[narrator] Halloween Wars is back.
It's bigger and better than ever.
For the first time ever,
eight returning champions
will lead teams of America's best cake,
sugar, and pumpkin artists in the world.
I won Season 12 of Halloween Wars.
Season 13 of...
Halloween Wars season 4.
-Season 6. -Season 13.
-Eleven. -Nine.
Season 4 champion.
[narrator] And we're on the hunt for even more talented artists
to round out their teams.
I'm looking for someone that can work fast.
I'm looking for a drive and a passion.
Teammates who can work well under pressure.
[woman] I just really want to win this,
and have teammates that are in it to win it.
[narrator] So join us
as we find their perfectly ghoulish teammates
for this year's Halloween Wars.
We begin in sunny California
with a pumpkin carver
whose day job is a pastor.
Halloween Wars, what are you doing
creeping out there? Come on in.
I'm Nolan Lee. I'm from San Diego, California,
and I am a pumpkin carver and a pastor.
Boo!
I've been in ministry most of my life.
I'm a pastor at a local church here in San Diego,
and I love my job. I get to
go from praying with somebody at the hospital
to painting a mural at the church.
I never went to art school.
I am all self-taught.
I'm always on the hunt to learn more about art.
I have been carving pumpkins for about 12 years on and off.
So this is my pumpkin patch.
I took out one of my carvings.
I left it out in our backyard,
and all of a sudden I had, like, this big crop
in the spring,
like 45 pumpkins.
And then I started wanting to carve 'em
'cause it's, like, this free supply.
So I bought all the wrong tools.
I tried all the wrong things,
but I just couldn't stop.
I love facial expressions in general in all of my art.
The ones that fit for Halloween are
all these crazy faces.
You know, this is, like,
the brow ridge to the nose
to starting to lay in the mouth, and also,
since this goblin's gonna be kind of scowling,
like, some of his jowls.
One of my last steps is to go through
and really kind of, like,
scratch out and sand down.
Kind of makes it more smooth.
So I've been married for coming on 15 years.
We got married on November 1st,
so our rehearsal dinner was on Halloween,
and everybody dressed up in my family as my worst fears,
so that was fun.
I love Halloween because, ultimately,
it's a holiday that's all about imagination.
In fact, even if you look at, like,
some of the origins of horror art,
it actually comes from artists within the church.
Horror movies are my favorite movies.
Horror movies reveal
what society's afraid of
and hit at our core phobias.
And that's such a fun thing to explore.
You have to pick me for Halloween Wars
because it's, like, my dream.
I am so ready.
[laughing] It couldn't come soon enough.
In fact, I'm gonna dream about it tonight.
[narrator] Next, we're off to meet a self-taught cake artist
who's ready to defy expectations yet again.
My name is Romel Toney from Cleveland, Ohio.
So I didn't go to pastry school.
I started baking cakes when I was 14,
and I was working at an ice cream shop.
Coming from a family in a neighborhood
where there wasn't really many opportunities,
everyone around me told me that I couldn't be an artist.
It was Food Network that kept me inspired.
I've done a four-foot dinosaur
eating a cake, standing on one leg.
I've done cakes that were eight tiers tall
that I needed a ladder to stand on.
And I love doing things that
people don't think is cake.
I get a lot of inspiration from
my spirit guides and ancestors.
We have here today
an ancient warrior spirit.
The cake itself is the skull.
It's covered in a modeling chocolate.
The feathers are made out of rice paper.
My connection to my spirit guides,
um, is definitely like an audible voice in my ear.
So even if it's a cake that I've never done before,
they're kind of like whispering to me, like,
"You know what? Do it this way or do this technique."
You guys should pick me
because I'm, like, the real deal.
I love communication
and channeling with spirits.
All things dark and spooky.
I can make all of that stuff,
bring fear, and do it with a smile on my face.
Halloween Wars, now you know what to do.
Pick me. Or else.
[narrator] Now let's head to Wyoming to meet a small-town cake artist
who says that she's ready for the big time.
What up, witches? I'm excited for Halloween Wars
to visit my magical cottage. Come on in.
I'm Shannon Mayes. I'm in Lovell, Wyoming,
and I'm a cake artist
and the owner of SweetArt Cake Company.
If you're a painter, you paint.
If you're a sculptor, you sculpt.
But with cake design, I'm able to do all of that.
I can do the cakes that are really
straight lines and perfect edges and all that,
but I just, I don't enjoy that.
I feel like my style is more haphazard,
irregular in color, irregular in shape.
I'm also a balloon artist.
I just kind of do it on the side for fun.
[chuckles]
So I'm only 4'11".
I'm pretty much always the shortest person. I pack a big punch.
