More Halloween spam!

[cleolinda]

J.K. Rowling has posted a surprise on her official site--you'll need some patience to get to it, but if you're a big fan of the HP books, it's worth it (I thought).

1. You start out at her desktop. Click the hair elastic (I think that's what it is).

2. Now you're at the door that she hid the next book title behind a while back, remember? So. Sit here and wait for Peeves to come along. You're going to be here a while. Like, ten minutes.

3. Peeves shows up and knocks over a vase. Keys fall out and start flying around. You're going to have to drag them, one by one, to the keyhole until one fits. This will very likely take you a while.

4. Now you're at a different version of her desk. Click/drag on the drawer handle and get the magnifying glass out. There's a piece of paper with twelve lines of writing on it--hover the glass over that and then let go.

5. The paper has a riddle on it. In case you can't think of the answer, let's just say it rhymes with "raptors."

6. You get a folder. Click/drag on the edges of the three pieces of paper at the top. (It looks like there are four, but I think one of them is actually a second folder.) Voilà.

Oh, and here's a little present--I know there were a few latecomers who didn't get the Garbage/Kylie Minogue cover, and I lost some of the email addresses I was saving up for a final mail-out. So--it's nothing special, but if you still want it, this link is good for seven days. After that, you see the ring, you die, everyone will suffer, etc.

Meanwhile... I have absolutely nothing to do tonight. It's just one of those off-years, you know? It's Sunday night--half the town went out last night and the other half is confused as to whether they should even go out tonight at all. Nothing much to do, nothing really good to do for a costume, let's just stay home and watch scary movies. Except that the cable channels are really disappointing me with their lineups this year. The best that TCM can muster is The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting, full stop. The Omen was great, but... that was Friday, man.

So: Let's see what's on. Ooo. WGN is showing a bunch of X-Files and "Post-Modern Prometheus," you know, the really great black-and-white one with the monster who loves Cher, is on in fifteen minutes. That was pretty awesome. Man. I would so love to own the first six or seven seasons on DVD, but those bitches are expensive.

Hmm. Local/network channels: Dracula: Dead and Loving It? *thumbs down* Child's Play? Eh, you get points for running the original, but... *thumbs down*

A&E: Chocolat? Are you friggin' kidding me? IT'S HALLOWEEN. You wanna show a Johnny Depp movie, you pony up for Edward Scissorhands or Sleepy Hollow or, at the very least, that first Nightmare on Elm Street that he was in. Damn. Amateurs.

AMC: Scream 2. Bzzzt! Thanks for playing.

Comedy Central: Scary Movie 2. Now I'm just sad.

SCI-FI: Thirteen Ghosts. Oh, that's just bargain-bin, right there.

TCM: Before the Haunting movies, they are showing Spellbound, which isn't very Halloween but is pretty awesome, and has a really young Gregory Peck in it, for those of you with The Omen still in your heads. I may at least watch that.

TNT: U.S. Marshals. OH, NOW YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.

USA: Queen of the Damned. Okay... that's one of those movies that's a completely different kind of horrifying.

VH1: Austin Powers. Oh, for the love of... please stop encouraging people to dress up like Austin Powers and/or Dr. Evil. It's just obnoxious. And if you don't believe me, try sitting out Halloween night at a party with some slightly tubby guy in love beads shouting "DO I MAKE YOU HORNY BABY YEAH!" every five minutes. NO NO NO.

WE: Terms of Endearment. o.O

Sigh. As you move past 7 pm and over to 9 pm it gets a little better--Scream, Underworld, Harry Potter (and more straightforward thrillers like Red Dragon and Alien)... I don't really know how to tell you what I'm looking for. It's not just a movie that's scary, you know? A Halloween movie has some sort of whimsy or fantasy or camp to it. It might scare the bejesus out of you, but it's not something that could actually happen. Serial killers? Can actually happen. Serial killers who die and are resurrected 56 times and are impervious to anything short of a nuclear blast? Not actually gonna happen. I think this is why supernatural movies are so much fun on Halloween, that whole "not really gonna happen" element, because on Halloween, you sort of feel like it could happen, because Halloween is an exception. You know, like ghosts and vampires and demonic possession and all that. I don't want to watch a movie like Red Dragon about a sociopath who breaks into homes and butchers families in their beds (in Atlanta and Birmingham, ACK), because that shit actually happens. I wanna see something with Vincent Price or Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, you know? Fighting the powers of evil with crazy logic and good diction. I would pop in Bram Stoker's Dracula and just call it a night, but I don't have it on DVD, and my VCR hates me. Dammit.

(Does it make me a total loser that I just found the Jeremy Brett version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and went "Ooo"?)



ETA: lumaria just commented that ohdanigirl has updated, and... she's found Jen. Run, Eric, run!

