Tag: halloween

How To Make a Me – Halloween Edition

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Image by Enrique from Pixabay

There is a thread on Twitter where the whole point is to try and list 10 horror movies that sort of describe your Halloween tastes. I’m not taking it as strictly a Best Of or a Favorites list, but more of the movies which helped fashion some of my own horror tastes. These are things/themes which carry some level of importance because of the movie itself or because of some story around it.

Jaws

The joke in my Bio says it as plain and accurate as it could possibly be “John McGuire claims he would have been a marine biologist if it weren’t for Jaws.” When a movie scars you from walking down a career path, I’d say it somehow helped to shape your being.

Scream

Until I’d seen Scream all the slasher movies (save for Nightmare on Elm Street and we’ll get to that in a second) kind of ran together for me. Yes, Halloween is amazing, but the follow-ups to it and Friday the 13th plus an untold number of other 80s Horror had kind of killed the genre for me.

Then came Scream. It turned things completely upside down and showed us that there was still something unique to say about the genre. It was a breath of fresh air that I wasn’t expecting but found myself returning to repeatedly.

In the Mouth of Madness

Sometimes a movie rocks you to the core, makes you think about the world in a different way, and exposes you to thoughts you might have never reached yourself. That’s what In the Mouth of Madness is for me. My first real exposure to Cosmic Horror. A reminder that the universe is a big and scary place. It is something that we try to define and really, we have no fucking idea.

The Thing (1982)

A movie that only gets better with age. I am constantly amazed on rewatches how much the story not only holds up but that I find little bits and pieces every time. I just simply love everything about the movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street

This might have been the first horror movie I ever watched. I remember going over to a friend’s house for a sleepover around 10 years old and somehow we watched this (with his parent’s knowledge). It was my gateway horror movie.

The Howling

I have always been more of a werewolf guy than a vampire guy. Something about the internal struggle of someone not feeding into their base natures. That struggle had always been at the forefront of the creature. It was a curse… until this movie. These werewolves were enjoying what they were. In addition to having some of the greatest transformations ever, it really showed me that you can always look at the classics in a slightly different way.

The Lost Boys

However, I do love a well-done vampire story. This movie hit around the time I was getting into comic books, so to see the main characters in a comic store, understanding the lore around the creatures, hell, hunting the creatures. If you ever wanted to be in a horror movie when you were a kid, this was the one I’d choose.

Cabin in the Woods

Many years after Scream we got another movie that decided to look at the horror genre and turn it on its head. And maybe that’s what I really enjoy when you can subvert the tropes or use them in a way we’ve not seen before. Due to all the Easter eggs, this one has a ton of rewatch value.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

I love Night of the Living Dead, and I like the original Dawn of the Dead a lot, but something about this version really struck me as a great way to do a remake without losing the spirit of the original. In many ways, it and 28 Days Later (see below) ushered in this new age of the Zombie, a genre that was due for some spotlight (an odd thing to say all these years later given you can’t turn on a streaming service without seeing a dozen such movies.

28 Days Later

The loneliness of this movie. The whole purpose of showing us that it is the family we choose who we have to remain true to. The imagery… him walking the deserted London streets… him hunting in the rain, turning more and more like the infected around him… the tunnel. This one is just so well done, I could watch it any and every time it comes on.

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While not every story in anthology has to work, I think it is important to figure out why or why not they might have worked within the framework we’ve been given. It’s something that I’m thinking about for my own work.

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Movie Review – Malignant

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I always tell myself that this is the year I watch a TON of horror movies during the month of October. Yet, sadly, the month begins to dissolve away and before I know it the scary decorations are being put away and Christmas Season comes out in full force. However, this year, HBOMax released the movie Malignant allowing me to get a couple of weeks jump on the Halloween festivities.

Spoilers to follow…

Malignant is the story of a woman (Madison Mitchell) who after an altercation with her boyfriend who nearly kills her, finds herself followed by this demon/creature/person/thing. At first the creature seems to want to terrorize her specifically, but as the movie progresses, we see that it appears to have a different sort of agenda. Soon enough others are killed by the entity, with their only connection being our heroine. Even as the police arrest her, the entity continues to taunt them, until we get our final confrontation between the lead and the killer.

