Halloween Resources for Fun and Research

Suggested by Kayla, Business, Economics & Entrepreneurship
Le Fanu's 1872 vampire tale is in many ways the overlooked older sister of Bram Stoker's more acclaimed Dracula. A thrilling gothic tale, Carmilla tells the story of a young woman lured by the charms of a female vampire.

Suggested by Anna, Archival Collections Management
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history....Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive.

Suggested by Courtney, External Engagement
Now a Netflix original movie, this deeply scary and intensely unnerving novel follows a couple in the midst of a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease. Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.

Suggested by Nora, NYU-TV
Neil Gaiman meets Joe Hill in this astonishingly original, terrifying, and darkly funny contemporary fantasy. Carolyn's not so different from the other human beings around her. She's sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for. After all, she was a normal American herself, once.; That was a long time ago, of course--before the time she calls "adoption day," when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father. Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead.

Suggested by Amenata, Avery Fisher Center, Bobst Library
After an almost fatal car crash, novelist Paul Sheldon finds himself being nursed by a deranged fan who holds him captive

Suggested by Jeannie, Resource Sharing and Delivery Services (RSDS)
In one volume: The Haunting of Hill House, The Lottery, and much more, including We Have Always Lived in the Castle. In this Library of America volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay "Biography of a Story," Jackson's acidly funny account of the public reception of "The Lottery," which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.

Suggested by Austin, Dean of the Libraries
Manhunt is an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and trans men on a grotesque journey of survival. Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate. Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe. After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics--all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Suggested by Rick, Knowledge Access & Resource Management Services
(KARMS)
Edgar Allan Poe remains the unsurpassed master of works of mystery and madness in this outstanding collection of Poe's prose and poetry are sixteen of his finest tales, including "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "William Wilson," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "Eleonora". Here too is a major selection of what Poe characterized as the passion of his life, his poems - "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," Ulalume," "Lenore," "The Bells," and more, plus his glorious prose poem "Silence - A Fable" and only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

Suggested by Biff, Preservation
Christmas?! What a load of Humbug. Mistletoe and Wine just don't do it for Scrooge; he's a workaholic miser with an attitude problem. If he doesn't change his ways, he'll end up with no friends and Tiny Tim won't last the year. Let's hope some spooky night-time visitors can put the jingle back in his bells..!

Suggested by Talya, Data Services
A former Wall Street quantitative analyst sounds an alarm on mathematical modeling, a pervasive new force in society that threatens to undermine democracy and widen inequality

Suggested by Belanchan
E. T. A. Hoffmann's classic tales of Gothic horror and fantasy are presented in a new translation accompanying the beguiling drawings of Natalie Frank . This lavishly illustrated volume contains five of Hoffmann's most influential tales: The Golden Pot, The Sandman, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, The Mystifying Child, and The Mines of Falun. In addition to offering fresh translations, Zipes introduces the project and sheds light on how Hoffmann's lifetime of personal traumas shaped his writing. A foreword by novelist Karen Russell delves into the influence the tales had on her own literary career and the ways in which she emulates Hoffmann today.

Suggested by Courtney, External Engagement, Bobst Library
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.

Suggested by Jeannie, Resource Sharing and Delivery Services (RSDS), Bobst Library
Residents of a small Pennsylvania town combat a slimy space invader.

Suggested by Talya, Data Services, Bobst Library
With unprecedented access, this gripping behind-the-scenes chronicle follows award winning director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald's remarkable encounters with whistle-blower Edward Snowden in a hotel room in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents that provide evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the NSA.

Suggested by Belanchan, Bobst Library
An obscure man with a vertical head of hair is living with his spaced-out girlfriend and their fetus-like child. By the end of the film, Henry is decapitated and processed into erasers in this bizarre horror film which closely approaches a nightmare.

Suggested by Rick, Knowledge Access & Resource Management Services
(KARMS), Bobst Library
The frightening and realistic tale of an innocent girl inhabited by a terrifying entity, her mother's frantic resolve to save her, and two priests, one doubt-ridden, the other a rock of faith, joined in battling ultimate evil.

