Media Day kicks off 2026 Halloween season in Spell Willows as monsters prepare for tonight's Witching Hour

 

By Jack O. Lantern

'Head' Writer/Editor

SPELL WILLOWS, Witches Meadow — The fog hadn't even settled over Spell Willows this morning before camera flashes began popping beneath the ancient willow branches.

Media Day returned to Witches Meadow on Friday, giving monsters from every dark corner of Transylveinya one last chance to brag, boast and threaten humanity before tonight's Witching Hour Fest-Evil, when the Great Portals open at the stroke of midnight and unleash another Halloween season upon the human world.

By sunset, reporters, photographers and broadcasters crowded the enchanted forest, weaving between rows of witches seated behind velvet-draped tables while lines of vampires, ghosts, aliens, carnies, swamp creatures, witches and masked maniacs waited their turn to announce this year's plans.

"Media Day gives the monsters a chance to build a little ... anticipation," said Hagatha Moonshroud, this year's High Sorceress of the Moonshroud Circle. "After all, Halloween isn't just about frightening humans. It's about giving them something to look forward to all year long before we terrify them."

Tonight at exactly midnight, Hagatha and other chanting witches will gather inside Spell Willows to cast the centuries-old spells that tear open the Great Portals between Transylveinya and the human world.

That's if all goes according to plan.

It usually doesn't.

Unexpected alliances

Among the biggest surprises revealed during Media Day was an unlikely alliance between vampires and werewolves.

For generations, the two monster clans have spent more time trying to destroy one another than humans.

Not this Halloween.

"We've decided it's more efficient to work together," said Count Vladislaus, polishing an antique goblet of Type O Positive. "They chase them out of the woods. We greet them on front porches."

Beside him, Alpha Fenrir simply grinned.

"Everybody wins," one werewolf said. "Except the humans."

Nearby, witches applauded the announcement.

Clowns expanding operations

The sinister carnival crowd also promised a larger presence this Halloween after last year's successful season.

"We're taking over more pumpkin patches than ever," said ringmaster Bartholomew Blacktooth, adjusting a crimson top hat. "Hayrides, corn mazes, midway games ... humans won't know whether to laugh or scream."

His answer?

"Hopefully both."

Several haunted dolls standing nearby nodded enthusiastically.

None blinked.

Aliens invade ... differently

Representatives from the Intergalactic League of Flying Saucers said extraterrestrials would be focusing less on crop circles this season and more on Halloween decorations.

"We've already infiltrated inflatable displays," explained Ambassador Xylor of Planet Ghoom. "If your 12-foot skeleton suddenly waves back, that's probably one of ours."

Pumpkinheads organize

One of the busiest tables belonged to the Pumpkinhead Guild, which announced the formation of neighborhood decorating squads.

"We're encouraging humans to carve earlier this year," said Jake O. Lanternson, president of the guild. "The sooner the pumpkins appear, the stronger Halloween becomes."

He paused.

"And yes, we absolutely judge crooked smiles."

The countdown begins

As daylight faded, crews began hanging additional lanterns throughout Spell Willows while witches rehearsed the ancient incantations that will soon echo through the forest.

Beyond the trees, thousands of monsters quietly formed orderly lines leading toward the Great Portals.

Ghosts floated impatiently.

Skeletons checked watches they no longer needed.

Mummies practiced walking a little slower.

Even the zombies looked unusually energized.

By midnight, every one of them hopes to be in line to haunt neighborhoods, amusement parks, haunted attractions, theaters, pumpkin patches and front porches across the human world.

"The veil grows thinner every year," Hagatha said with a smile as ravens circled overhead. "And judging by today's excitement, humans seem just as eager for Halloween as we are."

The Witching Hour Fest-Evil begins tonight at midnight in Spell Willows.

Bring your courage.

You'll need it.

Witching Hour ‘hexplodes’ to kick off Halloween season

By Hal O. Weeniscoming
Staff Halloween Spirit Writer

 

The cauldrons were bubbling over with excitement last night as the creeps and crawlers of the underworld came screeching into the human realm — just in time to kick off the 2025 Halloween season with a shriek and a shiver.

 

The annual Witching Hour Boo-nanza in Witches Meadow lit up the midnight sky at exactly 12:00 a.m. on August 1, as the Spookportals of Transylveinya were torn open by a coven of cackling spellcasters at the haunted grove known as Spell Willows.

