Welcome to Milwaukee Record’s 66 Days of Halloween countdown! You can find Part II, which covers Days 23-44, HERE. You can find Part III, which covers days 45-66, HERE.
DAY 11: T.J MAXX AND KOHL’S HALLOWEEN JUNK
We’re still a few weeks away from fall proper, but boy oh boy it already feels like fall. It’s cold! And thus a perfect time to stay indoors, in the cavernous halls of The Avenue (formerly the Shops of Grand Avenue), browsing some Halloween junk at T.J. Maxx and Kohl’s!
First up, T.J. Maxx. I once made a joke on Bluesky about how Milwaukee is home to the fanciest T.J. Maxx in the country. Most folks chuckled and agreed, but one person informed me that T.J. Maxx’s DEI policies weren’t quite what they should be. It was the most Bluesky reply in the history of Bluesky.
Anyway, here’s some nifty Halloween junk I spotted at T.J. Maxx. I’m kicking myself for not buying the Monster/Bride statue. At least my family and I walked away with some glow-in-the-dark napkins!
Kohl’s is on the opposite side of The Avenue, next to 3rd St. Market Hall, where Boston Store used to be. I love that when they transformed a chunk of the once-great shopping mall into a food hall, they were instantly like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we added some retail?” What a concept! You invented…a mall!
Anyway, here’s the Halloween junk, plus some busted/funny signage.
Oh, and we bought a rug! It webs the room together.
DAY 10: MILWAUKEE HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST FROM 2000
Don’t you just love a good old fashioned Halloween costume contest? How about one held outside on a busy city street? How about one held in the year 2000? Well…
Yep, here’s a 12-minute video of a deliriously of-its-time Halloween costume contest held on Milwaukee’s Water Street 25 years ago! Enjoy costumes of Darth Maul, Hans and Franz, Beetlejuice, members of the Blue Man Group, an imprisoned Mark Chmura, and more! And while nothing jumps out as wildly offensive as a prize-winning Aunt Jemima costume the following year, dressing up as Warren from There’s Something About Mary probably wouldn’t/shouldn’t fly today.
(Okay, the Chmura guy being accompanied by a woman dressed as a teenage girl is pretty tacky, too, but f**k Chmura.)
DAY 9: JAWS
Is Jaws a horror movie? I suppose it’s technically a thriller, but it certainly has elements of horror. The “Ben Gardner’s decapitated head” jump scare. The Hitchcock-esque dolly zoom on Brody. A couple of surprisingly bloody deaths. The fact that there’s a freaking shark prowling the waters, picking off unsuspecting teens, children, and grizzled captains alike.
But Jaws is also an adventure film, isn’t it? Think of those times when Brody, Hooper, and Quint are gunning it on The Orca, and John Williams goes full “high seas adventure” on the score. “Just read someone complaining that Jaws (Jaws!) is ‘flawed’ because it has action-adventure beats AND horror beats,” Ken Jennings recently wrote on Bluesky. “Got ’em, game over. No one has ever noticed that before.”
Anyway, I saw the 50th anniversary restoration of Jaws last night at the Oriental Theatre. Spoiler alert: it was great, and it still plays. It’s such a wonderfully constructed, wonderfully acted, and wonderfully watchable film. And yes, it has action-adventure beats AND horror beats. That’s not a flaw, of course—that’s what makes it great!
DAY 8: FALL COLORS
The handy Fall Foliage Prediction Map tells me the Milwaukee area won’t see “peak” fall colors until mid to late October. (It’s much earlier for northern Wisconsin, of course.) But that doesn’t mean some fall colors haven’t been popping up in early September! Here’s a tree I spotted yesterday. Get out there, Milwaukee! Enjoy the season while it lasts!
DAY 7: TRICK OR STREETS AT MPM
One of the more contentious issues in Milwaukee right now is the future of the Milwaukee Public Museum. The beloved and wonderfully mysterious/rambling/cavernous museum is currently in the early stages of moving to a new and modern home. The new museum—dubbed, um, er, the Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin or something?—is scheduled to open in early 2027. The old MPM will soon be a thing of the past.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STREETS OF OLD MILWAUKEE? There’ll be a “spiritual successor” to that exhibit—”Milwaukee Revealed”—but some folks are upset that the entire “Streets of Old Milwaukee” won’t simply be packed up and moved over to the new place. (There’s a lot of grumbling about what constitutes a priceless museum “artifact” and what constitutes a destined-for-the-dustbin “prop,” but we won’t get into that here. Ditto the dog-whistle charges that the new museum will be “woke” or whatever.) Despite the outrage, the fact remains that you have two Halloweens left in the old Streets, tops.