P.S. Make sure you read the comments on his blog--the two I've read so far are from Jen and Eric to each other--that is, they're in-story comments, not from a bunch of yahoos like us.

Comments

Move on, move on, nothing to see here.

[lumaria.livejournal.com]

psst. ohdanigirl has updated.

I'm scared for Eric. *bites nails*

Re: Move on, move on, nothing to see here.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh no.

(I admit to refreshing the Dionaea House updates page half the afternoon.)

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

we watched ghostbusters earlier.

and what's wrong with dead & loving it? mel brooks is awesome!

of course, i'm one of those nutcases who hates freaky-style halloween horror movie & perfers cheesy/funny/campy stuff.

[canonball13.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, as for the JKR thing....I still feel quite silly that I couldn't figure it out on my own, even though I was OMG so close.

The prizes were cool, though!

Have you seen Fallen? With Denzel Washington? That is pyschological scary and I didn't want to go to sleep after that one.

I hope, gulp, that things in that movie can never happen...

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, the comm where I saw the JKR link had the riddle answer, and I was like, "Oh, well, duh." But if I hadn't seen it, it's very possible that I would have blanked on it, too. Anything you already know always seems obvious in hindsight. :)

[ter369.livejournal.com]

I wanna see something with Vincent Price or Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, you know? Fighting the powers of evil with crazy logic and good diction. I would pop in Bram Stoker's Dracula and just call it a night, but I don't have it on DVD, and my VCR hates me. Dammit.

I'm popping in the Coppola, because I saw it for the first time last week AND THAT IS NOT ENOUGH!

When it comes to Dracula flicks? I am a Hammer hor. I applaud your taste for Lee/Price/Cushing.

Though ... on October 31st, I usually watch the BBC Dracula from the 1970s, as it stays close to Stoker's events and features Judy Bowker, Frank Finlay, and a scaryass Louis Jourdan as The Count.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I HEART THE COPPOLA. Man. I think that's actually the movie I'm disappointed no one's airing tonight. Last year TNT ran it like four times in a row. Why hast thou forsaken me, TNT?

I wonder if I've seen the Jourdan one. I feel like I may have. When the Coppola Dracula came out, all the cable channels were falling all over themselves to air every other version ever filmed, so I saw all kinds of crazy stuff--a Jack Palance (!) version, even.

I am such a Hammer hor. I think a lot of the Price horror movies--the ones based (or sometimes "based") on Poe stories were mostly Roger Corman, though. I think. I don't know if Hammer was involved or not.

Have you ever seen Brides of Dracula? Cushing's in that one but not Lee, but it's friggin' hilarious awesome. Very inventive use of a windmill. ;)

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Jeremy Brett is completely Ooo-worthy.

As for spooky movies... I'm debating the merits of Evil Dead (I have all 3 on DVD) or Ringu, Ring 2, and Ring 0... hell, Ring Virus too, and Dark Water for the hell of it... but I'm not sure if I'm up for a ridiculous gore-fest, and if I'm watching something with subtitles I can't multitask and hey, midnight=NaNoWriMo time!

Maybe I'll just listen to every version of Tam Lin I have.

[anna-sinistra.livejournal.com]

What, is no one playing Rocky Horror tonight? I thought that was a Halloween staple, like candy corn.

Didn't VH1 always have a marathon?

[sprunkle.livejournal.com]

Crap, it took me so long to figure out the riddle. I knew it had something to do with books, and pages made sense. Actually, pages makes more sense to me, damnit. That's right, J.K. Rowling, I think my ideas are better then yours. Yes! Yes!
Hey, The Haunting of Hill House isn't THAT bad.

[canonball13.livejournal.com]

I totally thought it was pages, too!! Argghhh, just thinking about how close I was ticks me off...


grrr...

[sleepypawn.livejournal.com]

I got to the dragging up of the pieces of papers and that's it. Is there anything I could be doing wrong?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No, that's it. You should be seeing chapter titles at the top of each one. Like, previously unreleased chapter titles.

huh?

[arpad.livejournal.com]

So it gives you a titles of three random chapters and it's all?

Re: huh?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're really waiting for the books, you now get to speculate on what those chapter titles mean. That's all, though, yeah.

[samiamagirl.livejournal.com]

TV is so not in the Halloween spirit on Halloween... wtf? But, at least they're not showing really great horror movies because then they'd have to censor it loads...

Hero (armed with his trusty axe) slowly opens the creaking door, the audience shivering in anticipation with what he may see. A mighty roar screams out, the hero and his axe gasp/scream in surprise. Cut to...

CENSOR! IN YOUR FACE!

What is it? What is it? We'll never know! We have to go rent/buy/steal the movie to know! Damn you censorship!!!

Omg, I just realized... the TV industry is in cahoots with the movie industry... censoring things just so, so that now we have to go GET the movie to see it in it's exciting fullness... Conspiracy!