 

“The monsterverse crowd practically exploded out of the fog — claws, wings, tentacles and all,” said Hagatha, 2025’s high sorceress of the Moonshroud Circle and chairwitch of the Boo-nanza’s Welcome Committee. “They were howling with glee, ready to haunt, hex and horrify every nook and cranny of the human world.”

• The rush was more chaotic than a cursed costume sale:
• Poltergeists didn’t wait for a haunting appointment — they floated straight into attics and basements like they owned the place.
• Scarecrows left their fields without even a whisper of a rustle.
• Vampires skipped their evening snack in favor of front porch decorating.
• Lagoon creatures skipped the swim and headed straight to party planning committees.
• Clowns — the sinister kind — piled into clown cars three weeks ahead of schedule.
• Frankensteins left bolts behind in the mad dash.
• Mummies unraveled just to travel faster.
• Witch cats teleported.
• Ghouls forgot to groan.
• Demons left their tridents in checked luggage.
• Bats flew in broad daylight, because time no longer mattered.
• Haunted dolls sat politely in airplane seats, waiting to terrify toddlers later.
• Skeleton barbers snapped their scissors shut and bolted toward salons.
• Bog monsters got a group rate on broomstick rides.

Even the ancient ones stirred — a sure sign the Halloween season is in full swing.

 

“The veil has thinned, the pumpkins are plotting, and the candy corn pumpkins are listening,” Hagatha hissed. “So, if your lights flicker, your shadows twitch, or you hear whispers from your closet … don’t worry. Just scream. It’s tradition.”

 

With the season officially cursed into motion, the countdown to All Hallows’ Eve begins. So, lock your doors (they won’t help), carve your pumpkins (they might fight back), and beware of anything that says “Trick and Treat.”

 

Because the monsters are here.

 

And they’re just dying to see you.

 

For more about the Witching Hour, the beginning of Halloween season and the monster universe in general, check out "Transylveinya Traveler," the official guide to Halloween. Dig it up on the Halloweeniacs website.

Podcast: Ygor gets a 'Monster Monday'

By Matthew “Pod Man” Bennell

Staff Pod Writer

Ygor did it! He’s officially a monster.

The Jack-o’-Lantern Press Podcast dropped its latest pod (no, not those pods from seeds that reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life). It’s Monster Monday! And on today’s episode of the podcast, Mike and Tom discuss Ygor as the monster he really is with their dad. Check out the episode on APPLE PODCASTS or on SPOTIFY or wherever you listen to your shows.

And, if you’re looking to check out some of the cool stuff from the show, here’s an article Mike talked about with regard to Ygor and the case that he’s not human, but, in fact, a true monster: Click HERE for the article.

Don’t forget to view the show notes for the podcast to find links to some of the other items discussed, including Ygor garb. 

Like this SHIRT or this ACTION FIGURE. How about this YGOR MASK! Ygor says, “Represent everyone’s favorite monster this Halloween with Ygor merch.” 

Do it!

‘Give us something fun to take!’

By Trix O. Treets

Staff Goodies & Neats Writer

The Halloweeniacs are bringing a sweet treat to YouTube this month.

This week, our very own Michael Picarella digs into his trick-or-treat bag and shares a really cool tale from an even cooler Halloween anthology. Check it out HERE.

Now, if you want to get “The Halloween Store” and Ronald Kelly’s other Halloween anthology, “Mister Glow-Bones” (both only 99 cents each for a limited time as of this post), use the following link, which may or may not work depending on when you view this:

Click HERE to unlock Ronald Kelly’s Halloween magic.

View Ronald Kelly’s other works on his website HERE.

Happy Halloween!

Toon: Runway monsters model stylish new threads for Halloween

 

Cartoon by Frank M. Hansen, a freelance Los Angeles cartoonist and member of the National Cartoonist Society. He creates cartoons, illustrations and animations about life, history and politics, in addition to original comic characters and stories for print, online and television. He’s the illustrator behind JLP’s “Transylveinya Traveler,” a humorous travel guide to and through the monster universe. His work can be seen at fmhansen.com.

Spookiness is among us this month

By Wade Weird Staff Weirdness Writer

Oooooh, lots of weird stories out there. 

The Nightmare365 podcast just dropped a show to get you in the proper spirit for the spooky season. Matt from the show shares a number of creepy tales — true and maybe true — but truly terrifying. 