So enjoy the museum while it lasts! Here’s info on the 21+ Trick or Streets, coming to MPM on October 30! (Not to be confused with the annual museum-wide trick-or-treating for kids.) Sounds fun!
DAY 6: SPIRIT HALLOWEEN
Happy Labor Day, Milwaukee! It’s a day to honor our country’s labor movement and mark the unofficial end of summer. The extended spooky season is truly upon us! Thanks, unions!
So how did I spend my Labor Day? By rounding up my family and driving our sorry asses to the Spirit Halloween at Bayshore, that’s how. As expected, the place was packed, the giant animatronics were on full blast, and the employees were over it.
Good times, as always. One weird observation I made was that there wasn’t much Nightmare On Elm Street stuff in the store. Plenty of Jason, Pennywise, Leatherface, Elvira, and Roblox stuff, but only a few lowly Freddy mugs. Let’s reboot this franchise, New Line! (And not fuck it up like last time.)
Like I said, good times. I know Spirit Halloween is the Walmart of the pop-up Halloween world, but I always have a hoot when I visit one. And though I didn’t look that hard, my annual search for offensive Halloween costumes and/or accessories only turned up this “Pimp Cane.” Sigh. Progress, I suppose.
DAY 5: THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
I’ve found that if you want to do Halloween right, you have to break out the big guns FAST. And nothing says “Halloween big guns” like a 1985 made-for-TV movie starring Shari Belafonte, LeVar Burton, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s younger sister.
Okay, hear me out. I love this movie. On the surface, The Midnight Hour is a cheesy horror-comedy about photogenic ’80s teens who unwittingly unleash the undead on their small Hollywood studio backlot—er, small New England town. It’s a weird cast: Dick Van Patten plays a wacky dentist. Kevin McCarthy (R.J. Fletcher from UHF!) plays an evil judge. Cindy Morgan (Lacey Underall from Caddyshack!) plays a substitute teacher. One of the main teens is the son of Dom DeLuise. (The dad from That ’70s Show also pops up, natch.) But there’s a lot to legitimately love here: the soundtrack is shockingly top-shelf for a low-rent TV movie (“How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths plays over a key scene), the story of the resurrected ’50s cheerleader (Dedee Pfeiffer) is kind of heartbreaking, and LeVar Burton plays a total horndog. Plus, Wolfman Jack is the radio DJ! What’s not to love?
Oh, and here’s a bonus Bartz’s commercial! I always loved the super chill Yoda.
DAY 4: DEVIL ELVIS RECORD
I’ve had this gold-plated beauty proudly displayed in my various apartments since the mid-’00s. It’s by legendary Milwaukee show-poster artist Von Munz—he of WMSE and that 1999 “Mistreaters and White Stripes at Cactus Club” vinyl poster fame. I’m pretty sure I bought the Devil Elvis record at Luckystar Studio, back when I went to a lot of gallery openings even though I was completely broke and spending $25 on a repurposed record was a life-altering decision. I really, really don’t miss those days.
Anyway, the back of the record tells me that A.) Von Munz painted over an old Johnny Mathis album, and B.) my copy is 5 of 22. All hail Von Munz! All hail the King! All hail the King of Hell!
DAY 3: HEAT HORROR
One of the quirks of celebrating Halloween for 66 days is the fact that you’re doing some of your celebrating during summer. And summer—even late summer—can get hot. So what better time to talk about some HOT horror movies? You know, horror movies that involve heat. Or at least take place somewhere warm.
There are some obvious picks here: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer, the Friday The 13th series, maybe Midsommar. For the purposes of this entry, let’s talk about one my favorite under-the-radar HOT horror movies: A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
Okay, maybe “under-the-radar” is a stretch, because if you slouch around in horror circles like I do, this film gets talked about a lot. For decades it was the black sheep of the Nightmare series. It was the one that didn’t really fit, the one that didn’t really follow the “rules” laid out in the original and subsequent entries, and the one that featured a guy as the main character. Plus, Freddy kills a bunch of kids at a non-dream pool party. At one point, a parakeet explodes.
But then things changed. Nightmare 2 was increasingly celebrated as “the gay Nightmare,” a not-so-subtle parable of a teenage boy struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. The film’s sexual politics are kind of messy and of-their-time (it was released in 1985), and the story of the filmmakers’ motivations and the damage done to the lead actor’s career are enough to fill an entire documentary (2019’s Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street). Still, Nightmare 2 remains a fascinating standalone entry in a soon-to-be streamlined series.
