The Ravens Barrow - Halloween, Fantasy, and Horror in Modern Culture » Television

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to Make Over the Nightmare Factory at the Oregon School for the Deaf

Patrick Nottingham — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:13:13 +0000

Click the banner above to visit this awesome charity haunt.

This has to be a first for the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It’s the redo of not only a school, but also the charity haint that goes on in the basement -- the Nightmare Factory. I heard about this while watching the Bloodshed Brothers vlog. I’ve embedded it below for you all. Facebook and email peeps, click the thumbnail you’ll see to watch it on Youtube. Leave them a comment while you’re at it.

Check out these other posts that might interest you.

DVD Monday! Win Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Signed by George Romero!

Patrick Nottingham — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:41:02 +0000

Click above to buy on Amazon.

Check it out! I got George Romero to sign this himself! Here’s some other goodies as well:

You’ll Win.

1. Tales from the Darkside: The First Season signed by George Romero at Horrorfind Weekend 12 in Gettysburg, PA on September 3rd, 2010.

2. A Xombie Survival Kit from the Horror Channel.

3. Two tickets to the National Haunters Convention May 5-8, 2011.

So how do you win?

Easy – First here’s the rules:

Since this contest will also end up being mentioned on the Barrow fan page of Facebook I have to state some funky rules.

1. This contest has nothing to do with Facebook nor are they responsible for this contest in any way. Period.
2. You must be 18 to enter.
3. You must reside in the US – all 50 states dammit – or Canada.
4. No purchase is necessary.
5. Contest ends Sunday September 12th, 2010 11:59 PM
6. I will use random.org to pick one lucky winner from the pool of entries and post it the following day.

How to enter:

1. Go watch the premier episode of the Raven’s Barrow Vlog on our Youtube Channel and subscribe. Leave a comment and it’s worth 5 entries. Leave a video response and it’s worth 20! The video can be found here. You must comment ON YOUTUBE. I will accept one comment and one video response per user and you must subscribe.

2. Leave a comment on any post on the Barrow. Each comment must contain the phrase “Darkside” so I can sort it from the regular comments. You don’t have to work it into the comment. Just tag it somewhere with that word. Fill out the comment form properly with your email – no, don’t put your email in the body of the comment – so I can get a hold of you. Only one comment from you per post will be counted, but you can comment on as many posts as you like. Each will count as 1 entry.

3. Visit the Raven’s Barrow fan page on Facebook and post something on the wall with a link to something cool.

No – porn and gambling sites are not cool (well maybe they are but not for this contest).

I want you to tell me about your home haunt with a link, an awesome Indie horror film, a neat Halloween product, a Youtube channel about Halloween, etc. The link should be something you think I should post about on the Barrow or just some little Halloween/horror/fantasy thing you would like to share. For every unique link you post on the wall you get 1 entry. Enter as many times this way as you want.

4. Follow me on Twitter – @P_Nottingham – and retweet any of my status updates. Every time you do that counts as one entry. I promise to say at least one witty thing every day, but you can even retweet my mundane stuff about socks or whatever and that counts too.

So get entering for your chance to win a signed collectible from George Romero.

Check out these other posts that might interest you.

Contest Whore! The Semi-Dead Season 2 Contest

Patrick Nottingham — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:52:22 +0000

Click above to enter the Semi-Dead season 2 contest.

If Joe from Semi-Dead offers to cook for you, you may want to skip it.

Yes goodly internet peoples, here’s another easy to enter contest from the fine folks from the Semi-Dead webisode show. As a way of thanking their fans and kicking off season 2, they’re doing a contest where you can get a zombie named after you in the show.

OK – so it ain’t cash or goodies, but the show is funny. And it really illustrates how deep some peoples – namely Chris in the shows – denial can run. Below is the trailer and the episodes can be found here and the contest info here.

Semi-Dead: Teaser Trailer from Semi-Dead on Vimeo.

Two roommates, a case of PTSD, and an apartment in a city surrounded by zombies…thank God for makeshift weapons, cellphones, and Internet access.

Semi-Dead, the new horror/comedy web series debuts on Oct. 28th 2009.

www.Semi-Dead.com
info@semi-dead.com

Chris and Joe are roommates, both former military, trying to live normal, productive lives in this modern, Internet-dominated world… It’d be a lot easier though, if the city weren’t swarming with zombies.

On the plus side, it seems that somebody forgot to turn out the lights and, despite the city being ravaged by zombies, much of the infrastructure remains in tact. For the time being there are still utilities, electricity, gas and even Internet access available. But that doesn’t stop this whole thing from affecting the two in wildly different ways. Joe goes into full on survival mode–struggling to fight against the zombies and sometimes finding rather disturbing and unorthodox ways to survive. Chris however, has suffered some form of PTSD and is living his life as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

So, while Joe embarks on an endless quest of survival (so long as he doesn’t have to leave too many of the comforts of home behind), Chris continues to go to “work,” run errands, look for dates, make sure Joe pays the rent on time, and generally maintain his 9 to 5 existence – all without ever even noticing the zombies.

But things are not always as they seem and, as Chris and Joe encounter other survivors and gradually stumble onto the truth of what is happening to the city, survival may not be a matter of sanity but rather which one of them is crazier.