Even though I literally need
a pillow booster right now on this chair.
This is the Wicked Witch of Wyoming.
To finish off her cauldron,
we're gonna take this mixture
of melted chocolate
and we're just gonna smear it on.
And this is gonna make it look like
spilled witch gruel
has bubbled and boiled out of the pot.
I feel like the more textures
you can create and put on a cake,
the more real it's gonna look, the better it's gonna look.
So I married my high school sweetheart.
We're going on 17 years now.
We have two kids.
My family's always really loved Halloween.
We do it up super big every year.
We have a big, huge night display.
We make our own props.
We get all dressed up
and we get over 700 trick-or-treaters
at our house every year. So it's a blast.
It would be really validating to
know that I can compete with the best.
Halloween Wars, you definitely need me on the show.
Nobody's gonna see me coming.
[cackles]
My kids are so excited for me
having the opportunity to be on Halloween Wars.
We live in such a small area
that it's gonna be the biggest thing
anyone around here has ever done. For sure.
[narrator] Coming up,
we continue searching for the best artists
to build on our all-star captains' dream teams.
And we'll find out who makes the cut
and who's dead on arrival.
[narrator] Welcome back to the road to Halloween Wars.
Before we continue our search for the best
cake, sugar, and pumpkin artists in the country,
let's meet one of our returning all-star champions.
[Al] My name's Al DiBartolo.
I am from South Jersey and I'm the cake artist.
I was on season 6
and I won by creating a demonic wedding.
I was actually almost born in a bakery.
Our bakery was in South Jersey, and our first house
was actually the little apartment above it.
So I grew up around cakes.
My style is perfect for Halloween Wars
because you want to capture
the fear and the spooky fun of Halloween.
It means a lot to me to be back,
one, as a super fan,
and second, I want to prove that I still can do it.
[narrator] Now let's meet a cake artist who specializes in fear
with a little New York flair.
I'm gonna win the show.
And then you can show this little video clip
on the finale where I said,
"Show this video clip when I win the show."
I'm Don Donneruno,
AKA the Cake Don from Long Island, New York.
You're here in my custom cake shop
in Huntington, Long Island.
I've been doing it now 11 years,
and I hope to be doing it for 111 more years.
Every year we get to raise the bar a little bit
at Halloween with the cakes that we do.
And here on Long Island,
people like to throw outrageous parties.
Luckily for us,
they come here for the cakes.
We're doing the most ambitious, creepy,
out of control Halloween cakes.
We had to do
a zombie arm
holding his own decapitated head.
This is my shop.
I'm gonna be working on this pumpkin cake today.
We're gonna finish it up.
I'm using fondant for the vines
coming out of his neck
like he came out of the cornfield.
90% of what we work with here at the shop
is fondant, modeling chocolate.
It lends itself to sculpting.
Right into the head so it looks like it's coming directly out.
I'm an artist, graffiti kid from New York City.
I made my first cake
when I was 42 years old. You know, just a chance phone call from a friend
asking me to help with this cake
knowing my artistic ability.
We made the cake.
I took a picture of it.
My friend wrote, "You're the Cake Don."
I like my stuff to have a look,
like a cutting edge, pop art, street art look.
That old school, '80s,
early '90s, horror movie vibe.
You know, my work never was
sunshiny rainbow unicorn-looking stuff.
It was always dark, sinister,
very aggressive artwork.
So you want it to look like it actually, you know,
these teeth poke through something
on his way to you.
Hopefully after you watch me do this cake,
you've decided
this is something you want to have on the show, man,
because this cake is looking sinister.
All right, Halloween Wars.
I'm looking forward to see everybody.
But for now, I got a train to make.
[narrator] Next, we're trading in concrete for cactuses
to meet a pumpkin carver
whose obsession with Halloween
started when he was just one day old.
I'm Brett Laub. I'm from Mesa, Arizona.
I'm a graphic designer and I'm also a pumpkin carver.
Being a graphic designer,
I get to be creative every day.
I get to design logos.
If I had to have a job where I sat around all day
and just did the same task over and over again,
I would go nuts.
My birthday is October 30th.
So I was one day old for my first Halloween.
Always growing up, October was my month.
It was just the best.
I got presents one day
and a bunch of candy the next day.
Every year, instead of me having a birthday party,
we do a big, huge carving event at our house.
When we started doing it, it was five or six people.
Now, sometimes we'll get 50 or 60 people.
I tend to have a little bit more of a cartoony aspect
to my pumpkins. I'm not really into
the blood and the gore
and the really scary side of Halloween.
So I got really into pumpkin carving
about 12 years ago.
I started going to school and I had an art class
where my teacher
had us build a bust out of clay.
And it came so naturally to me.
