Halloween Mood Table 2018

For well over a decade now, Matt of Dinosaur Dracula (formerly X-Entertainment) fame has extolled the virtues of the Halloween mood table. The concept is all about making a dedicated space crammed full of all the Halloween goodness you can muster, a totem from which to draw strength when times get tough. Long-time readers should be able to see the obvious inspiration for our annual Patrick Swayze Christmas Barstool. Despite being a major Halloween head and a fan of Matt's work for what seems like forever, I've never actually made a proper mood table. If you ever had the pleasure of visiting my house in October you'd understand why. Creating something like a mood table would seem redundant when every wall, shelf, and cupboard is already marked with ghoulish delight. This year I've taken a different outlook on the matter, taking it as an artistic challenge, and as you're about to see, I'm totally hooked.

Here's my artistic goal for this little project. Younger readers may not remember the glory days of movie rental stores but for those of a certain age we find ourselves clinging to memories of strange mom and pop operations filled with options for how best to waste our weekend. Of course one of the best features for a kid in a rental joint was getting scared silly by the horror section. Most of us couldn't actually rent these movies, hell some of us were too freaked out to touch the boxes. The only thing cooler was every year when stores would make either end-cap or counter-top displays showcasing horror classics alongside new hits turning their stock into a living decoration. With this first attempt at a true mood table I'm seeking to recreate the days when stores like Frontier Video and The Movie Market sparked my imagination with a mixture of VHS and fake spider-webs.

Another factor that routinely hampers any Mood table plans is where exactly to put it. There are plenty of surfaces around the house but each of them already has a designated task. The sideboard in the kitchen would be ideal if not for it being the same place we make tea and coffee. Lady luck happened to be on my side this year however. You see one of the recent family cleaning projects left us with an old This End Up couch in the basement. Got a lot of memories associated with this monster but its current lack of cushions has rendered it all but useless, until you flip it ass end up that is. Now I can make whatever kind of display I like and not interfere with the normal activity of the home. Better still it affords the opportunity to add some extra flair to the lower level of the home which is far more neglected in regards to decoration. Plus there's a added bit of hideaway storage gained by using a wooden couch frame this way.

First up we need a great base cover like this great table-cloth. Fairly certain we picked this up at a local thrift store and what a steal it is. This lump of material strikes a wonderful balance of cutesy but not childish that brings to mind Halloweens long past. Paired up with an air-blown light and some Beistle die-cuts and you've got a classic Midwest Autumn potluck.

These sort of displays always had a centerpiece which could be anything from statues, masks, or those fold out honeycomb standees. This was the eye-catcher to draw your attention. Seeing as the couch allows plenty of room I've got several goodies starting with the rather obvious giant light-up skull. I was torn between him and his Mummy brethren but opted to keep the bandaged menace upstairs. The witch is essentially a family heirloom by this point. It belonged to my grandmother who passed around Halloween way back in 2001. Soon after this entered my collection and always earns a place of honor. And yes I included a honeycomb standee, no that one doesn't come with a sob story. Left with some additional room I added in a black Jack-o-Lantern and snake skeleton. The skull & pumpkin put out a decent bit of light but not quite enough to showcase all these goodies. That's where Wal-Mart comes to the rescue with cheap spider lights and that oh so necessary package of fake webs. Even Mammoth Video would be jealous of this spread.

Any horror film showcase is only as good as the titles on display, forcing me to stretch my meager VHS collection to the limit. Of course there are plenty of obvious classics such as The Mummy and Halloween III. Then we move on to deep-cut material like Plague of the Zombies. After that are the movies with their own little stories.

Shattered Silence (aka When Michael Calls) is a better than average TV flick most notable for featuring a young Michael Douglas. For me it's a reminder of a very unique Halloween when I somehow got myself involved in a sleepover with my sister and her friends while the hosts' parents spent the night elsewhere. For my sister this wasn't all that unique an experience, for me it was a one of a kind holiday and this movie was a cornerstone of the night.

Possibly the shining star of my tapes, The House That Vanished my not be well-known (or very good for that matter) but it is part of that rare breed of film that never moved on to the era of DVDs and blu-rays. More than that is how I found it at a Goodwill on the very day an article of mine about neglected horror films was posted on Dread Central, This was my first ever published article for another outlet and the universe seemingly wanted to thank me by dropping this oddity in my lap.

Yes there is a standard issue Blockbuster DVD case and sleeve. Came across this while we cleaned out the movie collection and there was no way this relic was getting recycled. If you get real close you'll find this isn't a horror film at all. Truth is it's an independent tri-lingual Asian romantic drama called Last Life in the Universe. Still; I couldn't help but include this case when I think of all the memories of movies discovered at that very Blockbuster. This is the same store that introduced me to lifelong classics like Jason Lives. It represents a massive building block for my horror fanaticism along with countless memories of sitting on this same couch with family & friends watching scary movies.

Some of you might remember Vincent Price's Creepy Classics from last years Halloween coverage. Not only is Price a necessity for any good horror collection but I always seem to remember these sorts of odd specialty videos being included in these displays. Oftentimes they might be some oddball Bigfoot special or Alien Autopsy. Regardless, you must have a tape that is something other than a straight movie.

Finally there's the tape that doesn't quite belong. Whether it was due to lacking employee knowledge or some desire to push certain titles, Halloween displays always had one or two tapes that didn't fit-in. Usually this would be something along the lines of a black comedy, swear I saw War of the Roses on more than one occasion. This practice continues to this very day as earlier this week Goodwill had a stack of classic VHS horror titles like The Thing, and for some reason Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. At least it has ghosts in it so they're not totally wrong to include it. My random pick is Slaughter: From the Beginning. A tape about the rock bands formation and early years. To the naked eye, this very old-fashioned cover art of the hot bikini babe strapped to a table and threatened with throwing knives fits right in.

Somehow I knew the Stranger Things set from Target would one day see use as a decoration. Thanks to it's size this nearly works as one of those over-sized cardboard display cases commonly used to promote new releases. It's sad to think how many of those found their way into dumpsters only for the survivors to fetch top dollar among collectors. There's no doubt in my mind a franchise like this would be on every rental end-cap in October so I feel no shame in this modern touch. Likewise with the Funko Dorbz figures scattered around.

the initial "simple" version.

Let's talk about complexity for a moment. The first night of this project I only finished a few primary touches. Some have commented that they preferred this simplistic approach, but I stayed true to my vision. The poor souls who liked the simple version didn't even know about my potential plans to incorporate a Ouija board among other oddities. Point is you can make a table however basic or ridiculous as you like. Maybe you'd enjoy a few books and your favorite scary board game, that's fine. Maybe you think it needs sparklers... well that might be against the fire code. The point is every mood table is like a tacky snowflake.

At least the sideboard is still simple.

It should be obvious that I've caught the mood table bug. It's a good thing too as my holiday spirit had started to wane over the past week or so thanks to a variety of real life tidbits. Taking the time to do this silly activity absolutely restored my spirit, leaving me primed and ready for October. It's important to remember how this is the time of year that begs for us to take a step back from responsibility and demands. And you can take that step anyway you wish be it a full-blown trip, or just a night inside watching giant monster movies by candlelight. Better yet, you can turn on some tacky ghost show and throw everything you've got on a table. You'll find yourself feeling markedly better about life, the universe, and everything.