[thunder rumbling]
This Halloween war has claimed another victim.
Last time Scream of the Crop
gave the competition nightmares
with a dominating, demonic display.
While Killer Instincts was sent home.
Now, the five remaining All Star champions,
brace their teams for a new phase
of shocking surprises...
-[Matt] No. -[all gasping]
...as this monstrous battle continues
on its dark path towards the title
and $25,000.
[Jamie] Yeah!
[Jonathan B] The most heart pounding season of Halloween Wars, All Stars
starts right now.
Teams, so far you have dared
to take on monsters of all kinds,
and you have all lived
to tell the tale.
But sometimes the supernatural citizens of the world
like to have a little fun.
Kids get to dress up as scary monsters.
Why shouldn't the scary monsters get to wear a costume
in search of candy, too?
We want you to imagine not only what disguises
your creatures would devise,
but also the chaos that comes
when they head out on All Hallow's Eve.
And we're upping the stakes for this battle,
and challenging you to go bigger
than ever before.
One character or element in your display,
must be at least three feet tall.
-What? -[Shellane] Okay.
-Ooh. -Whoa.
For your tasting element,
what better way to celebrate trick or treating
than to create a totally unique take
on a classic Halloween candy?
Shriek Squad...
You get the chocolate toffee bar.
-Yeah. -I'll take it.
Delectable Demons...
Sour candy.
Awesome.
[Jonathan B] Death by Deco...
Chocolate and nougat candy.
-Good ones. -[Matt] Yeah. Good one.
[Jonathan B] Scream of the Crop...
Chocolate covered wafers.
-Yeah! Okay. -All right.
And Two Ghouls And A Butcher...
Chocolate flavored taffy.
-[all exclaiming] -Okay. Okay.
Before you go,
there's just a bit more horror we have in store.
We're adding a new twist going forward.
The specialty spotlight.
One skill set,
cake, sugar or pumpkin,
must create a specific element
that is front and center in your team's overall design.
Pumpkin carvers,
you're up first.
One of your trick or treaters
must be made entirely of pumpkin.
-I can do that. -You can do anything.
Your seven hours...
starts now.
Oh, boy.
We gotta think of an idea that can really highlight you, Eric.
The character's gotta be three feet.
Yeah, that's pretty big.
We're gonna have to have a lot of pumpkins.
So, what would you like to carve out of pumpkin
to be like, showcased and amazing?
What if it's two adult monsters
going for a last hurrah?
Going trick or treating in this spooky neighborhood.
We are gonna have
a mummy dressed up as a princess
and a zombie character dressed up as a pirate,
and they go trick or treating to witch's house.
But their costumes are a little too good
'cause they get confused as humans.
And of course, we all know what witches do to humans.
Who would be fun to see trick or treating?
I mean, I love Frankenstein.
You can't have Halloween without him.
What about, like, Medusa?
But the problem is if everyone looks at her hair and her costume,
they turn to a rock.
Our team's idea is having
Frankenstein dressed up like a cute bunny,
going trick or treating.
But unfortunately, Medusa wants to join the fun dressed as a princess.
But in the wake of her treating,
everyone's turning into stone.
Or, as I like to say, petrified.
How about Medusa as the pumpkin?
Whoo! A lot of work.
What if we do, like, a father and son trick or treating
-as a dragon? -[Emerlie] Okay.
The actual dragons are, like, going trick or treating
-as another type of dragon? -As a...
We're going to have our father and son
dragon duo dressed up in plain sight
as a mythical dragon parading down the sidewalk,
causing chaos during the trick or treat festival.
We could do a lizard.
Like, a swamp lizard.
[Eric] Really bulky like this.
-[Shannon] And then you could use the shapes of the pumpkin. -[Briea] Whoa.
You're gonna make it that big?
This is a risk.
We're doing a giant pumpkin monster that's dressed as a clown,
and the little kid is really confused.
That monster is cutting open his pillow sack full of candy,
and getting what he thinks is his.
-Can we do, like, a pumpkin monster? -[Kyle] Yeah.
What does he dress up as?