Suggested by Austin, Dean of the Libraries
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter's family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry.

Suggested by Amenata, Avery Fisher Center, Bobst Library
At their lakeside vacation home, Ann, George and their son have unexpected visitors: two well-spoken, well-bred young men wearing polite smiles and preppy sportswear. The visitors want to play a game. "You bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9:00, and we bet that you'll be dead. OK?" As the terrorized family fights to survive, each plan is thwarted, each option closed, each hour closer to what could be the last.

Suggested by Lia, Reference Services
Veronica Lake casts a seductive spell as a charmingly vengeful sorceress in this supernatural screwball classic. Many centuries after cursing the male descendants of the Salem puritan who sent her to the stake, this blonde bombshell with a broomstick finds herself drawn to one of them--a prospective governor (Fredric March) about to marry a spoiled socialite (Susan Hayward). The most delightful of the films the innovative French director Rene Clair made in Hollywood, I Married a Witch is a comic confection bursting with playful special effects and sparkling witticisms.

Suggested by Amanda, Arts, Performance, & Humanistic Inquiry (APHI), Bobst Library
Adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, this psychological thiller tells the story of four people who come to the house to study its supernatural phenomena.

Suggested by Amanda, Research & Research Services (RRS), Dibner Library
After 300 years, three sister witches are resurrected in Salem Massachusetts on Halloween night, and it us up to two teenagers, a young girl, and an immortal cat to put an end to the witches reign of terror once and for all.

Suggested by s.o., NYU-TV, Bobst Library
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi's indescribable 1977 movie HOUSE (HAUSU)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of "Scooby-Doo" as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt's creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet.

Suggested by Symphony, Undergraduate and Instructional Services (UIS), Bobst Library
The wry, comic romantic tale follows the Owens sisters as they struggle to use their hereditary gift for practical magic to overcome the obstacles in discovering true love.

Suggested by Laurie, External Engagement, Bobst Library
A psychological thriller about two detectives on the trail of a serial killer who chooses his victims according to the seven deadly sins.

Suggested by Biff, Preservation, Bobst Library
A young boy and his parents spend the winter in a resort hotel which is possessed by ghosts of its evil past.

Suggested by Courtney, External Engagement, Bobst Library
In search for answers, a mother travels to the enigmatic town of Silent Hill when her daughter begins to suffer recurring nightmares related to the place. It doesn’t take long for her to discover its home to beings as equally haunting as the town itself.

Suggested by Laurie, External Engagement, Bobst Library
A New York magistrate orders Ichabod Crane to travel to the small town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate two murders. Crane is determined to apprehend the murderous Headless Horseman and prove him to be a flesh-and-blood mortal.

In Our Favorite Halloween Recipes, you'll find tasty treats that aren't tricky at all. Whip up ghostly goodies like Spider Pizza, Sloppy Goblins and Candy Corn Popcorn Balls and your next Halloween party is sure to be a howling success

Give your baking a wicked twist with eerily clever ideas for all manner of cakes, cookies, pastries, breads, desserts and even drinks to spook up your cooking repertoire and make Halloween an occasion to remember. Whether you're a curious witch, a Halloween fiend or you just want to add a creepy touch to your baking, Helena Garcia will give you all the inspiration you need. Try her mummified eclairs, some cinnamon buns that look shockingly like brains, a batch of cookie bats, or a scarily impressive haunted tree cake and before you know it, every day will seem like Halloween. Helena wowed the Great British Bake Off judges and audience with her surprisingly ghoulish interpretations of the baking challenges and now, with her amazingly inventive recipes, you too can become the ghostess with the mostest.

What can be as petrifying as it is appetizing? Your party food! Learn how to create a variety of party foods that are both repulsive and tasty. Create dishes like earwax on a stick, crispy mice, and a spooky shrunken heads brew. Making party treats has never been so much fun--or so gross!