Halloween Wars - Week 3

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the ocean beside the dreamy summertime camp..in space!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*deep breath*HHHHHHHHHHHHH*checks watch*HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*rolls hands*HHHhhhhhh...

Okay, that ran down the clock enough, let's get to it.

Well the reason you fell in the graveyard Igor is you forgot to light your lantern! Now go get me an abnormal brain, I'm trying to make stew here!

They spent five minutes covering how the game is played, how the game is scored, how cursed the souls of those forced to work on this show are. The usual.

And then they drug out the sacrificial moron, I mean guest judge. It's....This Guy! Round of applause for This Guy!

Apparently he's out of that apple movie with the piece of wood and the sparkly dead wizard. They're saying he's one of the wereworms. Three wolf moon? A stray set of CGI pixels that somehow became sentient?

Note the "horror actor" title. Now tell every Horror fan you know that Twilight is a horror movie and watch their face melt. Good times.

First it was an actress from a favorite torture porn series, then someone who "runs away from vampires a lot" off True Blood, and now I'm gonna guess that Fork out of Twilight. (Isn't there something about a fork?) Last year they could at least pull in R.L Stein, who sat there quietly and probably thought evil dark thoughts while giving people werther's, and Rob Zombie who, come on, it's Rob Freaking Zombie. He doesn't need to prove his horror chops.

Now it's actor number one, actor number two, actor number three. Each of which simply parrot back whatever the two forced to sit through the entire competition judges say. You'd have better luck with an old Yak Back set inside an evil Teddy Ruxpin.

The rate they're degenerating I expect the final weeks will be either Count Chocula, The Not So Little Vampire, or a set of fangs wedged inside an acorn squash.

But enough about the level of "talent" Food Network pulls in for these things, we have a competition to mercilessly mock.

Once again proving that if there's one thing FN is terrible at it's coming up with challenges, the host made a big show of walking up to a set piece and trying to knock it over. Then they handed out slightly disturbing micro doors to the remaining teams.

Make me the worlds tiniest Jehovah's Witness!

And what was the point of the tiny doors? Why they were told to make something scary on the other side.

I don't know about you, but I was always taught when you were afraid something was on the other side of the door you should first check to see if the knob is hot then look for smoke underneath. But then I lived in a constant fear that Smokey was going to see just how good you were at preventing forest fires.

This whole small challenge felt like Food Network had a cousin with a tiny door making company and wanted to get him some work. They're so tiny there's no way you can put anything of substance behind, in front of, on top of, or near without it just showing how asinine of a competition the entire thing is.

But the teams picked up their hunks of wood (not to be confused with the hunk of wood judge that probably just stuck a pen up his nose) and got to it.

FoodNetwork Alien Autopsy: Paula Deen Behind The Makeup

Team Hipster Ariel made a pumpkin who got a couple of jalapenos jammed into its eyes and in a fit of burning capsaicin rolled around in the basket of old rags while trying to lick the door.

It was also named Mandy.

  

Team Sausage Fest broke the cardinal rule of Halloween Wars and made something funny! Quell the horror!

There was something about a giant bucket of blood hanging out on a door trying to lure kids with candy on a string. I guess the bucket of blood failed to realize that as soon as said sugar starved child opened the door it would meet a most painful and gooey end.

Those Olmecs loved a good bucket on the door joke.

Team Last One To Go made the most adorable spider. SEE!!

 Why are you cowering? It's just a huge hairy spider (that's also part apple). It probably won't latch onto your face and dissolve away your eyeballs.

Seriously, this is how Snow White should have ended. Screw poisoned apples, if I was an evil queen with an all knowing mirror I'd whip up a swarm of these guys to take down Snow and her entire conclave of short men who enjoy tall prostitutes.

The spider already had one victim slowly digesting on the door. She wasn't really looking for fresh food, just heading out to the mailbox to see if her Netflix came in.

 Why am I naked and sticky? Did I miss something fun?

Just for you arachnaphobes, one more shot of apple spider!

Someone's never going apple picking again, hee hee hee.

Team Apple Spider won the small and utterly mind cracking small challenge that ranks as the second stupidest just after Day of the Dead from last year. For that they got to each punch the host in the solar plexus, oh sorry, that's just my dream.

Having gotten the time waster out of the way now they could all finally get to work on the big kahuna.