Can you do a pumpkin
shaped like a scarecrow mask,
-but with a pumpkin underneath? -Yeah.
[Sarah B] What if the crow's, like, pulling him apart?
We come up with the idea of
an actual Jack-o'-lantern trick or treating.
He decides to go as a scarecrow.
And what's the number one enemy of scarecrow?
Is crows.
-We got it. -All right. Let's go.
-Go, team! -Let's do this. We have this this time.
I need one that's really flat on one side.
[Matt] I need a big one. Big, big, big, big, big.
Ooh, I like that one.
[laughs]
[grunting]
All right.
-Are you sure? -[Kyle] Yeah. Watch out.
Thank you.
[Kyle] Bloodstain's gonna be making the trick or treater
Jack-o'-lantern dressed as a scarecrow,
made entirely out of pumpkin.
[Sarah B] I also have to work with an armature.
Here's an arm.
She knows how to carve.
What's interesting is that she's never worked with armatures.
So she's gonna have to step up her game
quite a bit in this challenge because
we're going against pumpkin carvers that
know how to do structure,
know how to do armature, all that stuff.
So she's gonna have to learn on the fly
'cause... [chuckles] ...we gotta win this.
I'm gonna build a plague doctor crow.
The plague doctor is gonna be rice cereal treats
and modeling chocolate.
We won the last challenge because we listened to the judges,
put in a lot of detail and made sure everything stood out.
So what we're trying to do here is do the exact same thing.
What's really tricky is I have to create this character
and make sure that it doesn't take away
from the Jack-o'-lantern in the front.
[groans]
[Eric] This huge pumpkin's gonna be the body of my monster.
[groans]
[Briea] Eric is making our monster piece
entirely out of pumpkin.
He's not using any armatures.
Literally just a pole
to make sure that it stands up straight,
and that's it.
He is in beast mode.
Shannon's in charge of making the entire child
out of rice cereal treat and modeling chocolate
and I immediately get started on that tasting element.
And I'm definitely thinking of using all those citrus notes.
We got sour candy.
I'm stoked because I love gummy candy
coated in citric acid and sugar.
So, I'm making a cocoa butter colored bonbon in white chocolate
with a passion fruit reduction marshmallow.
It's gonna look like the boils
on the back of the lizard's back.
Marshmallow time, guys.
Look at that bloomed, soft gelatin.
All goes in.
So this is a passion fruit reduction.
It's what's gonna flavor the marshmallow.
Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted.
Right there.
[Matt] Everything's softer under the skin,
and I'm gonna start shaping it to be looking
more like a snake than a pumpkin.
[Al] Matt's gonna be carving Medusa
out of several pumpkins.
It's a whole new beast for me.
I've never done any kind of big structure before.
Right now I am starting Frankie's head.
It'll be all rice cereal treats with some modeling chocolate.
I'm making Frankenstein
also a three-foot structure, as a backup plan,
just in case Matt falls a little short of the parameters.
But I didn't want him to overshadow Medusa,
so I chose to have him falling backwards.
Yeah, it's gonna be like he's transforming into stone.
I'm making a princess dress.
So I'm shaving this pumpkin down
to be like a bell of a dress.
This particular pumpkin character
is gonna be a really interesting juxtaposition
because it's gonna be a really pretty princess,
but it also needs to be
a dried out dead mummy underneath.
Since this pumpkin is gonna be
a shiny satin dress,
I'm gonna make sure it's extra smooth.
I use wet automotive sandpaper
to get all of those smooth edges.
So that when we color it, it'll look shimmery and pretty.
What are you starting on, Jamie?
I am starting on rolling out the fondant
to get my window painted.
-Oh, okay. -The silhouette painted.
So that you can pour sugar on it when it's not like...
-Cool. You got it. -... you know, too fresh.
Jamie is going to be hand-painting silhouettes
so we can get an idea of the characters that are in this house.
[Jamie] I want these windows to look like they're glowing.
So I'm gonna start 'em yellow and kind of, like,
ombre some other colors into it.
I'm painting some familiars.
Witch bats and cats.
