roots.  

 He truly wants to invite everyone over for Halloween, his passion smoldering with sinister ideas to hollow out your head and give you a break from craving up his friends and family.   He’s so found of the way humans looks with a carved out skull.  A lit candle firing inside, as steam renders from your freshly hollowed orb into the still cold air surrounding the corn stalks in the field.
Punkinhead had a lot to say, and he could let you know what was on his mind.  When I built him I put in speakers and wired it inconspicuously into his head and ran the lines underground.  I recorded my voice as his character to bring to life his essence of Halloween horror.  That Halloween again the local times herald paper came to take photos, so many hundreds of people came that Halloween night.  And the next day on Nov 1st Punkinhead was on the front page of the paper.
        

© Below is a little sample to click on to witness his voice.

  



© The grim reaper as before had his voice beckoning   his warnings of damnation to wonderers abound.   Again as with my other creations that talked I had built speakers into his throat and when he summoned an audience you knew you’d better listen.
                                                                                    © The recording of my voice depicting his character let the humans of earth beware of the legions of Zombies rising forth to consume human flesh as abundant as we would eat an apple.  Thirsting and lusting for blood and flesh from all those that crossed their path.  The Grim Reapers legion was a relentless undying unstoppable force from the depths of hell itself.  Bent on nothing but the destruction of the human race on the planet earth.  earth. 

© The Legion of Zombies rise and take command of the flesh of the living

© Human greed is a never ending process of the animal called human.  It doesn’t take much to influence this species and tempt his feeble mind to gain that bit of advantage to rise over his competition.  Thinking with what can be gained to jump ahead and survive.  Well the Zombies show that this weak species of being that they are not of prime intellect, but just another link on the FOOD CHAIN.   





Halloween 1992 was a awesome year.



The Nightmare on Henry St. continued to grow year after year until its final year in 1998.  And with the help of friends and family it has grown to be a neighborhood icon loved among all young and old alike.  It brought people together as fellow humans, to look ahead and not take life so serious and be able to laugh at it, even if in the presence of Halloween Horrors.  More to come of the Nightmare in the next post.  © Punkinhead loves to make new friends and he is un-alive and mischievous and bloodcurdling as ever in “part 6” coming up soon.





Remembering -- The Nightmare on Henry St. “Part 4”

Halloween 1991 was the year of the great Halloween party at The Nightmare on Henry St.
Last year’s Halloween party we had 40 children at the house, and it turned out great.  We planned the party for that Halloween Sat night Oct 26th.   I spent most of the day earlier that Friday on the 25th working on getting things ready for the party.  I had already spent the prior four months working on the haunts and horrors for the yard itself.   And this was going to be a special party. 


We had invited both my daughter’s classes from their elementary school.  The girls were two grades apart and the children would range from ages 6 to 9 years old.  I remember I was working on the 4 x 8 plywood that I painted all black and painted on a giant ghost on it with its eyes and mouth cut out for the bean bag toss. 

The weather was not cooperating and it rained off and on.  And that evening while I was propping up the ghost, it was raining so hard that the power went out for quite a while.  I had later learned that at that exact moment concert promoter Bill Graham was killed in a helicopter crash near our town while returning home from a concert.  And the downed power lines caused a lasting power outage in the area, May he rest in Peace!! 
That Sat morning the 26th before the party it rained so bad, that we spent most of the day putting up poles of metal conduit and blue tarps all over the yard as a cover.   I was hoping that the weather would not ruin the party for the kids.  The cover would of worked fine, but by the time the evening rolled around the weather finally cooperated and the party went on and everyone had a great time. 

Halloween that year was on a Thursday evening.   The local times herald paper came out the day before and took some photos.   The paper that Halloween morning Oct 31th had my wife and Uncle Creepy on the front page, she was surprised.   It was another one of those years that people flocked in from every nook and cranny to see the Nightmare.  And it was awesome. 
I re-did Jason this year in an awesome pose he stood
7' 2"; he was standing there grabbing this guy by the neck.  He was supporting him in mid-air as though time itself had stopped.  The horror of it all, can you imagine.  Jason lops off his arm with an axe, it;s falls to the ground as though he was spreading butter on a piece of toast.