It was super easy.
So I pulled out a bunch of old clay ribbon tools I had,
and the next Halloween,
I started hacking away at pumpkins.
And almost immediately, I was hooked.
I loved doing it. It was so much fun.
I'll block in the eyes, nose, and the mouth
so I get to the basic structure.
So these are called ribbon tools.
A lot of them are basic clay sculpting tools
where you actually file down one side.
And so it's raked out.
And so you can kind of see some of these lines.
It gives it more of a raked look.
And the reason for that is it gives so much more control.
Sometimes you'll catch an edge on the solid side
and you'll go in too deep,
and you'll just hack at it too much.
So the raked edge works really well.
Halloween for me is,
it's the best time of year.
I get to be a kid again.
I get to dress up in goofy stuff.
I get to run around with my kids.
I get to steal their candy
when we're out trick-or-treating.
And of course, the carving.
The carving, it gets me so excited.
Next, we got to figure out Halloween costumes, right?
[laughs]
I think the thing that sets me apart from my competition
is not only my carving skills,
but my background in graphic design.
Just knowing how to bring
a bunch of different elements together
and make 'em share a message
without having to use the words.
Just gonna try and hit it head on and see what I can do.
If I don't make it on Halloween Wars this year,
this is what my face is gonna look like.
Just remember, I'm gonna haunt your thoughts
until you choose me.
[narrator] Our next cake artist
is ready to show Halloween Wars
a little something extra.
I'm Cristina.
I'm from Glen Rock, New Jersey.
And I'm the owner of Petal Dust Cakery.
I would describe myself in one word,
and that's just extra.
Extra loud at times,
extra creative,
extra clumsy, extra everything.
I am calm, cool, collected.
The ceiling can fall apart and a cake can fall over,
I'll be like, "Give me 10 minutes,
I'll put it all together, and it's fine.
Just stay out of my way."
I went to culinary school,
and from there, a lot of doors opened
where I could work internationally,
five-star hotels with amazing pastry chefs
and really hone and grow my skills.
We don't believe the cake is complete
until it's glittered up,
glitzy, gold leaf, gold splatter,
just something to catch the eye
to bring it to that extraness.
Sometimes macaroons come out funky,
but this one came out evil.
We have an evil macaroon monster that's
eating all the other little macarons.
So I decided to make this monster macaroon
that went bad in the oven, turned evil,
got possessed, and started eating
all the other macarons.
I decided to give it crazy eyelashes,
glitter, make it hot flaming pink.
You could be scary and still be fabulous.
Pink and glitzy as it is, but still brings
that gooey gore that people love in Halloween.
I'm going in first,
and I'm dusting on some plaque to my teeth
because, I mean, this monster
has to be gross. It's Halloween.
So mixing mediums,
hand painting, airbrushing,
using dry dust and kind of packing it on
to get some texture.
Whenever I'm sculpting, I love using a mixture between
modeling chocolate and fondant
because it gives me a lot of play
to really build off and mold and sculpt.
You know, every other day of the year,
I'm a sparkly pink pretty unicorn princess,
but on Halloween, I can really show my dark and twisty side.
Do not let all the blush facade fool you.
I'm a dark and twisty lady,
and people are not gonna expect me
to get down and gory, and I will.
I can promise you you're not gonna find anybody
that's gonna bring it as hard as me in that kitchen.
You have to pick me for Halloween Wars
because I'm a wild card.
You don't know what you're gonna get,
and it's gonna be spooky.
I promise I'll be the most terrifying thing in that kitchen.
Stay out of my way. Stay out of my lane.
This competition is mine.
[narrator] Now let's meet another all-star captain.
[Briea] My name is Briea Lowe,
and I was on season 4
as champion sugar artist.
We won with a clown and a teenager
on a ride of his life on a roller coaster.
So it's been ten years
since season 4,
and I've been studying.
I've come from a Michelin Star restaurant group.
I have opened up two cruise line candy shops.
I have opened up a bakery.
I opened up a chocolate shop.
I also helped to open a pastry shop.
I'll achieve anything I put my mind to,
and I have a lot of skills to showcase.
You all better be scared.
[narrator] This season on Halloween Wars,
all of our teams will be led by a returning champion.
So let's meet another one of our captains.
[Kristina] Hi, I'm Kristina Patenaude.
I live in Temple, Texas,
and I'm a professional pumpkin carver.
I competed on season 13,
and our team won by
creating this terrifying witch scene.
I think, in general,
my style would be described as hyper-realistic.
My mom always said that I was born with a crayon in my hand.
I've kind of been really creative and artistic
since I was too young to talk.
And I love the idea of working with unconventional materials.
What's more unconventional
as an art medium than pumpkins?