They're basically like friends to the witches.
[Jonathan] After winning the first week
and then being in the bottom two the second week,
it was kind of a crusher for us.
[Jamie] Going into this challenge, we definitely have to make sure
that we show the judges that we were listening.
And edit ourselves a little bit
so that we're not going super crazy.
[Jonathan] I'm creating a dim, so that the sugar, when I pour it,
doesn't leak all over our piece.
-Ho, ho, ho. -[Kristina] Ha, ha.
[Jonathan] Looks amazing.
[Jamie] That looks cool.
-Look at that perfect cooked sugar. -[Jamie] Yeah!
Whoa! Oh. [laughing]
This is our spotlight.
We gotta be on our game faces today, okay?
-Y'all ready? Let's go. -[Emerlie laughing]
Our dragon costume that Alan's making
is a lantern-style mythical dragon,
which is floating three feet in the air
and is also four feet long.
[Alan] I'm doing a bunch of scales.
Once I finish all of the pumpkin bodies,
I have to work on the arms and his head.
You're working on baby dragon or daddy dragon?
-[Shellane] Baby dragon. -[Alan] All right.
I'm going to create
the two monsters as well as the spectator.
Because I have three characters to make,
I have to come up with a very quick technique
to get all of them done.
So instead of using my traditional modeling chocolate,
I make a very thick chocolate ganache,
and I just lather it in room temperature.
Ganache is firm,
so this provides just a very solid base for me to work on.
Teams, you've got six hours left.
-[Jamie] Six hours? -Six hours, six hours.
-[Matt] Huh? -[Sarah B] I'm just looking at your,
like, nearly finished crow guy.
I'm like, "Look, it's kind of an egg."
[laughing]
Bloodstain is nervous.
She's never done this before.
[Sarah B] All right, Mr. Torso.
In goes the neighborhood.
[exhales]
Uh-oh.
She's got one solid piece
wrapped around the entire torso.
It will not move.
[Sarah A] This is a unique problem.
The problem is it will not move.
Can I get a boost?
I'm just crushing.
Bloodstain put so much pressure on the structure as a whole.
[Sarah B] There you go.
Thank God it works.
[Jonathan B] So this week we are highlighting
the pumpkin carvers.
But that comes with its own set of challenges.
[Aarti] I think the difficulty here is,
how do you spotlight the pumpkin...
-Yeah. -...whilst also keeping it
seamlessly incorporated into your whole design?
[Kristina] I keep trying to make the face clean,
but it has to have a lot of texture.
It really can't be a very clean sculpt if it's gonna be a mummy.
-[Jamie] Yeah. -[Kristina] The exposed skin underneath
is gonna have to be all messed up, right?
Coming off of being in the bottom, in the last challenge,
that never feels good,
and we really have to take the judge's feedback into account.
They thought our piece last week was a little bit messy.
So this week, we're going to focus on
really clean textures
and a really thought out piece.
[Jamie] I like it. How did you do the white eye?
[Kristina] Uh, just with white pumpkin.
[Jamie] What?
[Kristina] Jamie's getting started with the zombie
that's getting pulled into the house.
And she's gonna be making that out of her 50/50 fondant
and modeling chocolate blend.
[Jamie] Gotta make sure to smooth out on my edges,
so it actually looks like the brains are, like, in there
versus, like, sitting on top of his head.
And then I'll make him look all, like, slimy and gross.
-[Jonathan] Jamie. He's looking awesome. -[Jamie] Yeah.
Yeah? Still want his head to move.
Saigon cinnamon.
[Kristina] The classic Halloween candy that we are signed
is a toffee chocolate bar.
Jonathan is gonna be making a tres leches cake
with a toffee crunch, encased in a chocolate mold.
[Jonathan] And guess what? Into the oven we go.
Whoo-hoo!
You've got five hours on the clock.
Five hours?
Five hours!
[Al] I'd like to start layering on colors
and letting it dry and absorb a little bit
and then I'll start bringing out, like,
the highlights and low lights.
I think it's very interesting
that both of these characters are going to be three feet high.
