Spooky Storage Locker Finds

 

Happy October! I have to say, I've had a rough few months, but now that we're officially knee-deep in autumn (albeit with some distinctly summery heat in the Bay Area), it's nice to be able to find some comfort in the spooky trappings of the season. And speaking of spooky: I recently had to clean out two storage lockers chock-full of stuff that had hardly been touched in years, and the thick layers of dust, perilously teetering mystery piles and abundance of spiders and harvestmen definitely brought to mind an old fashioned haunted house. Much like being murdered by a vengeful ghost in one of these houses of horror, this experience was absolutely dreadful. I mean, look at this photo...this is of just one of the storage lockers, after hours of work:

It's like a giant lasagna made of garbage. However, there was an amazing payoff for sifting through these giant junkheaps in the form of a heaping haul of Halloween treats! Yes, this is going to be a photo-heavy post.

Let's start off with what y'all came here to see: Beanie Babies!

I'm kidding, of course. I'm planning on selling those off. Well, except this one, which I have to keep for obvious reasons:

Up next, we have a veritable treasure trove of seasonally appropriate books for my childhood, such as the following:

These movie monsters books by Ian Thorne have got it all: orange and black and white color scheme, vintage thrills and chills, dubious film trivia (no, there weren't two different endings to King Kong vs. Godzilla filmed, for the American and Japanese audiences). These were an indispensable part of my childhood, and I read them from cover to cover countless times. Even today, they include wonderful photos and tidbits related to these horror/sci-fi classics. My only regret is that I don't own the others in the series. Alas, these days they are INSANELY expensive, unless you happen to get very lucky.

These three books, from the Scary Stories for Sleepovers series, are for those readers for whom Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is too bright and cheery. The illustrations are good, albeit nowhere near the level of Stephen Gammell's, and the stories are extremely dark. The sheer violent bleakness of these tales certainly makes them disturbing, and I distinctly recall certain elements giving me actual childhood nightmares. These three volumes represent less than half the series, but as of now they're the only ones I've read.

Holy crap, these books. Both hailing from Usborne's The World of the Unknown series (don't let the Scholastic FunFact rebranding of this later printing of Ghosts fool you), these slim volumes are insanely entertaining, chock full of dope art and memorable microtype accounts of ghosts and goblins both of yesteryear and today. There is a third installment as well that focuses on UFOs, which I unbelievably have never read despite it being right up my alley. Up until recently, I didn't know anyone else had ever even read these, let alone had a fondness for them, but apparently they were so popular that they not only were reprinted for decades before disappearing in the 90s, but have such a cult following that Usborne has actually recently reprinted the Ghosts volume. This is incredible, wonderful news! Now let's reprint the other ones so I can finally get my flying saucer fix.

An assortment of various other Halloween books. Nice to see the homies Arthur and Bunnicula get some shine.

Now it's time to get into some Halloween decor. Check out these pieces of early 90s flair from AVON:

Yep, these are mine, though I have no idea what I was attaching them to back then. I love the jaunty little scarecrow that's on his way to curling practice, but I have to admit that I favor the jack-o'-lantern, what with his rhinestone eyes and faux fall foliage.

I think this wall tapestry was another AVON purchase, though I'm not positive. In any case, if you can find any other woven hanging that more thoroughly exemplifies Halloween, I'd like to see it. I distinctly recall our cat peeing on this back in the day and my mom wanting to throw it away, but I managed to salvage it through some combination of resolve and Resolve. Its urinary travails a thing of the distant past, I'm hanging it this year for the first time in probably 20 years, and I couldn't be happier about that.

This cadre of characters are mostly wonderful relics of the distant past. The two witches and grim reaper all (should) do a little robot dance while their eyes flash and the default spooky melody of the 80s and 90s emanates from the base of the figurine. At their age, however, they're not quite at their fullest potential, as the witch on the right and grim reaper no longer move. Regardless, the fact that they function at all is reason for celebration, even if I had to go buy C batteries specifically for them, because why the hell else would I have those?

The pumpkin-headed thing on the left is a fiber-optic doll that doesn't move, but still provides a neat visual contrast to the others, and according to the box was purchased at T.J. Maxx for 99 cents. You can't even get two Jack in the Box tacos for 99 cents anymore, so this was clearly quite a value.

I cannot believe that his haunted house still lights up. I know we used to display it as the mobile home, which dates it at probably 30 years old or so, and I don't think the bulb has ever been changed, Yeah, sure, it's a dull, eerie shade of smog twilight orange at this point, but doesn't that add to the charm?

Given the fact that these ghosts contain three different colored lights and are approximately as old as the haunted house above, I really can't believe they still light up. But they do! I guess they truly don't make 'em like them used to. This was always one of my favorite Halloween decorations, and I'm thrilled that I was able to salvage it before some Storage Wars-esque scavenger scooped it up to sell at a flea market for $3.25.

This may be the most interesting discovery of my storage locker sojourn. A few years ago, I wrote about The Haunted House, and noted that my copy of the audio book record had long since disappeared. While I was in the process of going through all this stuff in storage, I joked that it would be nice to finally find the record. However, once I was done sifting through everything and bringing home the items I would be retaining, I still seemed to be out of luck. Despite finding Disco Duck and some old Three 6 Mafia on vinyl, there were no spooky poems and tales to be seen.

Yet as I was flipping through some old books and magazines, I happened to find the item pictured above tucked within the pages of some random issue of Shonen Jump. I yelped like a stricken puppy. It was the missing Haunted House record! I honestly was a surreal moment, and I couldn't help but feel that perhaps my mother had guided me from beyond the grave to find it, if for no other reason than to finally stop blaming my grandfather for stealing it. Truly, this was the greatest Halloween miracle since the canonization of Marguerite Bourgeoys! That one was for my Canadian readers.

Finally, we have the talking doll version of everyone's favorite child-murderer, Freddy Krueger! Here he is, looking properly sinister, although I suppose the cat hair on his slacks takes away from his mystique a bit. Otherwise, he looks about the same as he did when he came out of the box thirty years ago.

Sadly, appearances aren't everything, even for melted psychopaths, and the ravages of time eventually come for us all in one way or another. Specifically, pulling the string on his back to unleash one of a series of his catchphrases reveals a dark secret: these days, ol' Freddy is sounding more like Fred Figglehorn.

And with that truly ghoulish revelation, I will leave you so that you may focus on your Halloween festivities. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse at some long-buried treasures. And speaking of which, here's an old illustration of mine for high school Spanish that I also discovered during this storage excavation, featuring Raiden Leonardo DiCaprio versus Johnny Cage, somehow based on the novel Bodas de Sangre:

 

...yeah, I don't know either. 

 

For further October reading, consider Joey Marsilio's novel Henry Garrison: St. Dante's Savior. It's so full to the brim with tenthmonth goodness, you'll practically forget that your city canceled Oktoberfest this year! Practically. Check it out here!