Halloween Hangover 2024

 Another Halloween has come and gone.

And what a month it was! Normally I post this right after Halloween, but had a lot going on this past weekend. So lets get to it.

By the Numbers

This was one of my busiest Octobers so far, with 118 posts! I reviewed over two dozen Ravenloft products spanning all the editions of Dungeons & Dragons. I also watched 43 horror movies, 21 of which were first-time views.

I also opened my Advent-ure Dice Advent Calendar.

In Search Of...R.I.P.

My In Search of feature of the TSR Horror game that never was, R.I.P. was very popular. I was featured on Episode 16 of Table Top Weekly where I had a discussion with Flint Dille about it. And my post was the feature of a recent Christian Lindke's Geekerati post.

RPG Blog Carnival

I dedicated a few posts to this, and there were a lot of other great posts, too. Please check them all out. There is some really great material listed here. 

• Tuesday Magic Item – Corpse Mask
• Tuesday Magic Item – Necroanimate Prothesis
• Death by a Thousand Claws
• Tuesday Magic Item – Contagious Curse Collar
• Describing and Modifing Zombies to Better Evoke Horror
• RPG Blog Carnival October: Horror in Different RPG Settings
• The Selv
• Vol. I: Vampires and werewolves
• Vol. II: Zombies and ghosts
• Tuesday Magic Item – Liquid and Powdered Skeletons
• Evoking Horror in Old School Games
• Why am I sharing this old Geekerati Interview?

There are a few Dracula posts left to go still and this season will be wrapped up.

Halloween Hangover 2022

Well, here we are at the end of another Halloween season. 

Let's look at some numbers.

I had a total of 85 posts for October. Not my highest, but certainly a lot.

I watched 48 horror movies, 37 of which were brand new to me. 

I pulled off my 100 Days of Halloween posting a review of a horror, witch or Halloween-flavored product every day since July 23rd.  I sometimes did multiple products in one day so in the end that was 126 products not counting all my Monstrous Mondays.

As fun as that was I am not likely to do that one again anytime soon.

November will be much lighter in posting as I try to wrap up some projects and gear up for a new one I want to do in 2023.

I hope your Halloween was wonderful! My was. Though now I have to take down all my Halloween decorations. 

Halloween Hangover 2021

Here we are at the end of another October! 

I watched a lot of movies, talked a lot about horror, and generally speaking had a really good time.

I want to thank everyone that came by to talk about the horror movies and participate in the October RPG Blog Carnival.

For this October I watched 62 horror movies with 48 of them first-time views.  That's double what is needed, but about where I expected. 

The Challenge started out with the idea of doing a Lovecraft Film Fest. But as it turns out I had seen most of those movies and many of them are actually fairly terrible. I moved on to horror/sci-fi, witch movies, demons, and a sprinkle or two of werewolves, vampires, and sea monsters. 

What I *DID* end up doing was watch a bunch of foreign language films. Here are all the languages I got to listen to in my Challenge;  German (both standard and Swiss German), Italian (lots), Spanish (with a touch of Yucatec), Portuguese, Czech and Slovak (which I loved), Hungarian, Indonesian (2 of those!), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and yes English.   That is easily the most I have seen in one challenge. 

This year I also identified a new sub-genre of witch movies that I call Daughters of the Craft. I went back and applied this tag to past movies as well.  I'll keep an eye out for more.

I enjoy having a theme for my Challenges because it gives me a challenge, finding movies that fit, and I can compare and contrast them.  Now I need to think about what my theme for next year is.

I know today is the first of the month and that has meant a new character.  It is also Monday and that means a new monster.  But I call today Halloween Hangover day for a reason.  I am rather mentally drained.

Going to spend some time gathering up my thoughts and seeing how I want to proceed with the rest of the year.  I have a lot of reviews I want to do, so maybe that is what November will be for.

Halloween Hangover: October by the Numbers (and pictures)

Another Halloween is now part of the history books.  I am sad to see it go, but now it is time to sit back and see what I did here.

October saw a whopping 92 new posts here at The Other Side!  That beat my previous record of 72 in October of 2013.

In that time I watched 60 horror movies, with 41 one of them being first-time views.

You can see all my movies from the October Horror Movie marathon on my Pinterest board.

Follow Timothy's board October Horror Movie Challenge on Pinterest.

This translated into 74,587 hits for the month.

The Pumpkin Spice Witch was offered for free as part of DriveThruRPG's Halloween Sales. 

You can find it by going to your Wishlist (you need to be logged in),

Scrolling down and clicking on the Pumpkin,

Then it will be added to your cart for the price of a few clicks!

The promotion went so well that as of right now 1,213 were downloaded!  I also got a few sales and few dead tree versions too.  Not bad for a year-old niche product in a niche market.

In fact, it was so popular that Aubrey Spivey from the Old-School Essentials group on Facebook dressed up as a Pumpkin Spice Witch for Halloween!

