Scaring Kids & September Fun (2024)

September’s Must Have/Must Do/Start the Freak-Out

I know, officially it’s not Autumn yet, but since Autumn Lives Here in my black heart, I declare that Autumn has started. Put on a “Pumpkin Spice AF” t-shirt, eat mini candy and watch Rosemary’s Baby. Life is good in Autumn!

Every year I make a list of things to accomplish over the next weeks. October’s list will be stuffed with Halloween and more sugar.

1. Spread Autumn decorations throughout the house like a drunk throwing singles in a strip club. I usually put up Autumn garlands, pumpkins, owls right now and add all the severed fingers, feet and spiderwebs in October.

2. Find all the maple, apple and pumpkin spice foods and products. I’m a sucker for packaging with Autumn leaves on it. Trader Joe’s is a goldmine all on its own, what with the salted maple ice cream, butternut mac & cheese, pumpkin butter, pumpkin body butter, pumpkin face mask. I discovered some great Fall products from Aldi last year, big thumbs up to their limited edition whipped creams in pumpkin spice and maple vanilla, and their maple french toast bagels are amazing.

3. Enter my state fair’s culinary competition. Our fair opens in late September and runs through October. Over the years I’ve won lots of 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place ribbons with spice cake, pumpkin spice cake with maple glaze, pumpkin spice trail mix, spicy cheese crackers, cinnamon pecan coffee cake, applesauce spice cake, and frosted brownies. Blue ribbons are my addiction.

4. Start baking again. This is sorta tied-in with #3, but the beginning of Autumn means the end of the vile Summer (paa-tooey!). Time to turn the oven on.

5. The power of tv compels you! Is there anything better than turning the lights off, sitting down with a giant bowl of candy and enjoying a beloved classic? I try to see The Exorcist, Trick ‘r’ Treat, and 30 Days of Night every year, and I’m adding Late Night with the Devil to that rewatch list. Then there are all the tv series premieres: Daryl Dixon, American Horror Story, Ghosts, Yellowjackets, Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, and hopefully, School Spirits. I never miss an episode of the Halloween Baking Championship and Halloween Wars. Quite miffed that wonderful Shining Vale was canceled, though.

6. I read at double-time during the Fall because I have a huge teetering pile of books that I try to finish before Halloween, though I never get to all of them.

Ok, tell me what you have planned for September and I’ll tell you if it sounds like fun.

DRINKIEPOO!

SPOOKY BOOKY

The Troop by Nick Cutter

Gallery Books, 2014

A Scout troop of fourteen year-olds from Prince Edward Island has just arrived on isolated Falstaff Island for their yearly excursion of hiking and boating. Led by Scoutmaster Tim, the boys have just settled into their bunks when a stranger arrives at the cabin. Starving, aggressive and clearly ill, Scoutmaster Tim attempts to help the man but it becomes clear that the stranger is dying and his sickness is highly contagious.

This is an intense and disturbing story about gain of function research in the hands of a psychopath. It’s brutal, but the writing is so strong that you’ll keep going because you have to know what happens next. Scare Scale: 5. That’s as high as the Scare Scale goes.

Let’s Give ‘Em Something To Talk (To the Therapist) About: Scaring the Children

Once again, it’s time to discuss movies and books directed at the younger set, those members of the family who haven’t seen it all and can still be scared sh*tless. To see my previous take on children, hop over to Vol. 25. It’s all books and movies, and the true story of little murderer Mary Bell.

Few of the current crop of children know the thrill of Halloween as experienced by previous generations, when kids made up costumes from whatever was in the house and nobody cared that it wasn’t an official Marvel superhero. Halloweens before adults decided it was easier to just take the kids to a church or shopping center to trick or treat instead of around the neighborhood. The best was meeting up with your friends and going without parents, everyone vibrating from so much sugar that any one of you could have taken down Conor McGregor. But that was before we knew that around one in twenty-five adults in America was a sociopath. Sigh. I know, I sound like my fangs are put in with Fixodent, but I assure you, it wasn’t that long ago, and it was awesome.

Anyway, let’s get down to emotionally scarring anyone under eighteen. Some of these are for kids, some about kids. Keep in mind that fun for one kid is going too far for the next, so you have fun figuring out that formula.

