31 Days of Halloween: Corpse Bride and the Hanged Man

One year ago: Frankenstein (1931)

It's decoration time again, and we're taking a look at two of my favorites! These two are basically just larger and more elaborate versions of the muumuu heads we'll be looking at next week, but they make for some fun and often genuinely creepy decorations under the right conditions.

The Hanged Man is a suitably gruesome creature, with gnarled hands, leathery sun-bleached flesh, and the rope that did him in still wound about him. He's even missing an eyeball for good measure! He certainly doesn't look too creepy in this photo-- hell, he even comes off a little goofy-- but coming across him in the dead of night with the lights out, he's capable of producing a couple of chills.

The Corpse Bride here is quite a bit cooler. She has some electronic features which include red eyes, moaning, and shuddering. (She's liable to make you nearly fall back out of the doorway if she greets you when you're walking into the house, as my niece discovered a couple of years ago.) Putting aside the very real possibility that she might climb into my bed and try to chew my face off while I sleep, I always hang her in front of the window in the corner of the bedroom.

When the sun is shining outside, she has a very cool and unsettling look, and her eyes light up as the dimmed light from outside shines through them. I tried to capture this in a photo, but without the flash, it's rather bad. I'm posting it anyway though, as you still get the general idea of the effect.

On that crappy photographic note, we're done for today! Creep on back by tomorrow for more Halloween goodness!