Haunted Book Review Thursday

Halloween Propmaker's Handbook



Kenneth Pitek, author.

When I first heard about this book, it wasn't even in print yet, I had to wait for it for awhile before Amazon finally got it. As you can see, the cover is cool, and with about 250 pages, it's pretty thick. The book is very well illustrated with black and white photographs and he goes into detail in concise and clear terms that even the novice can fully understand.
I do feel that the majority of projects involve skulls, though, which there is nothing wrong with that (heck, I collect them) but I felt somewhat lacking. I will say that there are some very good ideas in there that I haven't come across anywhere else, like the skull flowers (used Tiny Tim skull from Anatomical Chart Company), the flatware and candy bowl (made one, came out great!). There's a mish mash of other projects from homemade vomit, to half eaten hands, to a primer on blacklight usage and fluorescent items. There's also some great techniques and explanations on lighting, two way mirrors and paper mache.

Overall, it's a very good informative book on Hallowe'en prop construction, although for some reason, I feel that it could have been a little more rounded, meaning a more diverse choice of props. Is it a good book for the novice propmaker? Definitely. What about the regular home haunter? Oh yeah. What about the people who have been doing this for awhile? Wellllllllllllll, it probably wouldn't hurt to have this book, there's at least a couple of things in there that could spur on some good ideas.

My personal opinion: You can get some good ideas and use out of it with a little effort.