Because I do something like pumpkin carving,
which is very family-oriented,
it's nice to be able to take that type of work
and do it together as a family.
My husband and I are high school sweethearts.
We have two amazing children,
and they enjoy it so much.
[narrator] Now let's see if our next contender
has what it takes
to land on one of our all-star teams.
Hi, my name is Tamarra Bryant.
I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
and I am a cake artist.
Whatever you can think of, I can probably do it.
I can do a simple, basic buttercream cake,
or I can give you a sculpture of a dog head.
That's what draws a lot of people to my work.
I've been a professional cake artist
for about six and a half years now.
I was working at a grocery store
in the meat department.
The cake decorator had called in that day,
and my manager just came up and he's like,
"Hey, do you know how to decorate cakes?"
I didn't, but once I was in
the cake decorating department and working on cakes,
it kind of brought out a new, like,
spark in artistry for me.
After just a few months of working there
and picking up on some skills,
I just thought, like, "Hey, I can do this for myself."
Today I'm preparing a giant zombie cake
that is coming from the dead.
His body is sculpted out of modeling chocolate,
and his back portion is cake.
This is really fun to make.
I met my husband.
He was actually a client of mine.
I was doing birthday cakes for his son,
and he just became a consistent customer.
And from there, the rest is history.
Yeah, I definitely would have never thought
that cakes would have brought me a husband. [laughs]
There is nothing quiet about my house at all.
I am a mother of five,
and my youngest son was actually born on Halloween.
Add some more color to his eye
just to make it look bloodshot.
Halloween Wars, you need to pick me
because I can get the job done.
I strive myself on trying to be, like,
a very fast cake artist
or getting cakes done
in the least amount of time possible.
Everything I do, whatever I put out there,
if it has my name on it, I just want it to be top tier.
[narrator] Now we're heading to Michigan
to see if this next sugar artist
has the goods for Halloween Wars.
My name is Jonathan Elias.
I'm the pastry guru from Detroit, Michigan.
You need me to blow sugar, cast sugar, pull sugar,
I'm there. I'll do it all.
In Metro Detroit, people come to me
because I'm the talk of the town.
So when people see my work, it's like,
"Oh, who did that? Who did that? Who did that?"
Everyone wants to know.
Cakes that are seven, eight-foot tall,
dropping from the ceiling, hanging upside down,
lighting up.
I was a pastry chef for many, many years.
During that period, I was doing cakes on the side.
Needless to say,
I got swallowed into that
deep, dark hole, and I haven't been able to get out.
Don't mind my entourage for the day.
We're gonna cook this up to 340 degrees,
and I'll be ready to blow my sugar.
I guess what I like about sugar
is you never know what you're gonna get.
It's kind of a lost art.
It gives you a different element.
With fondant and gum paste,
you can't get a nice, shiny look.
You can't blow a perfect bubble.
It's very, very difficult because it's all about
your temperature and how you work with it.
And if you can handle the heat.
And Halloween Wars, let me tell you,
I can handle the heat. Ask these guys.
Halloween is my absolute favorite.
I dress up in all types of crazy costumes.
I walk on stilts.
I do full-on body prosthetics, full face.
And more importantly, I just like scaring people.
I think it's hilarious.
We're trying to cool it down a little bit.
And we are going to blow
a black widow's spider egg.
Okay.
Ta-da.
Halloween Wars is
probably the toughest competition of them all.
So to win this one would mean the world.
If I go to Halloween Wars,
I am expecting to really, really push
the boundaries
and do sugar in a way that's not been done.
[narrator] For the next stop on our terrifying journey,
we're going to visit a pumpkin carver
who's hungry for redemption.
[dog whimpering]
[heart thumping]
[witch cackling]
My name is Eric Jones.
I'm from West Clarksville, New York.
I am a professional pumpkin carver, one of the best.
I'm basically the world's biggest nine-year-old.
I'm always sculpting something.
When pumpkin season ends,
then I start carving snow.
And then when the snow melts, I carve sand.
That's what I do for a living.
I'm considered one of the nation's
top pumpkin carvers.
I have a tattoo of a pumpkin right here on my forearm.
It morphs into the championship belt, of course.
I'm also the runner-up pumpkin carver
in season 10 Halloween Wars.
When you lose in Halloween Wars,
your family reminds you of it.
Last Halloween, my daughter was watching
a rerun of me on Halloween Wars.
And she said, "Hey, Dad, do you want to see yourself lose again?
I have a lot more confidence now.
I'm about three times a better carver than I was then.
This is my redemption tour.
Halloween Wars showcases the talent of pumpkin carvers.
Nobody else does that.
I'm not gonna be satisfied with anything
except a victory.
I'm married with three kids.