The Good

Some of the special effects are really amazing. There is a connection between Madison and the Killer so that she sees his kills. As the hunt begins, her world melts away revealing the house or room where the next victim is. The first time it happens I definitely let out a “wow”.

There is a pair of sequences where the Killer interacts with the police, the first time evading a lone cop by doing a crazy amount of parkour-style moves. The second is the battle at the police station, which I almost would say would be worth checking out even if you didn’t watch the rest of the movie. Aside from a couple of weird shots (which actually could be explained by the reveal of who/what the killer is), it gives a very creepy feel to how the thing moves in almost counter in style to what we would expect. The action is all over the place (in a good way), and it manages to get into the more gore side of the horror.

The Bad

My very first thought after finishing the movie was to wonder whether there was a classification of movies between an “A” and a “B” movie. There are times during the film where everyone is taking the script very seriously, and it mostly works. And then there are the times where the dialogue (and the delivery) makes me wonder if Ed Wood had a hand in crafting it. This makes it feel a bit disjointed like they didn’t know which way to go, trying to do a little of both and not mastering either.

The Ugly

The Killer… he was definitely ugly but not as scary as I was hoping for. Sadly, I figured out what the twist was going to be fairly early in the process which makes me wonder if it was too telegraphed for the audience or not. When the “twist reveal” occurs, instead of being a WTF moment, it was more of a “OK, that’s what I’d thought”. This doesn’t make it specifically a bad or good thing, but I think speaks to the idea of trying to play something a little too coy throughout the movie.

Overall, this is very much a popcorn and candy movie. It doesn’t ask much from the audience and tries its best to be a bit of a throwback to the horror/thriller films of the 80s. It does a good job with the spectacle but the rest fell a little flat for me.

I Remember Halloween

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Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I love how the weather (normally, just not this year in Georgia) cools off and Autumn greets us. I love that for a month we allow ourselves to get scared… just a little bit. A month where adults are allowed to act a little like the children we used to be.

But I also have a weird time with the holiday.

You see, I was raised Jehovah Witness, so the number of Trick or Treat nights I got to go on was about 2 that I remember. As a teenager, it was too late to make such trips along the neighborhood and apparently I must have been “too cool” to actually use my younger siblings to gather up some excess candy.

But I do have some good October memories:

1 – I remember being about 10 and spending the night at a friend’s house and somehow getting permission to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street. I’m not sure if I actually had nightmares, but I knew that if I did I needed to keep such things to myself, otherwise Mom might not allow me to watch those types of movies anymore.

2 – I remember watching the old creature feature style horror movies on late night. The Creature from the Black Lagoon probably scared me the most even while I still felt bad for him.

3 – As a teenager, three of us sat in the front row of Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy’s Dead. At the end of the movie, we stood up and chastised the audience by saying that they needed to give Freddy a moment of silence.

Image by Simon Wijers from Pixabay

4 – The multiple times over the years of going to my friend Lee’s house to watch any sort of horror movie. They range from some classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fly to Dead Snow and Teeth.

5 – I brought Teeth to the party. I actually thought there was some good there. I was clearly the only one who appreciated it.

6 – I may still be mocked today.

7 – Those nights were how Courtney and I watched the first 3 Paranormal Activities. Back to back to back.

8 – I did get to dress up as both Batman and Darth Vader over the course of 2 years.

9 – During one of those years, I split my pants and had to hide my issue with the cape included with the costume.

10 – I went to a costume gathering/party as Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Basically a white t-shirt with the words “ho ho ho, now I have a machine gun”. Mostly because it was last minute… and I’m lazy.

11 – The last time I dressed up was as Fry from Futurama (complete with the pizza box!) probably 4 years ago.

12 – I do have a “scary” mask upstairs that flashes a glowing light. I may have worn it once for about 10 minutes (it is not comfortable).