I have gotten a lot of nice accolades and nice words about my books over the years. But Aubrey Spivey 's cosplay of my Pumpkin Spice Witch cover has REALLY made my Halloween 🎃! Thank you!

Posted by Timothy S. Brannan on Saturday, October 31, 2020

I mean really. How cool is that?

NIGHT SHIFT also did remarkably well.  I don't have the final numbers yet, but my payment for the month was great.

Stated up 12 new characters here for Night Shift and a few new monsters. 

I have a few "loose ends" and other ideas I didn't get around to posting. But don't expect this level of posting in November or December! 

October Horror Movie Challenge: 2016 Wrap-up and Looking to 2017

Another October Horror Movie Challenge is done.

Final tally: 35 movies watched, 26 were first time views.  Not bad, that is about my average.

While I did great in the challenge, I failed in making these "game related".  I have a few things I am going to post this week that might make up for it.

The Movie of the Month was, of course, The Witch.  So good I watched it twice.
The surprise hits, for me, were Eyes of Fire (1983) and Haunter (2013).

I also promised to talk about what my favorite horror movies of all time are.  That is much harder since there are so many.  I am going to give it more thought.

If you are curious I have set up a Pinterest Board with all the posters of the movies I have watched over the last 7 years of doing this. 228 pins total.




For next year I am thinking of doing something very different.
First, yes, I want to make as many game stats for the movies I watch as possible.  I have to stay true to my first and most loyal audience.

Also, I have all the these VHS tapes that I copied in the 80s and early 90s, about 16 total.  Each one is 6 or 8 hours long with anywhere from 3 to 5 movies per tape, but usually 4.  Rough estimates I put it at 45 movies, give or take.  What I want to do is go through all of those and review all those movies before tossing out the tape.  I would also check to see if there are Blu-Ray or DVD options for the movies.  Now I am totally expecting these tapes to be in complete crap condition.  Some I know have not seen the light of day in 20 years. But I think it would be fun.  Since they are all movies I have seen before, game stats will come quicker to me.

The bottom row are horror tapes.  If this works I'll tackle the row above which is all MST3k.

That is also the problem.  45 movies, all of them are ones I have seen before,   So no first-time views. I hold out that there might be one or two on there I have never seen. It is possible. I used to work nights, so I'd go to the library, check out some tapes, take them home and cue them up to copy to watch while I was in college.

While this pleases my OCD and my need to declutter I am hoping that the tapes are still in good enough shape.  The other issue is I have only one working VHS player in the house (i think) so I am locked to watching these in one room.  I am very, very spoiled with all my on-demand streaming options.

We will see how it goes.

October Movie Challenge: Last Minute Additions

Got these in today.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Been wanting to see this one for years.  It was a bit campier than I thought it was going to be.  And slow.  But I am glad I finally caught it.

Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Yeah. I have seen this one a few hundred times.  Nothing beats seeing it in a theater full of fans, but HBO has had it on today.

Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)
A three-hour made for TV epic featuring Jane Seymour.  One of the first Frankenstein movies I ever saw.  Still a lot of fun and I surprised by how much I can remember of it.

Stats
34 Watched / 22 New

Halloween Head Count

Checking on my numbers for my October Movie Challenges.

2014
39 Total Watched,  26 New

2013
35 Total Watched, 30 New

2012
33 Total Watched, 24 New

2011
31 Total Watched, 24 New.

Not too bad really.
Got in some horror-related gaming in too.  No new releases; Eldritch Witchery came out in 2013 and The Witch in 2012.  But still a fun month.

Halloween Hangover

Another Halloween has come and gone.  We still have the weekend to look forward to.

Halloween Hangover

Well.  That was the most postings I have ever done in one month.
 Please don't expect that for November!

I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.

The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales.  I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules.  There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.

I have a few WIPs on my harddrive.  A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there".  I will share more about those in the next few weeks.  Gotta see how they shake out.  Maybe I will release them for free.

I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.

I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on.  Have to get those done too.

October Stats

Needless to say, but October was a very busy month over here at the old Other Side.
Watching horror movies, blogging about old school, new school and horror brings in some traffic.

I made 53 posts this month which resulted in 9,494 visits. Of that, 1,315 came directly to this site (with 82.21 % of those being unique),  and 5,585 from referring sites.

So, to thank those referring sites, here they are.  See what they are doing also!

edenstudiosdiscussionboards.yuku.com (Eden's board)

underdarkgazette.blogspot.com
unknownzine.blogspot.com
bxblackrazor.blogspot.com
dungeonsndigressions.blogspot.com
daddygrognard.blogspot.com
gothridgemanor.blogspot.com
theoreticalgm.blogspot.com
thebookofworlds.blogspot.com
sorcerersskull.blogspot.com
cyclopeatron.blogspot.com
asshatpaladins.blogspot.com

Thanks for sending so much traffic my way!