No-carb "cider" and Halloween videos you haven't seen

In time for Halloween, here's a recipe for no-carb "cider" to sip while you watch scary (or mildly spooky) videos.

Photo from Pixabay.

Ingredients:

Hot water
Constant Comment tea
Doctor's Best magnesium powder in sweet peach flavor

Steep a bag of Constant Comment tea in hot water for a few minutes and remove the bag. Add one scoop of magnesium powder (sweet peach flavor). The combination tastes surprisingly like hot apple cider, but with zero carbs. Only have one, or at most two, cups at a time--too much magnesium at once will have you running to the bathroom. Constant Comment tea tastes good on its own if you've maxed out your magnesium dose for the day.

You can find both the tea and the magnesium powder at Vitacost.com. Kroger and other grocery stores carry Constant Comment tea, but I've never seen the magnesium powder at a grocery store.

With a hot cup of ersatz cider, enjoy a video in the spirit of the season.

The Amazing Mr. Blunden

Family friendly; mildly spooky.

From Amazon's description: Adapted from Antonia Barber's story 'The Ghosts'. Once upon two times, there were two sets of siblings. Jamie and Lucy Allen lived in 1918 and Sarah and George Latimer lived and died in 1818 - or did they? This is the haunting story of how 100 years is travelled by two children to save Sarah and George from their dreadful Uncle Bertie. A family film about the friendliest, saddest ghosts ever. Watch on Amazon or find on YouTube.

Moonlight TV show and pilot presentation

Rated TV-14; mostly dramatic; sometimes scary.

This show was voted best new drama when it aired, but the writer's strike killed it after only one season. From Moonlight.fandom.com: "The series is a paranormal romance that follows a private investigator, Mick St. John, whose bride, Coraline Duvall, turned him into a vampire on the couple's wedding night 55 years prior; he struggles in the present day with his love for a mortal woman, Beth Turner, and his dealings with other vampires in the city." Watch the series for free on Tubi, Sling and other streaming services--or watch the pilot presentation below.

A darker, grittier version of Moonlight set in New York City was filmed before the series. From the YouTube description: "In 2007, CBS commissioned a pilot "presentation" instead of a full-length 42-minute pilot for a new vampire drama named Twilight. The pilot script for Twilight--later changed to Moonlight to avoid confusion with that OTHER vampire series--was shortened to 25 minutes and filmed. CBS liked the presentation enough to order the series. However, in going from pilot to series, the show's setting was changed from New York to Los Angeles and the entire cast was replaced except for the series lead, Alex O'Loughlin. The pilot presentation never aired, but Warner Bros. did include it on a DVD set with all of their 2007-08 pilots that were ordered to series. The DVD set was sent to various media people for previewing. Here is a look back at a Moonlight that could have been..."

Part 1:

Part 2:

Doctor Sleep

Rated R; a worthy sequel to The Shining by Stephen King.

Although this was a box office flop because of bad timing, this is one of the most suspenseful movies I've seen in years. From IMDB: "Years after the traumatizing events at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance is now an alcoholic struggling to find a job. He moves to a small town in New Hampshire and becomes "Doctor Sleep". He then meets Abra Stone, a teenager with the brightest shine he's ever seen. When he learns that a cult of evil beings called The True Knot are chasing her with the intent to eat her shine, he does everything in his power to protect her...including returning to The Overlook." Watch on various streaming services for a small fee.

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