13 – But I think my favorite memory is that one October night where my mom made pigs-in-a-blanket and we watched Disney’s The Headless Horseman on tv. A story which is still one of my all-time favorites.

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

Halloween Costume Ideas

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They’re everywhere. Little kids dress up like them. Adults sometimes dress up as “sexy” versions of them. Every week there seems to be another one appearing on the theater screens.

Superheroes.

Yeah, I love them, but when it comes to Halloween, it is always the same things. Spider-Man or Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman or… just the same characters over and over.

But what if you could be a hero/villain that no one has heard of? You could be on the beginning of the bandwagon for once! Plus, if they had easy enough costumes, then you wouldn’t be out tons of money.

So here are your newest inspirations to make everyone ask: Who the hell are you supposed to be?

Turner D. Century

Are you a man? Can you grow a handlebar mustache in the next week? Do you have white pants and a striped jacket and look like you stepped out of the early 1900s? Then I have a villain for you!

You see, apparently, Turner is not a fan of “modern times”. He longs for the days of his great-grandfather’s youth. When women couldn’t vote and everyone was hoping the Titanic would make it across the ocean in one piece. A simpler time before the century of wars. He longed for those days so much that he tried to send San Francisco back to the stone ages and then rebuild that glorious society once again.

Spider-Man stopped him, have no fear.

Crazy Quilt

I know, we all have those blankets our Aunt Bertha knitted us. We have a smile on our face when we open the gift (“You shouldn’t have!”), and then it gets stored in the upstairs closet until there is a snowstorm and we lose power. Otherwise, it is never seen again.

Well, why not dig out that bad boy and give the gift one more ride!

If anyone asks, you can tell them that you can use it to send powerful laser beams (maybe bring a laser pointer too?) which can blind, kill, confuse, and possibly control other people. However, if Batman or Robin are at the same party, you should get out of there… because Robin is your arch-nemesis.

Peek-A-Boo

Do you like to roller skate everywhere you go? Do you often think that life can be solved by going as fast as humanly possible on those skates? Then maybe you should give Peek-A-Boo a go!

When asked about this one, you can always go with the idea that you can teleport as far as you can see, making you theoretically as fast as… The Flash (yeah, I don’t think so).

Still, she only got into villainy because she needed to steal a kidney for her father.

Madame Fatal

Not in the mood for villainy? Looking to put a use to your grandmother’s clothes? Here’s a hero:

Richard Stanton decided that he needed to go undercover to infiltrate a gang. So what better way to do just that, but as an old, elderly woman with a cane? Apparently, gangs were just letting in the elderly left and right in the 40s.

Dazzler

Are you a fan of the 70s? Do you have the platform shoes? The white bell bottoms? Maybe even an outfit that might be better featured on Saturday Night Fever? Then she’s the hero you’re looking for. It’s not that it is a bad costume, but instead one very much of the time she was created. However, the nice thing is that Dazzler goes with the current trends, so you could always update it to a modern pop-star and be fine… as long as you’ve got some glitter for your face!

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These are the types of costumes you don’t have to do much more than go up into your attic/ down to the basement or maybe raid a thrift shop somewhere. And then you too can become part of the superhero craze!

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John McGuire is the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. The Trade paperback collecting the first 4 issues is finally back from the printers! If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Want to read the first issue for free? Click here! Already read it and eager for more?

Click here to join John’s mailing list.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

 

Nightmares, Horrors, and Visions

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For this year’s annual spooky art post, I decided to feature one artist who’s work I find to be some of the most chilling and inspiring too. Zdzisław Beksiński (1929-2005) was a Polish artist known for this dystopian paintings, though he also worked in photography and digital art too. The artworks below are only a small sample. I encourage you explore more of his paintings on WikiArt.

“I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams“

– Zdzisław Beksiński

Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński
Untitled by Zdzisław Beksiński

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Need more spooky art? Check out my previous posts: Monsters, Magic and Moonlight and Eerie, Haunting and Beautiful.

Why I’m Staying My A%# out of The Woods

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With Halloween around the corner I thought I’d dig into my box of what creeps yours truly out.

A gateway to the nether reaches of the soul........