All my kids are grown, college age.
This is my son, the big army boy.
[both laugh]
Ouch, you hurt me.
We're all very competitive in my family.
We compete with each other constantly.
This arm is insured.
-It's worth a lot of money. -Oh, yeah?
Don't hurt me, okay?
Come on, buddy.
To the point where my kids won't sit down
and carve pumpkins with me
in the fall because I'm too good at it.
Oh, yeah, baby.
You see that? Right there.
[both laugh]
Let's go in here, start carving a pumpkin.
First step when carving a pumpkin, uh,
in a 3D form like this
is to get the skin removed
in the area you're gonna carve.
You don't want to go too deep. You want to...
Just beneath that dark orange skin
is the best spot to carve.
This is a rake tool.
It's got little teeth on it.
And you can come in here
and just gently rake the pumpkin
and it smooths out the area, rounds it off really nicely.
But it really isn't as much about the tool
as it is about the vision.
Michelangelo said that sculpting is
the process of removing material that you
don't want visible, to reveal the material
that you do want visible.
I like to take some of these little shavings
and just rake the loop tool down like that.
And you got yourself a curly ringlet
that looks like a strand of hair.
When the judges are looking at that up close,
uh, those types of details matter.
To have this second chance
at winning Halloween Wars is big for me.
I will have solidified my place
as one of the nation's best pumpkin carvers.
Why shouldn't you pick me for Halloween Wars?
You want the best. I'm the best.
Thanks for stopping by.
We'll see you on Halloween Wars.
Wilfred and I are coming.
[narrator] Coming up,
who will get the coveted spots
on our all-star captains' teams?
But first, say hello to this returning all-star champion.
My name is Kyle Miller.
I'm a master cake artist.
I won season 4 of Halloween Wars ten years ago.
I haven't been on a show ever since.
But coming in, I know what I can do.
Art still lives in my blood.
And everything I do on cakes, it's art.
This season, you can expect to see a lot,
a lot of scary stuff from me.
I like doing big detail.
I like doing actual fear-inducing pieces.
I will bring it.
And you're gonna see a lot of it.
[narrator] Welcome back to the road to Halloween Wars,
where we're getting closer to finding out
who will land a spot on one of our all-star teams.
But before we do,
it's time to meet another returning champion.
I am Monique Hawk from San Diego, California,
and I am a professional pumpkin carver.
Team Ghostly Gals won season 12
by creating an amazing
French catacombs runway challenge.
From the age of two,
we had pumpkin carving parties with the neighborhood.
So we started carving these things
at a very early age.
About when I was 18 years old,
I started sculpting from the outside,
and the rest was history.
I love every single aspect of pumpkins and pumpkin carving.
I really enjoy doing the realistic type of pumpkin.
When you can look at something and have to question
if it's a pumpkin or not,
I know I did my job.
[narrator] Now we're off to California to meet our next candidate,
a pumpkin carver who's been training
for a second chance at Halloween Wars glory.
[cat meows]
My name is Mike Craghead.
I live in Eureka, California, and I'm a pumpkin carver.
When you're a Halloween Wars veteran,
you either dodge that trauma for the rest of your life,
or you figure out how to do it better
and come back and make more of a statement. And that's definitely...
I'm a 1000% prepared for that.
As a pumpkin carver, of course,
you're a fan of Halloween Wars.
It's like going to the major leagues.
It is a pinnacle of achievement in itself.
Halloween Wars season 7 was
an absolute adventure.
I learned so much. I had so much fun.
But, of course,
the correct thing would be
get all the way to the end and win it.
That's what you want when you're going into a competition.
So I live here in Eureka with my wife Dawn
with 18 chickens, three cats,
a dog, five ducks.
Hi. Hi.
Once you've had eggs from your backyard,
you will never go back to store-bought eggs.
So pretty. Yeah.
Lots of times, a vegetable peeler won't be big enough.
When I need to go bigger,
this is an actual...
For peeling pineapples.
And you can get bigger chunks with that.
And then, hopefully, if I get on the show,
there'll be giant pumpkins
and I'll be able to use stuff like this,
'cause, come on, how much fun would that be?
This guy is gonna have a set of normal eyes
and an additional eyeball that he wasn't expecting.
So I'm gonna let you all in on a little trade secret here.
How I make the eyeballs.
I use these punches.
Just get, like, a little piece of skin.
Pop that out.
Put that on there.
And then it's just like...
Looks like he's looking up.
It gives him a little personality.
I've always carved pumpkins ever since I was little.
Um, it didn't get super out of hand, though,
until I was working at an elementary school
and I had a captive audience.
The real tipping point was
when I went from buying pumpkins
to carving at pumpkin patches
in exchange for pumpkins.