I remember people mentioning to me how realistic it looked with him standing there luminescent and horrific in the night. How the blood looked so fresh and disgustingly real as it flowed they would say. 

  

© 1991 I built the spider; he was extremely large 12 foot in diameter and with a hunger to match.

I built a web out of thick string that took quite a while, large enough to encompass his size and realism.  His eyes glowing with a hunger almost with of his next meal.  My thought was all the times that you see a spider in the bushes and you just brush away his web with your hand or a stick.  And you try to destroy him to the best of your ability. What if things changed a bit, what if you were the one being brushed away?  What if you were the one that was about to

be the meal instead of the burger you were about to eat?

Halloween 1991    

Remembering -- The Nightmare on Henry St. "Part 3"

Halloween 1990 was just the start of getting things rolling for the Nightmare as it continued.  My kids and their friends were having just a blast for Halloween; it lasted throughout the year, and year after year.  I found myself always working on something new and different.  It took a lot of time creating new heads, new bodies but it was always exciting and fun.  

In 1990 I created © Barnacle Pete, a long dead pirate looking for his buried treasure and to take revenge on his mutinous murderous crew. 

As time went on with the Nightmare, I tried to add a bit of realism to the surrealistic perception that was built into the horrors still life.

 

For © Barnacle Pete, I built in speakers into his skull and wired it to players which had recordings that I had created using my own voice.  In the bottom of the hole that Barnacle Pete was crawling out of I had a set of lights and red plastic discs spinning around by using the heat dispersed.  It worked rather well.  As you approached him, shining up from the hole it appeared as thought he was crawling right out of Dante’s Inferno with what looked like flames rising out of the abyss.  Then all of a sudden Barnacle Pete would speak out in his pirating voice alive again and festering on bloody revenge against his latent crew.

Usually on Halloween night I would get into the spirit of the evening by envisioning some sort of character and acting out that particular hosts haunt.  Of course what would a good haunt be without a mad scientist and his torrid scaled lab of destruction and doom bubbling away into mist?   

I wish I could of made my own Dry Ice, it got a little expensive every year for nearly 100# of the frozen CO2, from the lab’s domain to the hollowed out tombs in the graveyard.  But it so added to the eerie concoction of the awesome elixir of doom.

                                                                                                  

                   The Mad Doctor of Henry St.                                    





Halloween 1990 we had our first party for my two daughters with their friends from the neighborhood and from school.   It was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time.  They enjoyed the games that we had planned.  Throwing bean bags through the giant pumpkin, actually a giant pumpkin cut into a 4 x8 sheet of plywood leaning up in the carport.   Of course popping balloons with darts was always a treat.  And then there was the great pumpkin pass, everyone would line up and pass the pumpkin until the music stops.  It was always the Monster Mash song used.  When the music stopped they got to keep the pumpkin.   

My daughters having Halloween fun fun fun

My oldest daughter with the Grim Reaper who also made

      his appearance for Halloween 1990 





Remembering -- The Nightmare on Henry St. "Part 2"

Nightmare Part two, wow this is like watching a cool horror movie, part II, yea.  What a wonderful time during that first year in 1988, I had the most remarkable time with my two daughters and my family that Halloween.  Unfortunately this would be the last year that I would be able to enjoy taking my two little girls trick or treating, but what a trade off.   My god they were only 5 and 6 years old what was wrong with me?  What the hell was going on in their fathers mind?   The following years were the best though; my girls loved doing Halloween in the yard.  Helping dad create monsters, creatures and creepy things that go bump in the night. 