-[Shinmin] I don't think that Al is trying to steal thunder. -[Aarti] Yeah.
[Shinmin] I think he's actually just trying to give us
a really dynamic piece.
Frankie's getting stoned right now.
-[Matt chuckling] -[Becky] Oh, stop.
[Al and Matt laughing]
I gotta make a nougat. So...
I'm gonna try to do some whipping cream first.
[Al] Becky wants to get on her tasting element.
The candy we get is chocolate nougat.
So she suggests bourbon goes really good with chocolate.
It sounds good to me.
She's making a chocolate bourbon nougat.
[Becky] You take chocolate, melt it down and add whipped cream.
And dip it in chocolate. There's your candy bar.
With the bourbon, it's fabulous.
There it is.
Once they come out, they're ready to get dipped in chocolate ganache.
Just make sure they're cut really nice.
I'm gonna get started on the tasting element,
and we have the chocolate wafer cookie candy bar.
So, we definitely want it to be very crunchy.
For our tasting element, Sarah's going to make
a milk chocolate bourbon ganache
with a pecan praline crunch
and an orange twill cookie.
[sighing] Alrighty. My caramel's coming along nicely.
And then I'll grind it up.
So I'll draw all those oils out of the nuts
and it's gonna make a really smooth,
delicious caramel pecan prelude.
So this is heavy cream,
glucose, bourbon and milk chocolate.
So now I'm just going to pour a nice layer
right on top of the crunch.
[Kyle] She's gonna make her tasting element
look like moths that are stuck around the house.
[Sarah A] So I can spread a thin layer.
Place my cutter.
Then I just wipe away the excess with my finger.
All right. I'm gonna start baking our first try. See how they come out.
Teams, you're looking at four hours to go.
-Oh, no. -What?
-That's not enough time. -Four hours!
We only have four hours.
[Alan] This is the headpiece for the dragon.
[Shellane] For our display, we have a father and son dragon duo.
Alan is making our dragon costume.
This design was inspired by Alan and his son,
who dressed up every year for Halloween.
[Alan] Every other Halloween we get to create
-a costume for us. -[Emerlie] Aww.
It's special for me. I love Halloween.
Stop!
-[Shellane] Stop it, Alan! -Stop it!
I'm trying to highlight my detail work.
So hopefully that'll rule over the judge is.
And the fact that it's up in the air,
that would be a benefit.
[Shellane] I usually can't carve like this much
in modeling chocolate, but because it's ganache,
it's kind of like clay,
to where I can take pieces off
that I don't want and then smooth it out.
I'm a little worried about Two Ghouls & A Butcher.
-Oof. -Me, too.
Shellane is not just doing one character, not two.
Three characters.
And this is supposed to be
a pumpkin spotlight,
I'm taking a sharp pumpkin carving tool
and that's got a small acute angle.
And I'm drawing the circle
and then I'm removing material around it
so it looks like it's embossed.
I'm just thinking reptile.
I'm thinking those big, ugly, gnarly,
skin-tag looking things.
[Briea] Wow, Eric, that is
already really big.
[Eric] That's just kind of how I roll.
-We just have to talk about this pumpkin. -Let's talk about it.
-Let's talk about it right now. -This teeny tiny
pumpkin over here.
[Shinmin] When you cut into a pumpkin, you never know
if it's going to be thin in flesh
or if it's gonna give you a lot of bulk.
Not only did he pick a really large pumpkin,
he picked a really good one.
He's working so fast because it's not fighting him back.
[Eric] I used the melon baller to pop out pieces of pumpkin
and flip them around to make the boils.
I wish every challenge was the pumpkin spotlight.
I just love it.
[Briea] Eric was in Season 10 of Halloween Wars,
and he was in the finale.
But he didn't win.
He's back to prove himself and show everyone
that he knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to pumpkin.
[Shannon] Eric, that is so epic.
I mean, I could put this out there right now and we'd still win.
It's fine. We're good.
-I'm just kidding. -Any harder.
To get the shape of the costume,
I'm building it up with white modeling chocolate.