Let’s not waste any more time. Set your radio dials to N-365, the spooky leader in the spectral. Here’s the show on Apple, and here it is on Spotify. It’s also available wherever you listen to podcasts. Enjoy! And I hope you make it to daybreak.

Toon: October is Self-Improvement Month

 

Cartoon by Frank M. Hansen, a freelance Los Angeles cartoonist and member of the National Cartoonist Society. He creates cartoons, illustrations and animations about life, history and politics, in addition to original comic characters and stories for print, online and television. He’s the illustrator behind JLP’s “Transylveinya Traveler,” a humorous travel guide to and through the monster universe. His work can be seen at fmhansen.com.

Review: It's October — Who's that knocking at the chamber door?

This week in Jack-o’-Lantern Press, we're celebrating the beginning of October and the spooky season. Today, movie reviewer Dan Cook gets a knock on his chamber door. What better way to begin the week than with Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and one of October’s favorite birds ...

THE RAVEN (1963)

Bluray Collection

“Shall I ever hold again the radiant maiden whom the angels call Lenore?”

“How the hell should I know?”

A cracking horror comedy starring three of the most legendary actors in the genre’s history, Roger Corman’s 1963 “adaptation” of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is a ghoulishly hilarious romp that blends the gothic with giggles with hugely entertaining results. Twisting the immortal poem of grief into a fantasy farce, the film features Corman regular Vincent Price as a humble magician who joins forces with a fellow conjuror played by Peter Lorre to do battle with Boris Karloff’s evil Sorcerer Dr. Scarabus.

A far cry from the macabre tone of the other Poe interpretations that Corman and Price collaborated on such as “The Pit And The Pendulum” (1961) and “The Masque of The Red Death” (1964), “The Raven” is instead a much lighter, family friendly affair. And while screenwriter Richard Matheson’s creative liberty with the source material may annoy literary purists, the enjoyably hammy performances as well as the witty script make it one of the directors more widely accessible pictures.

Price, Lorre and Karloff are clearly having enormous fun with their respective roles — with Lorre in particular providing big laughs as the drunken Dr. Bedlo, arriving on the scene in the form of a snarky talking bird — while the atmospheric score by Albert Harris bounces between scary and silly with enjoyable relish. Throw in some ravishingly gothic sets, a very young Jack Nicholson as the dashing hero, the beautiful Hazel Court, and a spectacular wizarding duel with comedic timing reminiscent of the battle between Merlin and Madam Mim in Disney’s “The Sword and The Stone” (also released in 1963), and you have the perfect spooky movie to introduce kids to the wonderful world of classic horror.

Dan Cook is a movie reviewer on Letterboxd, and he also posts his reviews on Facebook. He’s a self-proclaimed film fanatic, avid reader and retro gamer who lives in Dudley, England, with his wife, Sam, and their two daughters.

The spooky season begins now!

By Jack O. Lantern ‘Head’ Writer/Editor

It’s October 1st, the beginning of the spooky season, and there’s so much to check out from The Weird Network this month.

Jack-o’-Lantern Press offers its award-worthy-but-never-winning news, reviews, tales and toons, new merch to purchase, and that guide to and through the monster universe that is the ultimate tomb to take with you on your journey to that final resting place on October 31st. That’s right, “Transylveinya Traveler” is, of course, the must-have manual for all ghosts and goblins, monsters and maniacs.

The Weird Network’s Scary Story Society has a collection of spooky tales to survive. Told by the night’s leading masters of the spoken word ... That would be a good idea, but the Society got some other ghouls to usher you into the spooky season.

Nightmare365 is sharing the unexplained, mysterious and spookiness that lives among us, as per their norm. Alien bodies in Mexico, the mysterious case of the deepest hole on Earth and Project Blue Beam. October is a time when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Join Matt and Greg as they break on through to the other side.

And then there’s the Halloweeniacs. It’s a podcast with the guys from Jack-o’-Lantern Press and Nighmare365, coming together every 31st of the months that have a 31st to discuss all things Halloween. For October, they released their first video podcast with special guest Adam from The Great Pumpkin Project to discuss the rules of Halloween and a growing rule — place a jack-o’-lantern in a deserving place each day of the month until Halloween. That sounds like a great way to start October. And so, here are the guys to talk about it on their first video episode of “Halloweeniacs”...

Review: 'Gremlins 2' a hoot!