I thought to myself as I remembered Halloween growing up. What child cannot remember looking forward to trick or treating at Halloween actually was like 1911 when it first began; and so much longer ago in other places in the world. And the legends of Halloween go centuries beyond that, centuries.  There must be a place that people could go to celebrate their favorite holiday.  Well that place ended up being the “Nightmare on Henry St.” for thousands of people over the following years and I’m not exaggerating that number at all.  People found a place that they could bring their children to enjoy Halloween.  Parents could relax and cherish the memories with their children and reminisce a bit of their own.  As a parent, I wanted a safe place that my children could enjoy the fun and silliness to those of Halloween and still embrace the true horror.  And I knew I could keep it all in check where I could keep an eye on my children as all parents do.   And not only for my children but all children who wandered the fields of the Nightmare that we provided. 

What’s wrong with a little fog, a little scare, a little scream, a little fun?  But as we grow up and face our modern responsibilities we lose track of the inspiration the fascination the curiosity that we all had when we were a child. And that was another plus watching all those parents be able to open up a bit and get away from the trials and tribulations of life’s true horrors.   And be a child with their child.

Halloween 1989

Front page of the local paper Halloween day 10-31-89



Halloween 1989 I build a lot of tomb stones out of plywood.  My daughters and there friend’s in the neighborhood had fun with that.  They enjoyed writing little quirks and painting them on.  I would put little holes in the ground so that they could insert the tombstones into the yard.   They also took a lot of spider webs and strung them all over the yard.  It gave the atmosphere of Halloween that really cool eerie effect.  I rebuilt Jason and made him bigger and stronger; he was about 7 feet tall by the time I had finished, he looked very intimidating. 

The local times herald paper came out and actually took photos, I was so surprised to see my photo on the front page of the paper that Halloween morning.  Well that actually launched a steady influx of people curious to see what this Halloween trick or treat was all about.  A few hundred people actually came by the house that day.  And not just in the evening but it seems right after everyone had their breakfast and coffee and saw the paper that morning.  It seemed that a chain reaction of childhood memories took form to reminisce and spark the minds of the people of the town.  

For a brief moment I felt like the Frankenstein monster, with the town’s people storming towards me.  But not with lit- torches a- blazing and misunderstood misconceptions of hatred and anger, but with what seemed to be flashlights and curiosity instead.

   

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Remembering -- The Nightmare on Henry St. "Part 1"

It’s been a few years since “The Nightmare on Henry St”; the first year I built props for the yard was in 1988.  It was just a few years after “Creatures Features” on channel 2 ended its reign with John Stanley at the helm taking over for Bob Wilkins in 1979.  Lots of interesting movies came out in the late 70’s early 80’s, Nightmare on Elm St and Friday the 13th to name two.  I’ve always had a fascination with horror and sci-fi.  And Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were right up there with my infatuation of that cinema   I never did let my daughters actually watch those movies when they were younger, but they knew who those characters were.  And they thought they were kind of cool and creepy at the same time.
Telling the stories to my 4 and 5 year old daughters in 1987, about my crazy zany creations when I was a kid.  Lead to what was to become the “The Nightmare on Henry St”.   They thought it would be cool if at Halloween that Freddy and Jason would come to life in the yard.  Well that did it, that had my mind’s eye already thinking and planning.  Within that next year I started building a guillotine, this one was a lot different from the one I had built when I was a kid in the 70’s.  This was a functioning working reproduction to say the least.   I ended up going with a wood blade, because I thought a steel blade of which I first constructed it with a bit too dangerous and extreme for the kids.  It would of been interesting what some of the neighbors thought before I changed the blade that might of been watching me cut watermelons in half.
  

The first "Nightmare on Henry St."  Halloween 1988

My (oldest daughter) little monster helper in 1988, she is now almost 29

My other (daughter) little monster helper, she will be 27 soon.  Damn time flies!!



