Halloween Wars - Week 1

We shot, dismembered, set aflame, tossed into a sausage grinder, fed to genetically engineered bear sharks, and rocketed it at the sun; yet like every horror franchise drilled into the ground and dug up for another go the monster of our worst nightmares is back and coming at us through the television set!

Don't go thinking they got a new opening title sequence. I just prefer this wipe screen.

Cue evil witch laughter, cat screeching and a hamster in a box of tissue paper. (foley is a dying art form)

That's right, you may have finally pierced the undying heart of cupcake wars, but you shall never be rid of me. I am in your dreams, torturing your mind with pointless puns.

 And because why change a dead horse midstream, she's back.

 I hate everything you did; you should have done it better and in less time. 

They must also keep her in the deep freeze, or she's clinging nails deep into the only cake competition food network can make time for in between every "great food truck court Robert Irvine pretends he never falsified his resume new restaurant" show. 

And our new fuel for the compost heap of tossed judges is a Ringmaster from a turn of the 19th century circus.

Considering the ratio of evil circus ringmasters to good, it's a wonder we haven't outlawed all circuses yet.

Finally, the judge everyone smiles politely at and prays doesn't say something so stupid even clever editing can't save. It's...not Jamie Lee Curtis from the Halloween movies.

Wait, that sounds oddly familiar, something I've heard mentioned before. Oh I'm sure it's nothing, says the next person killed in the horror movie.

But we're here for pumpkin carving and cake mutilating. Which means we should get to...the small challenge which awards the winning team with first read through an ancient book bound in human flesh Food Network found in an attic. (the first time it was read it unleashed Guy Fierri on the world)

And their first challenge is: devils!

Now we know how he managed to get and keep these jobs, he's Satan himself. Actually, that's really pathetic from the prince of Darkness. All those D&D nerds are worshiping you with their level 10 Bards and best you can come up with is a paltry third rate host of "long past their expiration date" cupcakes? Anyone got Ba'al's number?

So devils, with the chick from Halloween who isn't shilling poop yogurt...that sounds incredibly familiar. Last episode of first season familiar in fact.

To the cake and gourds and needless foodnetwork drama!

 

Dance for us minions, dance!

Our first team, team "I haven't thought up any names yet, give me a minute" gave us a pumpkin in a devil.

 The devil was trying to get to his cataract surgery but popped into a pumpkin on accident. Could you help a father of all lies out?

Apparently it was also supposed to be some kind of a light challenge, though it was glossed over in favor of everyone's favorite rash tossing out more puns about how "the devil's in the details." Ha ha ha, kill me now.

 Who had Papa Smurf mutates into Beelzebub for the third Smurf movie?

No one would admit it was black light lit. Instead it was some magical edible pixie stick coloring that allowed our poor blind devil to flare a haunting smurf blue.

Team "Dicks before Chicks" gave us Rosemary's Cabbage Patch Doll.

Actually, it's slightly less terrifying than a cabbage patch doll.

 Have you been feeding the baby radioactive isotopes again?

The next killing of time was this, a happy bear rolling around in the dirt outside a Las Vegas church.

 

The lantern was supposed to light up or something, but they never dimmed the lights on the set so you could see it do that. Naturally, the judges jumped all over the team who made it because it's all their fault they don't have Batman's "turning off the light switch" technology.

Our next team gave us:

It looks like a kid gorged on candy, the wrappers, a couple bananas and one of those shrunken apples then vomited it all up.

Every moment I live is pure agony. Please kill me!

Our last team (because you thought this was over didn't you! Ha! It never ends! We're all trapped in a mobius strip of Halloween Wars!) carved this little guy.

An adorable imp that wants to share his candy ghosts with you.

 Shh, my babies are sleeping. Okay, you can take a quick peak.

 

.......boo....

Having wasted the proper amount of time we'll pick a winner, uh, the devil in the pumpkin, whatever; now to get to why you're all here. Our main challenge. The big kahuna. It's an oversized tuna that's eating manhattan!

Gotcha! No it's actually zombies, because zombies are in no way as overplayed as bacon or grumpy felines or $5 cupcakes. And because food network likes to come up with the most asinine complications the zombies are all at prom. Never mind the fact this is fall and homecoming would make a lot more sense, prom! Put your zombies at prom!

Zombies at prom? Fine. What fucking ever.

I knew we were in for a dull episode because despite there being five teams with five pieces to show off (twice in a row thanks to the small challenge) they wasted a good half a minute on "meeting the interns!" They spent the last two seasons pretending the assistants were just background fodder or some kind of kindly kitchen ghost. Acknowledging them bodes of signs of doldrums to come.

