It's October already, and no haunts have been visited in September. At all. I have no explanation. Also a lack of updating, there's that. To the point that I might have to reintroduce myself to anyone reading along.

So, hi, I'm dy--I mean, I'm increasingly impair--I meant to say, hi, I'm locked in a pitched battle with my goddamn neurologis--

Errr. Let's try again. I'm Em. Hi. The rest is flavor text.

Aaaaaanyway...I had decided to do something potentially ill-advised, namely--the 21 in 31 Challenge. Now, there are existing 31 Days of Horror challenges. I know that. This felt more my speed, though.

For example, here's HordesofHorror's list:



She's following down her curated list, and even managed an explanation for each one. And I've seen both "You have to make your list on day one and stick to it!" and "Pick a movie a day you haven't seen!" camps for the usual 31 Days Challenges. I planned to fall in the middle of the road: I wasn't making a list beforehand, but I would watch each film all the way down. No five-minute "this is too terrible to continue watching" waffling.

And I'd do my best to pick things I haven't seen.

And then...several days more went by, and...here we are. So we're starting with "The Last Ghost Hunters", filmed in 2021, currently on Tubi--because it may be the only one I have energy to cover. Their capsule description says:

"Terror is about to break loose when a team of ghost hunters get hired to explore a vacant country house where several people have disappeared forever."

Okay then!



Now, I could have sworn the house used in this film was one I'd seen before, and my mind was saying Black Mirror. I checked, but as far as I can tell, it's not that. Maybe it's just similar to a lot of other houses I've seen, that were built in the same era.



So first off the bat: they do the best they can. I think all the actors did the very best they could, trapped between poorly-green-screened ghosts and the Big Evil of the piece...essentially some dude in a gas mask. There was a lot of gritting my teeth to get through the runtime.



And I'm not great at giving reviews without spoilers, so let me tell you this was the best shot I could get of the green screen, and even here, it's pretty bad. Add in special effects--smoke, fog, fire, ACTORS MOVING, whatever--and the believability sinks like a flan in a cupboard. I'm not sure, had it not been a challenge, I would have bothered to finish it, frankly.

Adding in to the "not bothering" camp: I saw Platform 2 had arrived, so I figured, I should probably try to finish the first one...and I made it twenty minutes farther in and stopped. Nope. Just couldn't do it.

Same thing with Terrifier--I liked the original anthology film that spawned Art the Clown, but not so much his segment of it. Then the first Terrifier film came out, and I tried to get through it, and...Look. I don't mind slashers. I don't mind gore. But I do have to have some greater sense of character than "woke up this morning and decided to saw into people". I don't need much of a why past that, but I do need at least that.

I even figured, hey, if I'm lost, I'll go back, but let's jump directly to Terrifier 2, since Terrifier 3 had just dropped.

Big huge nope. I just don't like the character. And this is likely the year that cements not wanting to push my brain, because...it's dealing with enough.

Is it Halloween yet?

Well, this is going to give me nightmares. (Seriously, this is disturbing content. Not nudity, per se,, and not gore or violence, really...It's just skin-crawling, disturbing AI images. Be *warned*.)

Also, uh, hi again. I have about ten drafts waiting to be finished, that I planned to finish, and then the days ganged up on me again. Bah. If anything's not time-critical, I'll do my best to backdate, but only by a few days, not the month before, or the month before that--when I was supposed to pull my act together and toss them in as entries.

Anyway, soooo.....currently I'm at Harvest of Souls, which I still think of as a "newer" event? My brain thinks it started after SABBATH--or Ritual--but definitely not past Salem or...bah, what's the other name...I know it's not Trick or Treat Lane, because they've been around FOREEEVERRR...Gods, October's going to suck this year, EVERY event is planning on opening, it seems...



"You may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?'"

Though that's not really my main question. I'm actually trying to avoid the main question, which circles around between "I haven't updated since WHEN?!?" and "If I'm going to stand around in world, by myself, for six hour stretches of time while I'm distracted to the point of getting nothing done in RL, either...am I really needed in world?" That one...I'm going to have to deal with at some point.