That was a really lucrative moment in my life.
You know I'm good. You've seen the pumpkins.
Come on, let me on.
[chuckles]
The ducks know that I've applied for the show.
[ducks quacking]
And I don't want to go out there
and tell them that I didn't make it on.
So you got to get me on there
so I can save face with the ducks.
Especially Rutherford, because he's a jerk.
[ducks quacking]
[narrator] Now let's head to the Lone Star State to meet a cake artist
who lives and breathes fear.
Trick or treat, Halloween Wars.
Welcome to my house of haunted horrors.
I'm Justin from San Antonio, Texas,
and I'm a horror cake artist.
Halloween is me all year round.
I bring your worst nightmares to life in cake.
I can make horrifying monsters,
creepy ghosts.
You're definitely not getting a cutesy cartoon kid's cake
unless you want your Easter bunny
with, like, blood coming out of its mouth.
But if you are looking for that,
I'm definitely the guy to come to.
I would describe myself as
sort of a weirdo creative person.
I don't want to say creepy because creepy sounds...
Well, it sounds creepy, but...
There's just skeletons and skulls all over this place.
The skeletons are sitting on my patio
or they're just standing up in the bathroom.
Uh, I'll just use creepy.
Yeah, I would describe myself as creepy.
So in this bowl I have piping gel.
I go through buckets of this stuff for things like slime.
Gross is kind of one of my favorite words in cakes.
A lot of what I do is kind of gross and gory and creepy.
I've been doing cakes for six years now.
I didn't go to culinary school,
didn't go to pastry school.
I'm a bartender during the day.
So I just learned from trial and error.
And it's just kind of spiraled out of control from there.
We're gonna do it all over his little apron
so we match.
My philosophy is you can always add more blood.
I mean, there's never too much on my cakes.
All right, your eyes look great.
Well, one of 'em does.
I live, breathe, and eat Halloween.
You should pick me to be on Halloween Wars
because this is literally what I do
seven days a week.
Can I sculpt the heck out of
any kind of creepy thing you throw my way? Absolutely.
I am so ready
to just kick this competition in the butt.
Thanks for a bloody good time, Halloween Wars.
Now get out of here. I got to go bake.
[narrator] In the same city as the famous haunted mansion,
the Winchester Mystery House,
we found a pumpkin carver with a passion for lizards
and all things creepy crawly.
Hi, my name is Paulina Goff.
I'm from San Jose, California.
I'm a professional pumpkin carver.
Being in the Silicon Valley,
I've carved for a lot of the major
tech companies around here.
I've been carving professionally
for 12 years now.
Most of the pumpkins that I carve
tend to be on the larger side,
250-pound range.
That kind of ends up being my sweet spot.
We've always carved pumpkins as a family.
I'm one of four kids.
It's not Halloween without carving a pumpkin.
More stringy.
Most, if not all, of the carvings I've done
that are sculpted, are all done freehand.
I just look at the pumpkin,
have the image in my mind, and just start chipping away.
Sometimes people would say when they go to my house,
it was like they were going to a zoo.
We have a five-foot white-throat monitor lizard.
I'm a big bug lover.
So I have and do love
to incorporate that into my carvings.
[baby cooing]
What is that, baby? What is that?
I've been with my boyfriend, Trent, for 13 years.
We have two amazing little children.
We have a one and a two-year-old currently.
All right, now look at the camera.
[Paulina] I think creepy is probably
the most accurate description
of the kind of Halloween that I like.
Then I decided to carve a raven.
I'm just basically gonna carve out
the rest of his feathers for his tail.
I'll do big blocks, and then I'll finally get the shape I want.
He is a combination of
sweet potato and pumpkin.
And he has brought some food back to his nest,
which happened to be a severed hand.
[exclaims]
[chuckles]
I'd love to compete on Halloween Wars.
Halloween Wars needs me on the show
because I can bring ideas that are
completely outside the box.
So the pumpkin is my medium,
but the end result can be anything.
He's my little raven baby.
[narrator] Here's one more returning all-star champion,
a sugar artist from season 9
of Halloween Wars.
My name is Reva Alexander-Hawk.
I won on season nine
with our beautiful Thumbelina piece.
Secretly, I always wanted to be on Broadway,
and that's kind of the direction I was going early on.
But then I fell into cakes
because I thought you always need a backup.
I soon found out that
you can create art through that as well.
So now I sing on the side and I create art out of sugar.
It's an honor to be invited back for the all-star season
because Halloween Wars
is really at the top of its game.
It's the pinnacle in the sugar world.
You want to be on Halloween Wars
and you want to win.
[narrator] We're still searching
for America's best cake, sugar, and pumpkin artists
to compete on this year's
Halloween Wars champions.