I remember bringing home materials to build the bodies with for Freddy and Jason.  Back then I was in construction as a sheetrock hanger.  I always had access to scraps left over from the jobs, wood, conduit, wire, just about anything I needed.  I built the bodies creating an armature frame using split 2x4’s of various lengths.  Only the shoulders, torso, legs and hips were made of wood. Which were fashioned to any position depending upon the pose desired.  The arms were constructed out of metal conduit which were wrapped in a covering and clothed. They became very convincing as a stable body once completed.  To help the bodies gain the perception of still life.  I attached steel spikes anchored to the legs through the shoes which could be inserted into the ground so they could stand on their own and look very natural and very creepy.   A lot of work went onto the bodies, there were very rigid and solid, I will go more into detail about the construction of heads and bodies as they progressed in future blogs.  

                                                                          

The Nightmare on Henry St. was only just beginning. 

                                                                    

The feeling I wanted to get as I was constructing these crude forms was that feeling when you go to the Wax Museum and you turn that dark corner into the “Chamber of Horrors” section.  Standing there staring into the eyes of that creature looking at you, and oh yes he was looking at you directly.   Your lips would start to quiver as you stared back, oh you weren’t afraid though cause your Mom had your hand.   But for that brief moment you gazed into the Horror that was meant to be.  And you knew that you were alive as your heart beat thumped in your chest.  And you hoped to god as you squeezed you moms hand that the blood was not real.  




Life the Universe and Everything

This will be the first of on-going blogs pertaining to well just about Life the Universe and Everything “to coin a phrase from the late great Douglas Adams”.  And to my love of so many different things from Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy,  Halloween and so on. 
 It’s endless what my mind’s eye can fathom in its depths. There are a lot of wonderful things in this Universe and on this Planet as we find ourselves spinning and whirling.  So many different things to cherish and wonder about on a day to day basis.  And even in that nanosecond that just went by: a Universe in itself. 
I’ve never been a reader of novels; the imagination of my mind’s eye has always been silent in its creative stillness, which shows in the depiction of my creation of Halloween Horrors over the years for the "Nightmare on Henry St.".  
I’m not sure how I made it out of Mrs. Kline’s Sci-fi Literature class at Springstown Jr. High school in the 70's.  I never read any of the books that the class was reading.  Always coming to my own conclusions for the assignments of each book chosen and still passing the class with flying colors. 

At work as the Sr. Systems Administrator, well then, unemployed now after 14 years at NHSA in Oakland.  They are going out of business as of Jan,14th 2011. Thanks to the wonderful economy. 

A fun day working on Halloween stuff in 1993 Halloween Man in his prime, John Stanley of Creature Features, signed this photo of mine at the wondercon in 2002.  Met him and Bob Wilkins both. They spent about a half hour checking out all my cool photos of mine for Halloween from over the years.  What an honor.

Halloween 1993, Bob Wilkins of Creature Features saw this photo in 2002 (at Wondercon in Oakland) from a photo of the "Nightmare on Henry St." in my yard in 1993, and loved my creation of © Punkinhead  and Jack O Lantern ©.  He thought that was such a horror as he patted me on the back of the Jack O Lantern with his carved out head with the candle in his skull, brains oozing and blood dripping from his eye sockets. He also signed the photo of my yard in my profile.  It was so cool to meet him.  I so grew up on Creature Features, more on that later. And more to come on Punkinhead and Jack O Lantern for Halloween.

I’m hoping that learning to express myself by using this blog with help spur that stillness into motion of the real world or unreal as some might say, I love to write and have wrote many short stories, but like my many drawings I have also done, sit in an endless stir.  I’ve read so many comic books over the years.  Marvel and DC comics what a Universe of possibilities.  
Still read and collect comic books to this day and I will do future blogs on the cool stuff that I am checking out.  But I do love my technical journals as Scotty from "Star Trek" would say.  Always had my mind’s eye on the sciences spawned by the Gods themselves. Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics and so forth.  
Not only would I like to of shared a few tidbits of information with Scotty on technical journals, but would of loved to of shared some of that Green Ale shown in the classic Star Trek “By Any Other Name” the Kelvins loved it!. 

Since its October, I will so be focusing on Halloween with a few quirks and sparks.  More to come!