At some point. But not today.



"Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water..."

Today I'm at the event. I may do an entirely separate entry just walking around and capturing really fun landscaping. But I do look like I dressed for the booth, weirdly, and I hadn't seen it before porting to the event. What's actually in the booth, for sale, is /Vae Victis\' "Cernunnos" Monarch Antlers. It's now entirely redone mesh, all original work by Grimoire Hexem, and I'll get around to reviewing that hopefully soon!

[[Insert from the Editrix, sadly AFTER publishing--I am a complete FAILURE, I have forgotten how Vae Victis is spelled, oh, the horror and tragedy--but, err, the names have been fixed. My deepest apologies. When I'm more awake--the Editrixing is taking place late at night and one day forward...as is tradition...I'll check the keywords on other entries.]]

This is not going to be my usual exhaustive review. also. I know there are three places to change the color scheme, the jar itself, the trim along the jar edges, and the edges of the crack that the souls are trying, so very hard, to break through. Each can be tinted fourteen different tones, though I fully acknowledge that the booth's red light (along with the red facelight I'd forgotten I had on), means you're not getting that good a look at the options.



"I have my scars, you have yours..."

And, of course, we're only mentioning tangentially that having a migraine for a day and a half may have impaired some of my ability to brain and take pictures. Still. (This is not me asking for sympathy, either. My brain and I are not on speaking terms at the moment--it knows what it did--but that doesn't mean I'm trying to add stress and worry to anyone's plate. Yes, the Eternal Headache is still there, and why yes, the migraine was laying over it--but it doesn't matter. The headache is just that--mine.)



"Walk on water through the swamp..."

I can't even say for certain which color combos I used. My notes were scattershot. I did say this:

"The jar I'm holding, by the way, is one of the hunt prizes. Fourteen colors for the jar, fourteen for the trim, and fourteen for the broken edge that reveals trapped souls yearning to be free. Broken things can be very pretty, and this is, oh, so very pretty."

So yes, that's worth a mention. The Harvest of Souls event is having a scavenger hunt, of sorts. It requires a hud and tracking down and getting information from the residents of Hallow's End, where the Harvest of Souls can be found. Don't worry, there's only five town residents you need to talk to, and the hunt HUD is free, so why not take your chance to get hunt pretties? Including the soul jar.



"But what would you say if you were given one chance to say it?"

I remember this color set, though. This was me playing solely with hot pink and teal. Those are the vaporwave settings, apparently. And if you hadn't noticed (because I'm now noticing that in the pics, it's a bit hard to tell), this is another hand-held floaty thing. I have a soft spot for floaty things in general, and hand-held floating things specifically. So I'm overjoyed that it's their hunt prize.



"There's a red horse pawing at the door, in the hurricane of hands that I've ignored..."

So, that's the pitch. You want to see cool, innovative designs from some very cool, innovative designers? This is one of the places I'd suggest. Sure, I plan to go to Trick or Treat Lane when it opens, and of course I'm going to meander through the available October hunts...but I really liked the feel of this place. It's not "Boo, I'm a ghost, gotcha!" moments, it's not tons of blood and gore--it's, dare I say this, subtle. And comforting.



"Swallowing such sweet sorrow down..."

No, wait, I did forget one thing! Arkhive's back! Yes, Mesmer Macabre's personal brand has resurfaced, and this one hasn't gone to the bloggers yet, so I may have to count pennies. (It might not be sent my way anyway, because when Arkhive closed up, I left the group.) Either way, it is a lovely, lovely thing and I wannnts it. L$450 currently at the Harvest of Souls; likely more if you wait until it hits the mainstore!

And did I mention the antlers from /Vae Victus\ are L$500 at the event? Well, expect that in a future entry. I can say that Arkhive's spiffy staff will work with the spiffy staff AO from /Vae Victus\. Synchronicity is nice.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a river calling. If I catch a fallen autumn leaf, can I ride it all the way to Gearhaven? Let's find out!