Modeling chocolate's so forgiving
and it's-it's so much like clay
that you're really able to sculpt the details in there.
And then once I get it to a point
I feel like I'm happy with it,
then I'm going to cover it with the green color
and sculpt in all the fine details.
Ready to start the face.
[Briea] Shannon is very obsessed with doing realism,
and I can already tell the story
just by looking at her face.
God, I love pulling sugar.
I still have a lot of sugar elements to do.
I have a sugar lamp to produce.
I also have all the leaves,
so we add movement like wind is blowing.
Cut.
But I'm so excited to make Eric's claws.
Eric was the star in the scene
and we're just the supporting actors.
[Eric] Oh, yeah, baby.
[Shellane chuckles nervously] Now I got it.
I built our son dragon first,
and then I move on to our little girl character.
Instead of coating her in the final ganache,
I drape fondant on top of her
to create this ghost costume effect.
True that. This is a record.
I mean, I don't know.
I think I've found my new little niche.
Not to take myself too seriously, right?
[laughing]
I'm finished with my first two characters,
which are the smallest of the three.
I move on to the father dragon
while Alan starts painting.
[Alan] I'm trying to highlight my detail work and my paint work.
So hopefully that'll rule over the judges.
Dark first and then highlights after.
I listened to Shinmin.
[Shellane] Shinmin gave Alan really great feedback
in our previous challenge about airbrushing,
highlights and lowlights in our pumpkins.
And so Alan really needs to take heed to Shinmin's advice.
[Alan] Shinmin wants, Shinmin gets.
The stakes are very high 'cause it's the...
Gonna be coming down to the Final Four after tonight.
So I wanna make sure, you know, we can continue moving on
and keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
We're going pretty hard on this one.
There's a lot of decorating to get on.
Our idea is to have it look like a little neighborhood,
that you'd be just leaving the house from.
A spooky tree in the back painted in brown buttercream.
-[Becky] What do you think? -[Al] That's looking good. That looks like bark.
I wanna get to the house and I'm gonna get to the cobblestone.
Set it right on the edge of the board.
We want it to have, like, a cobblestone street.
So, Becky is making these beautiful cobblestones
out of ice malt.
Oh, that's a great job, Becky.
The aroma's crazy.
[Becky] It has all three chocolates in it.
Yeah, I just coated it with silver.
[Al] The other side, want it to look like a house.
Putting fondant down a little thicker than normal
and then making impressions with a ruler.
You can simply take some different colors of red and black and brown
and brush it over without getting any
of the white mortar parts covered.
I'm blocking out the body, so it's got all the parts.
Still a lot of work to be done.
And then another arm and then obviously a head.
And then probably a bunch of snakes.
You know, Matt with Death by Deco
has just the foundation of his pumpkin work done.
He's a little behind.
I feel like at this point, we'd love to see some design
and some details taking form.
So I'm a little worried for him.
This is the biggest piece that Matt has ever done.
All right. Awesome.
[Jonathan] I am poking holes for my soaking liquid.
So when I pour my liquid, the cake absorbs it all. Just like so.
We're gonna pour it and all those holes help the cake absorb it better.
[Kristina] For our tasting element,
Jonathan is making a tres leches cake
with a toffee crunch encased in a chocolate mold.
[Jonathan] I'm basically gonna make a toffee crumble for my dessert.
I poured my toffee batter right over some salted almonds.
I choose to use a silicone ice cube mold because
I kind of want it to look like a mini candy bar.
So I temper my chocolate, I coat the inside of the mold
and then I fill it with my toffee.
My tres leches cake.
And then I capped it at the end.
This is the last of my tasting element,
and I'm gonna be so relieved when it's done.
[Kristina] I am delicately carving
these thin strips and then layering them.
I'm trying to create the illusion
that this mummy is all wrapped up.
To create that mummy effect,
I'm gonna be using strips of pumpkin
over the bulked up armature.
So, it looks like it's all wrapped up like a typical mummy.
I don't think I've ever done a mummy
like, wrapped up before.