A gateway to the nether reaches of the soul……..

Putting aside such horrors as flying cockroaches (Also known as the spawn of Satan.), and Jules Verne sized squids (It’s the eyes. They bore holes into your soul.) I’m going to focus on one particular thing that keeps me kind of weirded out to a small degree.

The wooded area behind my apartment complex creeps me out.  I’m a grown man, and I’m not afraid to admit that.  Laugh if you want, but for some reason the forested area behind my home can be a creep fest at times.

I grew up camping in Boy Scouts. I love a great hike through the forest, or on a park trail through the woods. Heck, after years of camping in upstate New York, my Dad taught my brother and I how to camp. So I say all this to say I enjoy getting lost (not literally) on a trip or two to the woods.

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There’s just something about the woods behind the apartment complex that’s just plain ‘ole creepy. Maybe its because of how my mind works with the writing, I’m always thinking of various scenarios that are playing out in the densely packed area behind my back porch. For instance, the first few weeks after we moved out here a couple of years ago, I remember my wife pointing out a set of sounds coming from the area behind our place.

I’m used to hearing dogs, cats, birds, maybe a raccoon or two. The normal animal sounds you’d associate with a forest that was adjacent to an apartment complex.

What we heard that night was just plain strange. I remember standing on the porch and listening to something that sounded like a cacophony of guttural, low moaning animal sounds. Or as my wife would put it “pure scariness”.

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Usually with most animal sounds that you might hear at the same time, you can discern one from the other. An owl sounds like an owl. A dog sounds like a dog. A raccoon sounds like a raccoon.

What I remember hearing that night, and  subsequent nights afterwards, was nothing I’d ever heard before or since. With my writers mind being as crazy as it is, I began to think that maybe a hellish portal had opened behind my house to release some other worldly creatures into our neck of the woods.

Damn you Stranger Things for getting that idea on screen first. 🙂

All I know is that when I’m walking my dog at night, we don’t head towards to the treeline where the woods meet the apartments. Outside of the concern that my pet will run after some random rodent that might pop out of the woods, I’m not chancing being snatched up by any of these creepy sounding creatures.

Now maybe what we’re hearing is just a regular ‘ole run of the mill forest dweller. I just know that I sure as heck am not going to try and confirm or deny that, by taking a field trip to the woods.

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Lastly, my apartment complex has done a piss poor job of keeping up the trail that runs through this area. Trash is strewn about, bridges have fallen into disrepair, small ponds are completely dry, leaves cover the path, and it just looks creepily abandoned by society.

I’m a geek when it comes to learning about abandoned areas like The Maunsell Sea Forts of England, Pripyat in Ukraine, or Hashima Island of Japan. Though I think the area where I live is far from getting to the “ghost town” status of these notable landmarks, I feel that the jogging/ walking path behind the complex is slowly but surely getting there.

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I’ve walked this path a few times (during day time of course) and each time I find myself with a general sense of unease. Not full on fright, or panic, but more so “yeah, I probably need to get the heck out of here soon”.

Maybe if our complex hadn’t seemingly just wrote off the area, and tried to keep it up, I’d feel differently. Until then, I’ll stay away from the abandoned looking path that winds behind our apartment.

Check out some pics from the above mentioned area, and enjoy.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween folks.

Ghouls, Demons, and Beasts

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Here we are again. I have another spooky gallery of frightful art from the history vaults. You can see the previous posts here: Monster, Magic, and Moonlight and Eerie, Haunting, and Beautiful. Enjoy and have a Spooktacular Halloween!

Lucifer by Franz Stuck
Medusa by Arnold Bocklin
Self-portrait with Skulls, 1909 by Luigi Russolo
Vampire, 1895 by Edvard Munch
Spirit of the Forest, 1890 by Odilon Redon
Witches, 1508 by Hans Baldung
The Descent on the Monster by Gustave Dore
The Cold Devils by Felicien Rops
The Number of the Beast is 666 by William Blake
Water Ghost by Alfred Kubin
The Knight Death and the Devil, 1513 by Albrecht Durer
Hell by Hans Memling
The Vision of Death by Gustave Dore
Witches Sabbath, 1789 by Francisco Goya

Eerie, Haunting and Beautiful

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It’s that time of year again… I hope you enjoy these fantastical artworks and have a delightfully dark Halloween!