Maybe they'll land on the next all-star captain's team.
My name is Shellane Brown.
I'm from Fayetteville, Georgia.
I'm a bakery owner and a cake decorator.
I'm from season 11
where we won by doing our dueling monsters,
our serpent man and our mythical bird.
My approach to sculpting is really mathematical,
so I like to be a little bit more proportionate
than a lot of other people.
And I think that's what
stands out as my personal style.
My favorite cake on season 11,
we made a gravity-defying vampire
in a yoga pose,
and I think that's what I'm most known for now.
This time around, I just want to go bigger.
I want to press myself a little bit more.
With this being the all-stars season,
I just have to go bigger and better
and more elaborate with my builds.
[narrator] Now we're going to Utah to meet
a pumpkin carver who says
what we really should fear
is the red beard.
Hey, I'm Matt Thorup.
I am a 3D character artist from Salt Lake City, Utah,
and I'm also a pumpkin sculptor.
I've worked in the video game industry
for over 10 years
creating the main characters that people have played all over the world.
I'm responsible for making that look of
what that character is gonna be,
what that personality is gonna be,
but with a digital ball of clay on the computer.
You got to look out, 'cause the Red Beard
is coming.
When I got into the 3D school,
I let my beard grow.
By the end, I had this big, long, bright red beard,
and it's been my name ever since.
It does not cause a lot of fear, but maybe it does.
So I like to kind of hug it, get into it.
You know, we're gonna spend a lot of time with this pumpkin today,
so, you know, it's nice to get to know it.
So I've been carving pumpkins for about 10 years.
I'm always trying to look to add a story into my pumpkins,
which I would say is the thing
that actually brings them to life.
So I started using a toothbrush to kind of clean.
Um, a very soft-touch toothbrush.
My dad's a dentist.
I worked in a dental lab sculpting teeth
for a while of my life.
Um, actually made
these four front teeth myself. I sculpted 'em.
Teeth are one of my biggest pet peeves.
In all the characters I do, whether pumpkins or digital,
I like to add a little bit more flair
to the teeth when I can,
you know, give 'em a little bit more anatomy.
I think the biggest things
that sell a good face are a strong eye and strong teeth.
If I want something to be more comical,
I'm gonna use softer, rounder shapes,
or if I want it to be
more scary or evil,
I'm gonna use sharper shapes.
There's nothing better than Halloween season.
The colors, the smells,
the air, the attitude that everyone has.
My first kiss ever was on Halloween to my now-wife.
We have four boys.
It's never quiet in the house.
-Cheers. Yeah. -[all] Cheers.
Let's go watch a scary movie!
[Matt whooping]
If you pick me for Halloween Wars,
I promise you it's not gonna be boring.
I want to be there. I want to be
arm-deep in a pumpkin
and just having the time of my life,
and then making some scares.
[narrator] We're staying in the Golden State
to meet a pumpkin carver whose love for Halloween
is rivaled only
by his love of power tools.
Boo. I'm just kidding. Welcome, Halloween Wars.
Come on in. Welcome to my art studio.
[quacking]
Hi, my name is Alan Silva.
I'm from Corona, California,
and I'm a full-time artist
and professional pumpkin carver.
So I was born in the Philippines.
We didn't have Halloween in the Philippines,
but then we moved to the United States
when I turned 12 years old, and I discovered Halloween.
I just loved it ever since.
I started carving pumpkins when I was 12.
I just didn't stop.
But I've been a professional pumpkin carver since 2018.
Here we are about to carve a pumpkin.
When I'm carving,
my secret weapon is power tools.
It gets messy, though.
When you're scraping, you're doing this,
you're doing this again and again.
But with power tools,
you can do it a lot faster and a lot quicker.
But you can't get really detailed to it.
So you also need these.
Let's get that smiley, cute little face going.
Give it some cheeks.
These are gonna be the eyes.
So here we are getting that
cute little octopus coming out.
I'm known for doing scary, cute things,
combining both genres.
Cut little holes. There's a lot of 'em.
The most important thing
about carving a pumpkin is the details.
The main reason why I want to be on the show is
to inspire people like me
and also to inspire my son.
You know, like, do something that you love,
and he loves art.
Michael, my son, is 16 years old.
We've done a lot of Halloweens together.
I would make his custom costumes.
Why pick me for Halloween Wars?
I think I'm made for the show.
I'm talented. I have the skills.
I've been carving pumpkins for years now.
I've been working out, 50-pound pumpkins left and right.
These guns are ready for the show,
and I want to win.
Thanks for stopping by,
but now it's time to drop
the pumpkin bomb on the competition.
