That's why Tom Nardone's "Extreme Halloween" (Perigee) is such a winner. Once you've treated the neighborhood to guacamole from the mouth of a puking pumpkin, you'll scare the tricks out of any prankster.
"Smiling jack-o'-lanterns just aren't as interesting as those that are barfing their guts out, or at least barfing a dip that you can serve to company," Nardone says.
Nardone is an undeniable Picasso of pumpkin carving, and a man with a devilishly twisted imagination. "Extreme Halloween" features such masterworks as the Baby-Eating Yard Monster, which is a gourd creatively stuffed with doll parts and stage blood.
"You always have to be thinking, 'How do I take this to the next level?' And that's what I try to do," Nardone says.
The book includes step-by-step instructions for turning 16 small pumpkins and 62 carrots into a giant "Creepy Millipede" -- a perfect lawn ornament, if you're planning a ghoulish gala.
It also features the recipe for "Roasted Squash Skulls" and lessons on how to make cherry Jell-O ooze from your toilet and bathtub, as if Jeffery Dahmer were your plumber.
With delightfully macabre humor, Nardone has turned extreme pumpkin carving into a career, showing off his skills on "Good Morning America" (where he will turn a 300-pound gourd into Godzilla on Saturday) and more than a dozen other TV shows.
"Each year, I ask myself, 'What's next?'," he says. "The truth is, there's always something. This year, I'm very into guacamole-vomiting pumpkins."
As for next year, Nardone says, "I'll start thinking about that on Nov. 1st."