Untitled (1984) by Zdzislaw Beksinski
Anatomical Pieces by Theodore Gericault
Dante and Virgil in Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Fortune-telling by Sergey Solomko
Faun by Karel Hlaváček
Nokken by Theodor Kittelsen
Erlkönig by Julius Sergius von Klever
Prophète by Odilon Redon
Madame la Mort by Paul Gauguin
The Face of War by Salvador Dali
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli
Will-o’-the-wisp and Snake by Hendrich, Hermann
Death of Anhelli by Witold Pruszkowski

 

Did you miss last year’s post Monsters, Magic and Moonlight?

Halloween is Coming!

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If I had unlimited funds my neighbors would hate me. Alas, I’m safe from that happening for a while. Before moving into our current home, we lived in a small farm house. We didn’t have kids roaming door to door for sweets. That didn’t stop us from carving a jack-o-lantern each year but decorations beyond that were sparse. Now my family and I live in an actual neighborhood. For the last three years I’ve been buying a couple new decorations each Halloween. You might recognize the giant spider and the Skeleton Grim Reaper from last year. This year I’ve added a Pumpkin Grim Reaper and Halloween Lights!

I also have one lone ghost in need of some more buddies. So this weekend I’m going to summon some new friends for him to decorate the path to our front door. Anytime I go shopping for Halloween decorations I’m also adding to my wishlist for future years. Here are three things I’d love to have:

Light Up Grim Reapers
That’s a Big Spider Web
I have the perfect tree for this ghoulish guy.

Have you been keeping up with my other October Blog Posts?

Inktober is Here!

Night Stone by Rick Hautala

 

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Next week I’m sharing a piece of new art I’ve been working on just for this time of year….. Muahahaha!

Duane Jones: A Horror Film Pioneer

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“Now get the hell down in the cellar! You can be the boss down there, but I’m boss up here!”-Duane Jones as Ben/“Night of the Living Dead”

Growing up in Chicago, we had one of those late night B-movie programs, where some obscure horror flick would get shown every once in a while. This is where my love of zombie flicks began…with George Romero’s “Night of The Living Dead.”

NOLD1

This film was my introduction to one of the greatest horror films of all time, and a film that gave birth to a sub-genre that has influenced the creation of numerous films, television series, novels, comics, video games, and even music videos.

At the age of 28, Romero and writing partner John A. Russo crafted a solid script that followed a group of individuals who find themselves trapped in a remote farmhouse, as the dead rise around them.

The film featured some of the most suspenseful filmmaking of its time. It was a forerunner for the use of gore effects in horror films, and featured an omnipresent sense of despair that left viewers tense throughout the film. In light of all this, what sealed the deal for me with this film was one character: Ben.

BenPlayed by Duane Jones, Ben was the take charge survivor, who used his wits and resolve to get through the hellish night. One thing that was awesome about this guy, outside of being such a resourceful and intelligent badass, was the fact that he was Black.

We often find African American characters being the first to die in such films. It’s even become something of a joke. If they weren’t inspecting a dark corner where the killer obviously was, the character was often relegated to being the comic relief or sidekick. This got old pretty quick.

Imagine how it felt to finally see a strong Black male lead taking hold of the catastrophic situation, attempting to keep things from getting worse. Add to this, and I know it’s been pointed out numerous times before, that it’s amazing that a film like this was made during the late 1960s. This was during a time where the idea of a competent African American character as a leader was anathema to a large swath of America.

In the film’s script, Ben was described as a blue collar truck driver, where his race was not specified. The character wasn’t fully fleshed out until Duane Jones was cast in the film, causing Romero and Russo to perform rewrites for his character. Romero explained he simply cast the best actor for the role, highlighting the amount of acting skill that Jones brought to the role of Ben.

