26th Annual Salem Haunted Happenings Parade

Nothing helps get you in the Halloween mood like the Salem Haunted Happenings Parade. There's just something about seeing so many people come together to celebrate.

The theme this year is Myths and Legends. 2023 is the largest parade to date!

 

You can watch the entire parade courtesy of Salem Local Access.The actual parade doesn't start until the point the video will play so don't think you missed much.

Here's a few highlights

31:43 - Blackcraft Haunted Attraction

36:43 - Dancing Evil Mickey

42:24 - National Park Service

1:00:20 - All the Ghostbusters

1:05:30 - Wicked Jeeps

1:09:30 - Freddy in Santa's sleigh?!

1:15:30 - Black Veil (costume goals!)

 

As much fun as the parade is, my favorite part is going "backstage" to the ready area and seeing everyone get their costumes and vehicles ready.

You can also browse the pics on Flickr for a better look.

Be sure to check out the complete list of Countdown bloggers by clicking below.

 

Haunted Library - Halloween Horror

Welcome back to the Haunted Library!

I've got a bit of an oddity today, Halloween Horror by Gina Clemen. It seems to be written to aid those learning English. 

 

The story follows teenagers in Salem that have a Halloween party in an old, abandoned house and have a run in with the ghost of a Salem witch. After each chapter, there are some reading comprehension exercises.

As an introductory reading book, I suppose it's a decent spooky Halloween story. It does have a couple parts that might be a little intense for kids. I do have questions for the parents that let their young teens have a Halloween party in an abandoned house until midnight.The kids aren't even sneaking out to do it!

As someone that's close to Salem and knows a little about the witch hysteria, the book is not historically accurate. Which, okay, it's fiction but it portrays the victims as evil witches. There are descendants of the victims living in and around Salem to this day. They would most likely not be happy with this book. Granted none of the names in the book are the names of the actual victims so I have to give credit for that. It also mentions there were 20 hangings. In reality, there were 19 hangings and one person was pressed to death. But again, it's fiction.

You can view/download a copy of the book by clicking the library card. The original copy I found online did not have the Japanese (?) text so the book seemed more like it was aimed at young children.

I'm presuming this is the audio CD that came with the book, minus the educational bits. It's a full cast audio type of thing with sound effects and music. For some reason, the last chapter is a completely different narrator and there are no additional voices, music or sound effects.

 

Click below to see the list of participating Countdown blogs!

Freddy Friday - Tales from Elm Street Series

It might be Friday the 13th, but there's no Jason on Freddy Friday!

 

This week is not just one, but a series of six short fan films under the title Krueger: Tales from Elm Street. Most of them are prequels to the events in the movies but the last one gives us the dream Freddy we all know and love.

The creator Chris R. Notarile (aka Blinky500) has done an amazing number of fan films not just for horror properties but also comics. Definitely check out his video page.

This is a 40 minute supercut of all six episodes.

Grab some snacks and enjoy!

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