This week in Jack-o’-Lantern Press, we cap off our celebration of the Halloween hootenanny with movie reviewer Dan Cook’s take on perhaps one of the greatest monster gatherings ever put on celluloid. This review originally appeared as part of Cook’s month of March “Monster Movie Madness” slate of articles.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Joe Dante’s 1984 horror comedy “Gremlins” is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, so I was very much looking forward to seeing its sequel. And the wait was most definitely worth it. 

While the original movie is a dark and twisted satire of the festive season with a surprising amount of violence and bloodshed, “Gremlins 2” instead serves as a light-hearted riff on everything from television, science, art, media empires and even cinema itself, while also ramping up the comedy and the slapstick, and it turns the funny but once creepy little blighters into comedic geniuses. 

Moving away from the quaint town of Kingston Falls, “Gremlins 2” sees the photoallergic beasts laying siege to a ludicrously advanced New York skyscraper where they pose a potentially serious hazard to the rest of the city if unleashed. 

The human cast, which includes returning regulars Phoebe Cates and Zach Gilligan, as well as some new faces such as John Glover, Haviland Morris, Robert Prosky and Christopher Lee, all do good and very humorous work here — particularly Lee, who shines here as Dr. Cushing Catheter, a mad biological scientist with a passion for both diseases and firearms. 

However, it is of course the cackling critters that steal the show, and every second spent with them is pure anarchic joy — from the crazy-eyed Daffy to the suave bespectacled “Brain” gremlin, hilariously voiced by Tony Randall. What an absolute treat to end my month of monster movie madness.

Dan Cook is a movie reviewer on Letterboxd, and he also posts his reviews on Facebook. He’s a self-proclaimed film fanatic, avid reader and retro gamer who lives in Dudley, England, with his wife, Sam, and their two daughters.

Review: 'Van Helsing' not great, but great fun

This week in Jack-o’-Lantern Press, we’ve been enjoying the Halloween hootenanny. Today, movie reviewer Dan Cook puts a somewhat more recent monster mash-up under his microscope for examination.

Van Helsing (2004)

Having breathed new life into “The Mummy” with his critically panned yet highly profitable action double bill (1999, 2001), director Steven Sommers was then given the chance to resurrect the rest of Universal's most famous movie monsters. Thus was born “Van Helsing,” his 2004 CGI-heavy creature feature that may not have the best performances, visual effects or overall story, but is still a surprisingly entertaining throwback to the monster mash films of the ‘40s and ‘50s. 

Beginning with a highly effective black and white sequence depicting the awakening of Frankenstein’s inhuman creation (Shuler Hensley), the movie then gains color to follow Hugh Jackman’s titular antihero who has been tasked by the Vatican to rid the world of evil beings. With the help of a beautiful Romanian princess (Kate Beckinsale), an ingenious yet cowardly friar (David Wenham) and an arsenal of technologically advanced weaponry, Helsing journeys to the foggy climes of Transylvania where he must prevent Richard Roxburgh’s Count Dracula from unleashing a terrible fate on the human population. 

Roxburgh is clearly having a great deal of fun here playing the bloodthirsty vampire, and his flamboyant performance is a welcomed contrast to those of Jackman and Beckinsale whose supposed romantic chemistry is almost as unbelievable as their wavering accents. It’s a wonderfully over-the-top turn from the esteemed Australian actor and his melodramatic line delivery, which perfectly fits in with the exaggerated nature of the production design and hyper-realized narrative that attempts to blend elements of action, science fiction and horror with decidedly mixed results. 

Unfortunately, however, the talents of Roxburgh, the craft of the set designs and the visual excesses of Sommer’s gothic vision are often undermined by unconvincing computer effects, nonsensical editing, Jackman’s wholly uninteresting central performance and a plethora of two-dimensional archetypes who are given little to no character development or emotional motivation. 

The movie is far from perfect. In fact, it’s pretty damn rubbish and it’s not hard to see why. Even after 18 years, it continues to receive negative reviews from both audiences and critics. However, despite its many problems and against my better judgment, I found “Van Helsing” to be an affectionate, if not overlong tribute to the classic monster match-ups of old, and it should definitely appeal to those who, like myself, regularly enjoy the sight of actors such as Lon Chaney Jr. and Glenn Strange battling in the moonlight under many pounds of caustic make-up.

Dan Cook is a movie reviewer on Letterboxd, and he also posts his reviews on Facebook. He’s a self-proclaimed film fanatic, avid reader and retro gamer who lives in Dudley, England, with his wife, Sam, and their two daughters.