[pops]
[narrator] Before we find out who makes the cut,
let's meet our final all-star champion.
My name is Teresa Shurilla.
My team and I won season 13 of Halloween Wars.
My favorite part about last season was
the piece right before we got to the finale
that came together with all three art forms,
and it was so seamless
that even we stepped back
and took a look at it, and we were like, "Okay."
There's a lot of things I learned from last time.
And what I want to do differently is
just doing crazier stuff with sugar
than I thought was possible,
and not to be afraid.
[narrator] Our final stop is in Illinois,
where we'll meet one pumpkin carver
who says that he's actually met a ghost?
Hi, I'm Lincoln Bias.
I am 61 years old.
I am a pumpkin carver.
There is no school for carving pumpkins.
Many days of trial and error.
That's why I feel like I am the best.
There was a time when I used to just cut through.
And then when I found this method,
I really liked it, so I adopted it.
The technique today is gonna keep the face round.
I'm testing the pumpkin to see how thick it is
so I know how far I can go in.
I worked in Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope.
It was in the oil field up on the Arctic Sea.
I lived on an oil rig,
and they put me in charge of making salads.
I wanted every salad to look good,
so I started to carve fruits and vegetables.
And from the first time I tried to carve a watermelon,
everyone said,
"We don't believe you've never done this before."
I've been carving pumpkins for about six years.
A guy called me by accident,
says, "I need a pumpkin carver."
He told me it was $40 an hour.
So for $40 an hour, I can learn anything.
I soon discovered that it was my new passion.
The technique I use is an ancient art.
It is the art of Kae-Sa-Luk,
which simply means
the food should look as good as it tastes.
There are no tools.
There is simply you with a knife in your hand.
It's like painting with a knife.
I scoop, and then I pull that piece out.
I don't want to believe in ghosts.
However, I have seen a ghost one time.
When I was living in Stanford, Connecticut,
my girlfriend Joanne
calls me and says, "Lincoln, I seen a ghost in the house."
I said, "Girl, you're crazy."
So I go home,
and there was a girl standing right there in the doorway.
I called my other friend and said,
"Would you like to buy house furniture?"
'Cause I won't be going back there.
I didn't. Mm-mm. No.
If I get picked for Halloween Wars,
I am most excited
about competing with the best of the best
to be the best of the best.
I may be the oldest competitor,
and I hope that everyone underestimates me.
I have a strong philosophy
that you are never too old
to stop learning.
You should pick me to be on Halloween Wars
because I am simply the best.
I have worked for this.
I have earned it.
I deserve it.
So long, Halloween Wars.
I'm your pumpkin Picasso.
Take me to the competition.
[narrator] With so many talented cake,
sugar artists,
and pumpkin carvers,
it's time to find out who will be
on our all-star captains' teams.
[woman] I want to congratulate you
and officially welcome you to this season of Halloween Wars.
Yeah!
I told 'em I could do it.
I told 'em. I told 'em.
What? No way.
-Did you hear that, duck? -[quacking]
He said, "Yeah." He said, "He's proud of me."
Nervous. Excited. Ready to work.
Uh, but yeah. Wow. This is really happening.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Yes. Thank you so much. Awesome.
Are you serious? Oh, my gosh. That's so exciting.
[laughs]
That's exciting and terrifying. So awesome.
[narrator] So let's meet this year's all-star squads.
The Bone Battalion.
2 Ghouls And A Butcher.
Killer Instincts.
Delectable Demons.
Shriek Squad.
Death By Deco.
Scream Of The Crop.
And Creepin' It Real.
Our champions teams are stacked
and they're ready to haunt your dreams
in this season of Halloween Wars.
[man] Happy Halloween, everyone.
[screams]
[narrator] Our all-star captains
will guide eight teams of the most talented pumpkin,
cake, and sugar artists
in the most frightening season
of Halloween Wars ever.
[all screaming]
[narrator] Their creations will be the most blood-curdling...
It is turning my blood to ice. Terrifying.
[narrator] ...the most spine-chilling...
-[woman 1] Creepy. -[woman 2] I'm already terrified.
[narrator] ...and the most frighteningly flavorful masterpieces
we've ever seen.
-I've never eaten a tooth before. -Done!
[narrator] There will be blood. There will be guts.
It's gonna be awesome.
[woman 3] Yay!
Donut dance, donut dance.
[narrator] And there will be misery.
Holy mother.
No, no.
[woman 4 gasps]
-[all gasp] -Oh, no.
I understand.
I need to be left alone.
[narrator] In the end, only one team
will be declared Halloween Wars champions...
That is just terrifying.
[narrator] ...and walk away with $25,000.
Yes! Good job, guys.
[narrator] You won't want to miss it.
[screams]
[laughing]