Horror Christmas Presents for Paupers - Part 4

Does the horror fan in your life love monsters? Does he or she also love Monsters or any other energy drink? In that case, recycling some old energy drink cans could make a perfect Christmas present and will allow you to play the part of Baron Frankenstein for a few minutes without spending any money at all.

In fact, when you take these cans back for the deposit refund, you can even make money from doing this! It's a win-win situation!


Make Your Own Monster

Absolutely terrifying, isn't it?

You will need:

1. Old energy drink cans. Monsters, of course, are best for this, but any will do.
2. Glue or sticky tape.


Instructions

Assemble the cans into a monster figure roughly the same as the one in the photo above. This one needs 18 cans. You can use glue or sticky tape to do it.

Note: I didn't actually glue these cans together owing to lack of time so please ignore the ruler.


Option 1

If you are very rich, present your horror fan with full cans in this arrangement.


Option 2

Draw a monster face on a piece of paper and stick it on the top cans to make your monster more realistic. If you can't draw, just download and print one out. It doesn't have to be the Frankenstein monster unless you want to be a purist.


Warning!

Do not attempt to do this with parts of dead bodies. They may be free, but the results will be unpredictable. Plus, if you get caught, you will end up in Federal ass-pounding jail forever!

Horror Christmas Presents for Paupers - Part 3

Horror fans love autographs. Some of them travel half-way across the country to conventions just for the privilege of standing in line for hours on end so that they can pay $25 for an illegible scribble from someone they don't even know.

If you've missed all the horror conventions and have no money anyway, you can surprise everyone with the following gift for only a couple of dollars.


Non-fake Personalised Non-celebrity Autographs

Not signed by Alyson Hannigan obviously.

You will need:

1. A computer.
2. The internet.
3, An inkjet printer.
4. Photo quality paper.
5. A telephone directory.
6. A marker pen.
7. A picture frame (optional).


Step 1

Download a picture of your (or your horror fan's) favourite celebrity.


Step 2

Print out the picture on photograph quality paper.


Step 3

Look through the phone book for someone with the same name as the celebrity whose photograph you have printed out. Write down his or her address.

Note: You can save a lot of time if you already know someone who shares the same name as a celebrity. Just the first name will do in most cases.


Step 4

Go to the person's house, knock on the door or ring the bell, tell them what you are doing, and politely ask them if they will sign your photograph. If you are really nice, they will probably personalise it for you too, thus devaluing it as much as a "real" celebrity autograph.


Step 5

Frame the now autographed photograph, and wrap it up in pretty Christmas paper for your horror fan. Once it's up on his bedroom wall, he will never know the difference nor will anyone else who even cares. Nobody will ever see it anyway.

Horror Christmas Presents for Paupers - Part 2

Every horror fan loves to get movies for Christmas, but you know how it is. Either they've already seen it or it's now on Blu-ray and costs twenty times that of the DVD version. So what can you do?

It's simple.

Make Your Own Horror Movie

Unfortunately, this would involve spending far too much money on a $20 Jazz cam from Wal-mart and, although it wouldn't take you any longer to make than the duration of the movie itself, it's not for everyone.

If you look at the other "indie horror movies" around, it's obvious that you don't need a script, acting ability, originality or any talent whatsoever to make your own horror movie. You don't even need actors as glove puppets or your cat will do. But unless you really want to film Tiddles washing ketchup off herself and showing some nipples, the prospect of making anything which will perk the average horror fan up is filled with too many problems.

Some people have been stupid enough to make their own horror movies for their ex-loved ones only to discover them being mass-produced and sold at horror conventions for $19.99 six months later. If you are thinking of shaky-camming your boobies and running round the house while dressed up as a zombie and screaming, please don't. My cat still hasn't forgiven me for "The Furry Xmas Invader" which, incidentally, you can buy from me (while stocks last) for only $16,087.99 plus tax and shipping. (Please note that the limited "Unrated - Hairball Edition" is no longer available.)

Instead, how about creating your own version of the Mill Creek boxsets using easily downloadable and legally free Public Domain movies? Yes, my friends, this is the way to not even have to pay $5 for 50 nasties! They may not be original movies, but the selection and the order you put them in will be all your own work.


