A Halloween Themed Family Movie Night

Our family enjoyed a Halloween themed movie night at home watching the Tim Burton flick FRANKENWEENIE.  This stop-motion-animated film that was theatrically released in 2012 is a parody of Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein and the 1931 horror movie based upon the book.  The plot of the movie involves a boy named Victor who after his beloved dog Sparky dies uses the power of electricity to resurrect the pup.  When his classmates learn about what he has done they blackmail him into reanimating their deceased pets too with results which end up creating mayhem throughout the town.  Frankenweenie was filmed in black and white to give a classic horror picture vibe to it.  The film, which is rated PG for its thematic elements involving death and scary images, has an 87% Fresh Approval Rating with Rotten Tomatoes. 

We started off our Halloween themed day by enjoying a free trick-or-treat event hosted by some of the businesses in a downtown area near our house.  When our kids arrive home from that event we had some fun activities for them to do to keep them entertained until it was time for us to put on the blu-ray.  First off we has some fun blasting ghosts with a fun toy by Fotorama that you can pick up from Walmart called The Visions of Johnny the Skull.  This is a really fun and affordable electronic game that will be a hit with kids and kids-at-heart which is perfect for Halloween.

The premise of the game is that the skull spins around randomly projecting images of ghosts throughout the room.  You need to be a ghostbuster and zap those pesky ghosts with your ray gun.  Each time your ray gun hits its target it tallies your score and the score board is remarkably accurate.  Each player takes a turn and whoever eliminates the most ghosts is the winner!

 

The Visions of Johnny the Skull worked without a hitch!  We just threw in some batteries in the skull (4 AA) and in the ray gun (3 AAA) and it was ready to go!  The game features some spooky sound-effects to enhance the experience but the highlight is that the skull does a great job of spinning around and illuminating the ghosts on the ceiling and walls around the room in a manner that the player has to be whirling around the room as well to catch his or her targets.  The game has 3 skill levels with each one increasing the randomization of where the ghosts land and how fast they appear and disappear.  I was really impressed at how well the skull projected the images and made the game challenging for players.  Plus the way the ray gun was able to synchronize with the images projected on the walls and accurately tally "hits" was very impressive.  My kids really had a blast playing this game! I'd really encourage you to check out this Fotorama Johnny the Skull game especially if you are going to be hosting any Halloween extravaganzas with a bunch of your children's friends at your place.

My kids also had some fun playing with some Halloween themed Wooly Willy magnetic drawing boards from Patch Products.  My daughter had a Wacky Witch to match her costume and my son played around with a Cool Ghoul.  At $1.50 these are great to pick up just for your own kids or to use for party favors, classroom handouts or instead of candy for trick or treaters.  Since we have to be on guard around candy and other edible treats because of our kids' food allergies we always appreciate fun items that can be given out in lieu of sweets.  These Wooly Willy magnetic drawing activities really captured my kids imagination and attention throughout the night.

The kids  did one more activity before they changed out of their costumes and we put the movie into the dvd player.  My wife had picked up some Paint Your Own Sun Catchers for a $1 each and the kids showed off their artistic side.  Art class is my son's favorite part of school so he really liked us incorporating this craft into our Halloween themed Family Movie Night.

 

So you can't have a Family Movie Night without snacks!  Instead of popcorn we went with a more Halloween inspired treat: Cheetos skeletons!!!

Plus we made up some of A Geek Daddy's famous Jack-O-Lantern Jigglers.  Click here for more information about this treat from A Geek Daddy's Spooky Snack Lab. Cheers!!!

Finally it was movie time!!!  We'd had a fun day of Halloween activities and snacks, maybe a few too many things were going on because I found both my kids snuggled next to me on the couch fast asleep about half way through the movie.  So up to bed they went with visions of pumpkins, ghosts and witches dancing in their heads.  No nightmares that evening though just them waking me up very early in the morning to ask dad where he had hidden their trick-or-treat candy.

Happy Halloween everyone!!!  If you are considering your own Family Movie Night watching Frankenweenie enjoy these downloadable activity sheets and character masks you can print out:


**Disclaimer: Some of the featured products in this post were provided to A Geek Daddy for free for the blog to review.  Opinions are my own **