?

Check out these other posts that might interest you.

Dark Shadows Turns 44

Patrick Nottingham — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:12:37 +0000

Since it was a Sunday I didn’t post, but I thought I’d mention that Dark Shadows was 44 yesterday. I posted the first episode below for your viewing enjoyment. Though I must warn you that Barnabas Collins doesn’t show up for another year. Still, it’s worth a looksee.

DARK SHADOWS EPISODE 1

Dark Shadows Forever | MySpace Video

Facebook and email peeps click here to watch.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

You Know You Want One – Get Your Very Own B9 Lost In Space Robot

Patrick Nottingham — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:22:07 +0000

Fresh off the production line.

I can remember thinking as a kid just how damn cool it would be to have my very own Lost In Space B9, and in fact I got a toy one one particular Christmas. I don’t remember what happened to him, but I do remember playing with it for endless hours imagining I was out there visiting cheesy looking planets and meeting human-looking aliens. Of course I might had a thing for Judy, but we’ll just not talk about that.

So check it out -- for $24.5k you can have your very own B9 Robot from www.lostinspacerobot.com. He doesn’t shoot electric arcs out of his claws, but here’s a full list of the features. I’ve also embedded a video, which is part of the DVD that comes with the B9, that tells a little bit about your new mechanical buddy.

Of course if you’re really industrious you can build your own. Check out the B9 Builders Club for blueprints, parts, and a whole community of talented folks who loved the B9. Robby the Robot can totally suck it.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

Tell Oprah The Haunt is a Great Show Idea by Voting For It on Oprah.com

Patrick Nottingham — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:32:10 +0000

Vote by clicking the Image above.

First off a big thanks to the Frog Queen of the Davis Graveyard and her blog Frog on the Pumpkin for tipping me off to this. Oprah – yeah that Oprah – is having a contest where folks can submit audition videos for TV show ideas. James W Thompson Jr has a great idea called The Haunt.

“The Haunt” takes viewers on a design journey exposing them to all aspects of theme park haunt development, construction and show/pre show production. Watch a select group of home haunt enthusiasts compete against each other, testing their creativity, their guts, and their ability to scare, even the toughest, out of their pants; battle for the title of Haunt Master.

Now I’d watch that! Go here or click the graphic above to watch Jame’s audition video and to vote for his idea.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

The Creepy Puppet Project from Matt Ficner Productions

Patrick Nottingham — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:13:20 +0000

Click the logo and go subscribe to the Creepy Puppet Project videos on Youtube.

Here’s something else cool I’ve seen floating about from several sources but mostly on Facebook. The Creepy Puppet Project can be found for now only on their Youtube channel, but hopefully a network will spot them and pick it up. It’s sort of like if you took the Muppet show and smashed it together with your favorite George Romero flick with a smattering of Robot Chicken. Below I’ve posted a couple of the longer segments and a neat how-to for creating a Creepy Puppet. While you’re watching be sure to check out Matt Ficner’s website at www.mfproductions.ca.

The Revival is a neat musical church zombie revival. What’s amazing is that Ficner did the majority of work on this including the puppeteering by himself.

Hostile Entities, the most ambitious project to date. There’s small Twilight Zone type twist at the end.

Here’s the Creepy Puppet behind the scenes how-to. I especially loved his use of stained glass paint to give the zombie puppet that juicy gooey flesh look.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

Lose Your Soul With This Week’s Hell

Patrick Nottingham — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:19:46 +0000

Depending on who you ask, Memphistopheles Shiningstar is either a devil in Hell or Satan himself. Either way he’s got a new internet talk show, and it’s worth a looksee. Check out the pointy horned one himself by clicking the graphic above or This Week’s Hell. It’s new . . . it’s odd . . . it’s vulgar . . . and at times it’s funny. Four episodes are there awaiting you to take yer soul.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

Gory Zombie Stationery Created for 13th Street – Germany’s Most Famous Crime and Horror Channel

Patrick Nottingham — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:08:10 +0000

Killing zombies is easy with a three ring binder – who knew? Actually it’s just a gruesome stationery created by Behance Network. Click the graphic to the left to check out the sweet stationery they created for the German Crime and Horror channel – 13th Street. I only wish I could get them to write me something so I could have some – even cooler is that anything written on it is in German.

Special thanks goes out to a tweet from LostZombies for tipping me off to this one. While you’re clicking, do go and check out the Lost Zombies website. Lost Zombies is a social network whose goal is to create the world’s first community generated zombie documentary. Members of Lost Zombies contribute their photos, videos, words, ideas and support to help them achieve their goal.

And now for your reading pleasure, here are a few other posts that got people talking.

Retro Toys R Us Commercial from the Retroist

Patrick Nottingham — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:16:15 +0000

Lately I’ve been having trouble finding my Halloween mojo. To that end I was poking around the Retroist.com perusing all the Halloween goodies posted there. This Toys R Us commercial, which I posted above, helped to remind me what I love about Halloween – at least a little. Yeah it’s more from my kid’s era, but it still fun to watch. If you can’t see the commercial above then click the graphic below to view it on my actual site – that’s for you Facebook folks and email subscribers.