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Despite Popularity of the Flavor, Americans Buying Fewer Real Pumpkins Than Ever Before

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Written by John Squires

Guys. We have a Halloween problem on our hands. And we need to talk about it. So sit down.

Pumpkins. They’re perhaps THE main staple of every Halloween season – picked, gutted, and carved by millions of Americans across the country in the brisk and wonderful Fall months. Nothing quite says Halloween like carving yourself a jack-o’lantern… though our relationship with pumpkins has changed a bit in recent years.

You need only take a trip to your local grocery store – but please hold off on doing so until after you finish reading this post – to see that pumpkin-flavored EVERYTHING is the name of the game right now, as it has been for the last couple years. Our society’s obsession with consuming the artificial flavor of the season grows more and more with each passing year, and you’d be hard pressed to find a food product that DOESN’T have a pumpkin-flavored sibling – from Twinkies to coffee, yogurt to cat litter.

Okay, so cat litter isn’t a food product, per se, but pumpkin spice cat litter is totally a thing I saw at Target this past weekend. I swear. Look it up.

pumpkin spice food

According to Nielsen data released last week, we’ve got a full-blown pumpkin invasion on our hands at the moment, as the statistics note that “pumpkin products accounted for $361 million in sales in the last year alone, having grown 79% since 2011.” Furthermore, “37% of U.S. consumers purchased a pumpkin-flavored product” last year, a percentage that is likely to rise once this year’s season comes to a close and the numbers are available.

What consensus can we draw from this compelling data?

AMERICANS. FUCKING. LOVE. PUMPKINS.

But here’s the problem, Americans. Despite the MASSIVE fan base that pumpkin-flavored foods have acquired in the last several years, sales of ACTUAL PUMPKINS are going down as the sales of these FAKE PUMPKIN FLAVORINGS are going up, up, up. According to the very same Nielsen date cited up above, “sales of fresh pumpkins have been declining, with unit sale losses in 2011, 2013 and 2014 accounting for 8.6 million fewer pumpkins sold.”

EIGHT POINT SIX MILLION, FOLKS.

The dilemma, it seems, is that the more consumed we become with consuming the flavor we associate with pumpkins – which is actually more often the flavor of the various spices that go into such holiday treats – the less interested we become in actually, well, buying, eating, carving, and generally enjoying the company of those bright orange gourds we once held so near and dear. While we’re worshiping at the altar of the almighty Pumpkin Spice Latte, we’re neglecting the very spirit of Halloween itself.

Alright, so that last sentence was admittedly a tad dramatic on my part, but I was imagining a really sad-looking pumpkin when I wrote it, and I started to get really sad. Just look at this poor thing. Look at how upset he is that you love to drink and eat fake versions of his essence…

sss

What can we do about this troubling trend in the world of Halloween? For starters, I urge everyone reading this to pick and purchase a few pumpkins this year. I’m not saying you shouldn’t stuff your face with pumpkin spice Twinkies, nor am I suggesting you put down your festive mug filled with pumpkin coffee, but rather that you give as much love to the pumpkins themselves. Because if the numbers keep dwindling, I’m afraid that we just might phase real pumpkins out completely.

And Halloween without real pumpkins just isn’t Halloween.

So keep Halloween alive. Pick a motherfuckin’ pumpkin. And tell your friends, family members, and mortal enemies to do the same.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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