Make Your Own Public Domain Horror DVDs


You will need:

1. Either a blank DVD-R or DVD+R. (3 for $1 at Dollar Tree!)
2. The internet.
3. DownloadHelper.
4. DeVeDe or DVD Flick. They are both free!
5. A few hours of your time.
6. A crappy DVD movie that you can re-use the case from. (Multi disc cases are best for this so look out for those 2-disc "Special Editions" which weren't so special.)


Step 1

Find a source of Public Domain horror movies online. Hint: Google is your friend.

To save yourself a few minutes, you may like to go to my YouTube channel where some of the better Public Domain horror movies are. Don't forget to subscribe!


Step 2

Install DownloadHelper, restart Firefox, and when you are on the correct page, click the little spinning balls on the toolbar to select what kind of download you desire. In this case, it should be the file name that ends in .mp4.


Step 3

Install either DeVeDe or DVD Flick. They are much the same so whichever one you use is really only dependent on your computer system. If you use Linux, DeVeDe is the only sensible choice.


Step 4

Learn how to use DeVeDe or DVD Flick by reading the instructions, then burn your mp4 movies to blank DVDs.

Please note: This is the tricky part as it may involve reading. It's worth the effort because you can fit at least four movies on a single DVD once you get the hang of the software.


Step 5

Download a DVD coverart template and some nice pictures to decorate the insert for your DVD with. Pro-tip: Mill Creek tend to use pictures of actors from movies that they've never even starred in for their coverart so feel free to use their example.

You don't need to be a fantastic artist for this or buy any expensive graphics software. You could even draw or cut pictures out by hand, glue them to the right sized piece of paper and photocopy it. In fact, that's what most "indie horror movie" distributors do anyway.


Step 6

Throw away the original coverart and the DVD for "The Strangers", "Cloverfield", "Hostel" or whichever crappy movie you are replacing. Put your new coverart and DVD-R into the DVD case then wrap it up for Christmas.


Step 7

Enjoy the excited gasps as your horror fan opens the highly original collection of Public Domain horror movies on Christmas Day!

Horror Christmas Presents for Paupers - Part 1

What do you get the horror fan who has everything? It's a question most of us face every Christmas whether we are the ones buying or the ones being bought presents for.

The simplest answer is, of course, a big box to keep it all in, but that's an old joke and will be slightly insulting unless the person in question grows out of their obsession. moves house, or wants to dump all their hoarded crap on the local charity shops.

Money is tighter than ever this year so why waste it on little plastic dollies which collect dust, posters which will rot in their tubes, or DVDs which will be worth less than 50c each by the same time next year?

In the following series of posts, I will give you a few ideas which will cost you hardly anything except a few minutes of your time.


Blair Witch Stick Figures

You will need:

1. Four sticks.
2. Some string.


Step 1

Find four sticks which look vaguely like the ones in the screencap from "The Blair Witch Project" (1999).

If you want to be truly authentic, you can go all the way to Burkittsville, Maryland and pick some sticks up there, but any wooded area will do.


Step 2

Snap the sticks to length and tie them together.

The two "legs" should cross at around two-thirds of the way up. Another stick is attached where they cross to make a "head", and the final one goes across to make the "arms".

It's so simple a five-year-old could do it. If you have kids, you might like to make a game out of it. Be forewarned that Social Services will take your children away from you for doing this and slap you in prison, but that's America for you.


Optional

Although authenticity is best if you want to please your horror fan, bear in mind that if they like "The Blair Witch Project" then they probably don't have a great deal of sense, taste or discernment to begin with.

Knowing this fact will allow you to customise your "Blair Witch Stick Figure" to your heart's content. No sticks? Use pens, pencils, straws, pretzels or those vile chocolate wafer sticks from Dollar Tree.

You could spray paint your figure, use twist ties to hold the sticks together, or since it's Christmas, cover the sticks with glitter and tinsel. If you want to get really ambitious, why not make lots of little ones to hang on your Christmas tree?

You could even assemble a giant "Blair Witch Stick Figure" and use it instead of a traditional Christmas tree! Just don't dump it out on your front lawn after Christmas is over unless you want your neighbours to think that you are some kind of Satanist. Mind you, if you are a Satanist, you probably wouldn't celebrate Christmas anyway or care what your neighbours think.