This weeks challenge was, and I quote "Science Gone Wrong."

Oddly not a single team thought, oh let's do the House Science Committee featuring a raving Todd "women can shut that whole thing down" Akin. It was probably too terrifying.

Instead off they all ran and proceeded to disembowel helpless squash while their seeds watched.

There was refreshingly no Drama™ this week. No one sawed an arm off in a freezer, no duels were issued, no one had their entire skeleton ripped from their body in the middle of a pie fight. The best they had was the possible threat of some armature falling despite two people holding it until more screws were applied.

I swear I could hear the producers teeth grinding away behind the camera "Call someone a bitch, slip on a patch, send someone to the hospital! Something! We're trying to make art here!"

But on marched the teams and out came three large pieces of science gone Republican.

Team Hipster Ariel gave us Vincent Price slipping in the runoff from Audrey II's nasty cold.

 Or as they put it, a mad food scientist (I'm married to one, trust me, they're all mad) accidentally (or on purpose, again mad food scientist) brought candy to life.

 Or infused it with the essence of a fucking pissed Slimer. Tomato, toh-ma-toh.

 Feed me, Wonka. Feed me!

 He has a candy bow tie, because bow ties are cool.

You can bet your pipette tips that EHS is gonna be fucking pissed about this. That glassware isn't properly labeled!

Team Eye Bucket made the Terminator getting a tune up before he had to kill the second cousin twice removed to Sarah Connor.

 

 This is the last time I buy my new body from Ikea. Where's that fucking allen wrench?

 As every good scientist knows, the first rule of science is if you can't perform your experiments on yourself, you're just not trying.

 Shit, I wanted the Anatomy of Shark. Anyone know if you can return a partially used liver?

 My null hypothesis is that I'm fucking awesome!

The gears in the chest moved and turned and did lots of frankly terrifying stuff sugar probably shouldn't do. (I may have watched too many of the old sugar competitions when they used to force contestants to juggle their piece while riding a unicycle).

I cannot; however, explain the pretty ribbons curling out of his chest. Maybe he just wandered back from the office Christmas party before getting back to work building a Steampunk gall bladder.

Team Spider Apple made Jeff Goldblum hanging out in a Subway bathroom:

 Or apparently a fly hatching? out of a monkey? or turning into a half fly/ half monkey/ half paleontologist?

 Looks like he crushed a few Teenage Mutant turtles when he blew the hatch as well.

 This team loves terrorizing picnic lovers. Last week it was Vampire Bear, this week giant bathroom fly.

 I see scary fly breaking free of a pumpkin chamber (sometimes when stuffs on back order for the fifth time from Fisher you make due with what's available) but I just don't see the monkey part. Maybe he got mostly the monkey's internal organs, a prehensile tail and the ability to fling poop for miles.

Poor Mutant Monkey Fly just wants a hug and maybe a few humans to drink dry before a nap.

The judges hemmed, hawed, and kept Twilight boy from chewing on the set lights before deciding that Team Apple Spider Fly Monkey were the winners.

 "Shiiiiitt, we have to come back?"

And Team Hipster Ariel they decided were too funny (again breaking the cardinal of Halloween Wars) and were sent packing.

This week was a pretty good example of why the Theme challenge makes Halloween Wars just so damn boring at times. I haven't mentioned their "twist" this year because they wised up a bit and instead of interrupting everyone half way through they just tell them up front to make me this candy for absolutely no good reason except the judges are getting hungry.

Every single team put pop rocks into their candy (though they called it carbonated bounce cut cheek candy instead to avoid the trademark and to sound more Japanese).

And with each big piece you see a mad scientist doing something unholy to either himself, an old gumdrop he found at the bottom of his wife's purse, or the denizen mutants of New York's sewer system.

No one did true mad science, like say a grad student finding their primers are too GC heavy and proceeding to throw the thermocycler out the window.

Or a cell culture sample that became contaminated forcing the professor to coat every surface in the lab in such a thick film of bleach that no one is certain if they're alive, dead, or in Oz. 

Or a visit by EHS. You know, the really scary shit for scientists.

Would it really kill them for the final challenge to just say, you have eight hours, forget the damn stupid small challenge, just make us the scariest thing you can think of...shut up Count Chocula!

Actually it probably would, but then again undead FoodNetwork producers would make for a pretty good piece.