[travelsizedoug.livejournal.com]

I still can't figure out this damn riddle T_T

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

What's in a book, any book, that rhymes with "raptors"?

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

total *SQUEEEEE*

Dammit - it'll be the usual family fights about who gets to read it first.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Seriously--we could afford to buy more copies if the books weren't SO HUGE now.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

The Haunting of Hill House = Best Shirley Jackson movie ever (considering that there was only one other, Lizzie, and it was truly terrible, and I'm a fan of Shirley Jackson/terrible movies).

The husband and I are going to spend our Halloween down by the Fountain in Five Points, mocking people who are dressed the way we dressed when we were their age. Then we're going to go home and drink Mylanta out of the bottle, or whatever really old people do.

[zombiequeen.livejournal.com]

Dioneaea House totally creeped me out... how fun! I'm bummed that it's (apparently) finished.

Thanks, Cleo!

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

cleo, you are my hero. before you posted this i didn't know that i was supposed to drag the key to the keyhole; i was just clicking on the keys hoping the door was miraculously open. this wasn't really not my fault -- someone else told me that's what i was supposed to do. but anyway, THANK YOU.

[ailehtac03.livejournal.com]

Those chapter titles were interesting, but 2 didn't tell us anything at all, and the 3rd barely told us anything. She really doesn't wanna give us spoilers, huh?

[valkyrie79.livejournal.com]

Dude, who did the Austin Powers thing? Was that in college? Sounds like a possibility for quite a few of the freaky random boys who hung around the Cellar.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You know, I can't exactly remember where or when that happened, except that I see it happening in the Cellar in my mind's eye. I wonder if it was one of the poetry readings that didn't go well.

[arayuldaiel.livejournal.com]

Dionaea House is so creepy-good. I really hope that guy gets his movie made. Bummer it's over, though.

And, dammit, why can't JK put cool stuff like that on the text-only site for us fast-connection disabled people? *cries*

[fmith.livejournal.com]

I was watching the X-Files on WGN, actually. and it totally wasn't because I have a thing for David Duchovny

[kittygopounce.livejournal.com]

Oh yay! It took me a bit to figure out the answer to the riddle. I just sat there and kept rhyming raptors, and kept only coming up with captors, and kept mentall whining that I wanted someone to just tell me the answer. And then of course, I re-read the poem again and ... yeah - the penny dropped. I empathise with the people who actually posted in the end, to find out or have more hints passed their way, as I was worried that I would be the only one who couldn't see the answer outright :|

Anyway, what community/forum is this were you heard about this already, Cleo?

Yay! I read the rest of the Dionaea House stuff, and whee, fun. Thanks for pointing us in the direction of it! :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

What was the last thing you got to on Dionaea House? Because I got to the end, or what I thought was the end anyway, and was sort of like, "That's it?" Like, he listed all the stuff he was taking into the house with him, and creepy Dani posted a comment, and then there was a comment that led you to the guy's afterword page. Was that all?

Oh, and it was hogwartshouses where I heard about it--I don't remember if the post is unlocked or not, and I had a little trouble with their instructions, so I decided to post some clearer ones. :)

[divabat.livejournal.com]

About the key - there is one key that moves slower than the rest, and moves in a different "orbit". That's the key that opens the door.

[katcat.livejournal.com]

I can't get the damn magnifying glass out of the drawer. As such I can proceed no further. HELP! Someone want to post what it is in my journal... SOMETHING! *cries*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Make sure you've opened the drawer all the way, then click/drag it. Does that help?

Re: Dionaea

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? I'm confused. What happened in the house? Did they go in? Am I missing a spot?

Re: Dionaea

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

If you follow the ohdanigirl link, you get to Jen's blog. If you follow her link to "her friend's blog," you get http://dionaeahouse.blogspot.com/. Read the entries from the bottom up (there aren't many), and make sure you read the comments. A comment on the last (top) entry will take you back to the guy's main site.

[natacup82.livejournal.com]

The x-files movie is on fox here, which is ok, but I would rather have an x-files show marathon, because they never run the damn show at a decent hour and the only way I will buy those insanely overpriced dvd's is if hell froze over and I won the lottery...Or they went on a really kick ass sale, which is pretty much never gonna happen.

I'm just gonna pop my resident evil dvd in or maybe practical magic...can't go wrong with witches on halloween

[clovecigarettes.livejournal.com]

TNT: U.S. Marshals. OH, NOW YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING.

The first time I saw U.S. Marshalls I ;thought I was going to die laughing. The plane explodes, rolls down a hill, then off a cliff, then into a lake. Extreme!

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

The first plane crashed.

The second plane crashed.

The third plane blew up, rolled down a hill, and sank into the lake.

But the fourth plane stayed up!