As Jones explains in an interview featured on Dimension Films 40th Anniversary release of “Night of The Living Dead,” “Ben didn’t really have a biography. Ben was just passing through.”

As Jones further explains in another interview, “It never occurred to me that I was hired because I was Black. But it did occur to me that because I was Black it would give a different historic element to the film.”

Ben never falters in his resolve to survive the night, even coming to verbal and physical blows with the other NOLD3survivors. Now I know in today’s world we have a wide variety of African American leaders in a host of industries, but once again, you have to place this in the context of the time in which the film was made.

Others might even argue why even focus on something like this? What’s the big deal when we’ve got countless examples of African Americans making it to the finish line of many of today’s slasher/horror films?

Whether it’s Naomie Harris in “28 Days Later” or Ving Rhames in the 2004 remake of Romero’s “Dawn of The Dead,” there are a number of individuals making it to the end of the major studio films. This doesn’t even include numerous examples that may abound in independent films.

I’ve just taken the time to just show some appreciation for the guy who set the standard (whether he meant to or not), for those who’ve come since.

If you’re looking for a great horror flick, with a standout performance courtesy of the film’s star actor, definitely check out “Night of the Living Dead.”

 

Ben 3

Ghost Story: The Farmer’s Wife

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The Farmer’s Wife

GravestoneMy grandfather, Cecil Owen Walter, was an adventurous boy growing up in The Plains, Virginia. The small rural town sat squarely in the middle of nothing and nowhere. As you can imagine, a young boy in the early 1920’s created his own entertainment. When he wasn’t dreaming of running away with the gypsies, he and his younger brother Allie explored the Virginia countryside.

One evening in late winter the boys, sitting by the fire, listened to tale told by their Aunt. A tale meant to chill the boys to the bone. Just the sort of story a boy’s overactive imagination devoured.

The farmer and his wife lived not far down the road. They were long dead now, but on certain nights it was said a light could be seen traveling from the old house to the barn. The hovering light would go back and forth, again and again, before vanishing. This was her routine. On cold winter nights the wife checked the cows, a duty which followed her to the grave.

Determined to prove whether or not the tale was true, Cecil and Allie stayed up late into the night. They crept from their beds, careful not to wake the snoring Aunt, and dashed into the frigid winter night.

The snow had fallen all day, but now all was still and silent.

The boys trudged through the deep snow toward the abandoned farm house. Despite shivering from head to toe they hunkered down in a ditch, to hide and watch. Hours passed by and nothing out of the ordinary happened. They were about to leave when they saw a light. A glowing orb hung suspended in the air just outside the front door. Without warning, it began to float from the house to the barn and back again.

Cecil and Allie sat frozen with fear. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Had this been some trick?

The boys forced their legs to move in the direction of the house. When they reached the spot the moon’s light revealed no footprints!

The boys ran the entire way home, the strength having returned to their legs. They sat up all night. Huddled in fear and convinced the farmer’s wife would come for them.

**This is a true story, as told by my grandfather to my mother. I’ve retold it here with a bit of my own dramatization.

Happy Hallowe’en

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Shadow by Amanda Makepeace

Shadow, 2013 by Amanda Makepeace

This year’s Halloween painting is a portrait of my studio cat Shadow, a.k.a. Attack Cat, who passed away suddenly in June. I still miss her terribly, but when I began thinking of what to paint for Halloween all I could see was her. She loved sitting with me while I painted and often followed me where ever I went, but she wasn’t very friendly with anyone else. Attack Cat wasn’t a misnomer. If a dog, three times the size of the cat, is afraid then you know you’re trouble. But from Shadow’s perspective she was only protecting her mother. The depth of her love for me was amazing.

Black Cats have received a lot of flack over the years, but it wouldn’t be Halloween without them. Their bad reputation dates back to medieval Europe when they were thought to be witches familiars and agents of Satan. Poor kitties! Though opinions on black cats have improved over the centuries, they still face discrimination. They are far less likely to get adopted from shelters and they are far more likely to get euthanized than other cats. Please consider adopting a black cat this Halloween!

Adopt a Black Cat!