KIDS BOOKS

The Last Kids on Earth series by Max Brallier- Features a group of pre-teens who survive together after everyone else has become a zombie. It’s actually not as scary as it sounds and the kids have fun while fighting the undead and various monsters. Currently eight books and a Netflix series, so very popular.

Dead Connection- The story of a lonely boy who hangs around a cemetery because he has the gift of being able to talk to the dead. It’s a murder mystery, but with friends.

The Best Halloween Ever- The story of a school Halloween night in danger from the local family of skan*s who ruin everything. This is a fun one.

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket- Whether it’s the books or the Netflix series, the poor Baudelaire children are always in a brush with death.

Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Scary Stories 3: More Tales To Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz- Schwartz spent years collecting all the scary tales of childhood that were passed around like sniffles. If you read these books as a kid, introduce them to a new generation.

Goosebumps- They’re goofy alright, perfect for the seven to twelve year old who wants vampires, ghosts, and walking scarecrows. I admit that I leap on a Goosebumps that I haven’t read yet.

The Eyeball Collector- For the kid who can take a more intense story, this is about an orphaned boy bent on revenge because the Eyeball Collector destroyed his family.

MOVIES/TV

Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent- This 2020 Swedish movie involves a headstrong, imaginative girl who spends summer with her uncle. He has a job that brings all kinds of monsters into Nelly’s life. Your Harry Potter fan might like this.

Nightbooks- This one really does fall under the genre of “horror”, as children are kidnapped by a scary witch (Kristen Ritter) to be her servants, and awful things happen to the kids who displease her. One boy is given the job of telling the witch a story every night and he plans on using his gift to escape. A scary movie for readers.

Scaredy Cats- This Netflix series about three twelve year olds who can shapeshift into cats is pretty sweet, not scary.

M3GAN- Okay, I don’t care how cute she is, M3GAN is not your friend.

Come Play- Will this story of an autistic boy who is visited by a monster from an e-book scare your kids? Definitely. It will probably scare you too, because Larry isn’t lovable and he drives up your electricity bills.

TEENS

BOOKS

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix- The title says it. This book has BFFs, a possession and an exorcism, along with a bodybuilding exorcist. It’s a good one, and so is the Prime movie version.

Eat, Brains, Love- Teen zombies on the run, eating brains and maybe finding romance.

Help for the Haunted by John Searles and A Headful of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay- I’m lumping these two together only because my description make them sound like the same book: told from the POV of a younger sister, the reader follows the actions of the out-of-control teen sister as she makes everyone’s life a living hell. Is there something more sinister going on than just teen angst?

My Heart Is A Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones- Jade is a loner obsessed with 80s slasher flicks. The reader spends nearly the whole book inside Jade’s head, where she relates everything in her life back to the plot in a slasher. It’s clear she’s been damaged by her parents, and now on the verge of graduating high school, she’s lost. When a group of wealthy people move into her tiny Idaho town, bodies begin turning up.

MOVIES/TV

Freaky- Vince Vaughn stars as a serial killer who switches body’s with a high school girl. Freaky Friday meets Scream.

Talk To Me- This Australian creeper delivers. A group of teens play games with an embalmed hand, and that’s just the beginning of the story.

Riverdale- A hit CW show, it was a huge risk to keep the Archie Comics alive by turning these teens dark and sexy. Teeters on adult-oriented.

We Have A Ghost- A Netflix horror comedy about a family who unknowingly move into an infamously haunted house and decide to stay and cash in.

The Cloverhitch Killer- You think passing algebra is a problem? Ha! Try having a serial killer for a dad.

Probably Don’t Show the Kids- The Children of the Corn because it’ll give ‘em ideas about social structures and deli slicers. Also, The Devil on Trial doc from Netflix. It’s the story of a boy who was possessed, or pretended to be possessed, and it led to a death. This is the case that The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It was based on.

Hey there, sailor, lookin’ for a good time? Throw $5 a month in the kitty through September and October and enjoy ALH every week for just those months. Or become a member of The Creep Club at $35 dollars a year to get every Tuesday post (minus two or three weeks a year when I disappear). And I’m sweetening the pot.

Just for American subscribers (sorry, world), a year’s paid subscription will also get you a free copy of The Maple Motherload: A Guide to All Things Maple, written by me. It’s covers maple syrup and other products, the producers, festivals, The Great Maple Heist, and original recipes and co*cktails. It’s self-published and sells on Amazon for $14.99, but I’ll foist it on you as a thank you. My crazy goes deep.