Let’s get to the heat. There’s a heat wave happenin’ in this film, and it’s happenin’ in the Elm Street house. Jesse (Mark Patton) is constantly waking up drenched in sweat. Lamps and records in his room melt like candles. Jesse’s dad (Clu Gulager, lol) is forever wondering WHO’S MESSING AROUND WITH THE GOSH DARN AIR CONDITIONING. And yes, the family parakeet explodes. From the heat, you see. “Cheryl, it’s 97 degrees in here,” indeed.
The Nightmare franchise is hands-down my favorite horror franchise of all time. (I’m sure I’ll write about it again in the weeks ahead.) Parts 1 and 3 are my favorites (the less said about part 6 the better), though I find myself returning to part 2 the most. I don’t mind that Freddy somehow leaves the dream world and kills kids at a pool party. I don’t mind that he functions more like an invading parasite than a vengeful dream demon. I don’t mind that a parakeet explodes. Nightmare 2 is a weird, funky horror film with something to say, and its use of heat is wonderfully oppressive and suffocating. It’s a perfect Halloween movie for the dog days of summer. Just stay out of the pool.
DAY 2: CVS HALLOWEEN JUNK
If you’re looking for the true bellwether of the Halloween season, look no further than your neighborhood CVS. When they dust off the same “Spooky Village” junk they’ve been dusting off for six or seven years, you know things are serious. How long has my local CVS had their Halloween junk out? Probably since the Fourth of July, but today was the first day I spotted any of it, so I’m celebrating.
Other than the candy, CVS Halloween junk (most of it from the aforementioned Spooky Village line) tends to be underwhelming: spider web lights, pumpkin spice candles, animatronic devil dolls, maybe a Jack Skellington PEZ dispenser. I suppose someone is pumped to pick up a new ceramic pumpkin for $19.99 every year, but not this guy. Oh well: the fact that this annual junk is simply there is what makes it all so delightful. Let’s just try to ignore the fact that there’s already Thanksgiving crap out, too.
DAY 1: HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST
Nothing sets the Halloween mood better than Halloween music—and nothing irks me more than prefab playlists that claim to be filled with Halloween music but are in fact collections of overplayed pop songs that contain a single lyric about a wolf or something. That ain’t Halloween music! Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” is great, but it doesn’t have much of a Halloween mood, you know? Qu’est-ce que c’est?
So let’s cue up some proper Halloween mood music and leave the Ghostbusters theme song to whenever I get around to writing about Ghostbusters. Here’s my current Halloween playlist, in Apple Music form, filled with gloomy new wave ditties, mopey goth-lite jams, and a couple of oldies that were used in horror movies or TV shows. Only a few of them are about Halloween, but all of them feel like Halloween. I’ll add more songs as the countdown progresses, so feel free to make recommendations!
DAY 0: FOR REAL THIS TIME
My Halloween countdown is cursed.
I know what you’re thinking: Huh. Hasn’t Matt attempted a 66 Days of Halloween thing before? Like, twice before? And hasn’t he failed miserably each time? Yes, I first gave this countdown the old college try back in 2021, but I pulled the plug on Day 15. A series of traumatic personal events and accidents took the wind out of my spooky sails that year, and writing about goofy Halloween junk at CVS suddenly seemed unforgivably frivolous. (Shocking, I know.) Two years later, in 2023, I resurrected the countdown and made it all the way to Day 47. Website issues were to blame that time; it turned out that making one giant post filled with dozens upon dozens of photos and YouTube videos wasn’t the best idea for a buggy and aging website. I pulled the article and filed it away in a dusty digital drawer, never to be seen again.
UNTIL NOW.
Yeah, what the hell, I’m going to give this thing ONE MORE SHOT. Why? Because I love the Halloween season. You love the Halloween season. Everyone loves the Halloween season. And forcing myself to write about one Halloween-y thing every day for 66 days is a great way to savor every minute of the Halloween season. Hopefully it’ll inspire you to make the most of this wonderful time of year, too.
And so, like 2021 and 2023 (except, you know, for real this time), I’ll be updating this article with one (1) new entry on a Halloween or Halloween-adjacent thing from now through October 31. It could be a spooky movie/song/book recommendation. It could be me waxing philosophical about playing Castlevania or Night Trap on my Nintendo Switch. It could be about Milwaukee. It could not be about Milwaukee. It could be a 2,000-word essay or it could be a picture of a gourd. I’ll split the whole thing into three parts this time, with 22 entries each. I’ll rerun a handful of evergreen entries from past attempts, but the vast majority of the entries will be new and specific to 2025. Buckle up for photos of what could be the penultimate trick-or-treat at the Milwaukee Public Museum!
So here we go! Again! Check back often! Get in the mood! Attempt to stop the unrelenting march of time by celebrating a holiday for two whole months! Happy Halloween! So help me God/Satan/Mr. Moundshroud I’m going to do it this year…
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