At least Food Network wised up and stopped with the "stop everything, twist time" bullshit. Oh they still have a tasting element which means absolutely nothing as it plays no part in the final decision.  It's probably because the judges get hungry and aren't allowed near the crafts table. 

Three of the five teams decided to make eyeballs, so we got shot after shot of people filling eyeball molds. Thrilling! You'll never see this in your own kitchen!

And that's what pisses me off about these shows. They don't focus on any of the skill necessary to create these pieces, they jump cut across ten second images of people sawing, dicing, scraping or pulling but if someone say tears their fondant so it looks like a vagina is coming to eat them alive:

They will replay that shit 30 times, and again after the commercial cut just so you can really get in a good shot of portal vag.

Or if someone drops something. I see less instant replays on game winning touchdowns than I do when pieces of sugar shatter on unwaxed food network studio floors.

I am setting the entire studio on fire with my mind!

But on to the pieces, the part we're supposed to care about because the skill in making them is "who gives a shit."

From the people who gave us vomited shrunken apple came vomited shrunken pumpkin!

It was supposed to be a zombie prom queen who is eating the king's head in the punchbowl. Hey, don't look at me. That's what my notes say.

I have no idea why the zombie queen is missing both her arms and legs, seems like a very ineffective and un-terrifying zombie to me. Zombie slug?

 Or that the pumpkins look like they were airbrushed by a small child that snuck into the permanent marker drawer and went nuts.

 You'd think the judges would rip it to shreds, right? That they'd scream about how the shading was awful on the "king's head" to the point it looked more like something floating in the bowl of the "King's Head" but you'd be wrong. Oh so wrong.

 Unimpressed lady and Ringmaster gushed about how it was so wrong it was right.

 My only prevailing theory is either this was the first piece they saw and were heavily dosed on xanax, or there's some serious kickbacking going on. And not from zombie slug because she has no legs.


Team happy bear in dirt gave us Tammy Fae Bakker's prom day.

They both used the makeup gun, but her date added an extra -or.

 The bones are awesome, I love the texture detail. I'm not 100% what's up with all the broken glass. I guess her date was sealed inside a glass coffin, so Tammy Fae took Lenin to the prom?

It's a lucky thing their school is graveyard adjacent.

Team Devil in the Punkin, recreated Carry but with zombies.

 After the student body all transformed into zombies, the beleaguered faculty only had one option; burn the school down. It's written down in the school handbook. In the event of tornadoes all staff shall ushers students to the middle of the school. In the event of zombification, burn that fucker to the ground! Woo!

Now I am going to show you the coolest eyes I've ever seen in any cake competition since I've been wasting brain cells on this network.

How amazing is that zombie face? Really? The background was a bit meh, I'd have wanted a few more insane teachers running around with torches laughing their underpaid asses off, but this face is haunting. (ba-bum-bum)

Okay, two more pictures of the piece then I'll move on.

I live in Nebraska, this bit is important to help explain why I have no idea what the fuck this next team was thinking.


Apparently, when they heard zombie and prom the first thought to enter their heads was cornfield.

Ignoring the fact that this is prom and in theory May so the corn will be as high as a grasshopper's eye.

 

 Why did two pugs, upon growing a set of opposable thumbs and the ability to walk upright steal a car and drive instantly into a "corn field?"

I rarely show off the pictures some poor graphic artist has to make of the line drawings and vague motions the contestants on this show make. Mostly because I only have so much graphic space, not because this person doesn't so an awesome job. But I just wanted to prove that they seriously kept talking about a cornfield and not, say, a pair of zombies who drove through that torched zombie school after getting a bag of shucked corn from the grocery store.

See, corn field because when zombies are going to prom they can rip a tear into time and space so the corn is now in stalk form instead of tiny seed in the dirt. Zombies love that high fructose shit.

Team No Chicks gave us a man who suffers from stigmata that took the town's water hag to the prom because she was the only one to say yes.

Despite the stigmata, he has exquisite taste in corsages.

The official story was that the corsage gave his date super zombie powers so she began to fight crime as Zombella! Or something like that. Of course the judges despised the fact that they dared to be creative and think outside the box, and do anything different from established zombie canon.

They do know in reality the only zombie canon is voodoo pufferfish poison, right? Undead people eating other doesn't actually exist outside movies about Brazilian soccer players.

The winners were Tammy Fae & her date that's less pustular than Jim Bakker. They were so excited to continue on Halloween Wars they tried to kill each other in a murder/suicide pact.

Zombie cornfield team were sent packing (because zombie slug is greasing some palms despite being limbless).

Then Food Network proceeded to spend three minutes spoiling the rest of the competition showing images of all the coming pieces because that's way better than spending any time on the skill needed to create said pieces.

Until next week, when this hell once again graces the television screen I'll be back in this cornfield, hanging with my zombie hombies.