It's usually because this is so tedious,
like, this is such a tedious thing
and like you have to pull the layers so thin
for them to be flexible enough to place.
Does she look like the beautiful-est mummy princess?
[Jonathan] She's gonna pick up all the dudes.
The first one, we were bottom two.
Obviously, the second one,
we showed them what we're capable of.
Now, we won it.
This one,
we-we have to keep this streak going,
like, we-- we are the team to beat.
And we-- we gotta make sure that everyone knows it in spades.
I remember in the first challenge,
that main character was predominantly made of pumpkin.
And then in the second challenge, Kyle took over.
Now, this is squarely back on Sarah.
-[Shinmin] Yeah. -And I think we're seeing
the time really getting to her.
[Sarah B] Once I get him into a basic body shape...
-[Kyle] Mmm-hmm. -[Sarah B] I really need to do the head.
So what's actually hard for me during this challenge
is I have to take a step back and let Bloodstain take the lead.
So, on my plague doctor,
I'm doing very obvious detail,
but, in a much smaller fashion
because it's in the background
from the Jack-o'-lantern character.
Teams, we are more than halfway done.
Only three hours left on the clock.
[Jonathan] Okay, now I'm gonna unmold my-my desserts.
[chuckles nervously]
Unfortunately, the silicone mold
isn't as forgiving with chocolate
as a normal bonbon mold would be.
-Jamie. -Yeah?
[Jonathan] These molds suck. Look.
There is absolutely no way I can serve these to the judges like this.
I need to come up with a Plan B
and I need to do this fast.
Jonathan, who is creating the tasting,
is having a tough time unmolding the chocolate truffles
from his molds,
and they're just not looking good.
-Which must be hard because Jonathan is a perfectionist. -[both] Yes.
[Jonathan] Should've just let them cool down, like,
come to temp before I put 'em in the freezer.
[Jamie] Yeah, just get them out.
However, you can, manhandle it.
Last week, Jonathan's tasting element is what saved us.
It showed how important the tasting element is
to every single challenge.
I think I'm gonna pivot and change my mold.
Unfortunately, the mold I was using is not meant for chocolate.
So, I'm just re-making new chocolate shells.
And I'm taking my current dessert
and just putting ' em to the shelves.
It's not gonna resemble a candy bar like I expected,
but it's going to be the same exact concept.
But, I gotta hurry.
Teams, you've only got two hours left.
-Two hours to go. -Two hours?
-Oh my God.
Something I started doing a long time ago is just have a toothbrush
to brush off my tools as I go.
They get really gunky.
[Al] Matt starts carving out Medusa's face.
[Matt] Pumpkin's just basically a water balloon
with gross stuff on it, so...
Keeping the tools clean.
Plus, my dad's a dentist,
so, if I don't have a toothbrush on me,
he gets mad.
[Al] Matt actually wanted to become a dentist
until, like he was 20.
He watched a cartoon and then just fell in love with animation.
And now he's a phenomenal pumpkin artist.
I think Matt would really benefit
from the satisfaction of the win
because of how he chose his life path
and to express his art in food.
[Matt] I am working on some snakes for the hair.
Gonna just carve them out, shape them and stick them in.
[Sarah B] This is my weird meta pumpkin within a pumpkin.
Make it look like a mask that the pumpkin is wearing.
And I'm gonna put like, a burlap texture on it.
So, it looks like he's just pulled the cowl off scarecrow.
And I'm gonna try something I've never done before,
which is inlay a piece of the pumpkin
so it actually looks like the pumpkin underneath.
I am so happy to be here.
I-- I mean, I feel like I'm home.
This is exactly where I wanna be every day of my life,
carving pumpkins, making scary things.
We've come this far and I just wanna keep going.
It's important for me to win
because I am one of the most Halloween-y people out there.
I've been carving pumpkins since at least ten-years-old.
Pumpkin carving's in my blood,
Halloween is in my blood.
And I'm Bloodstain.
[Sarah A] All right, he's on.
So right now, I'm blowing a sugar crow.
Sarah's gonna make a bunch of sugar crows
attacking the Jack-o'-lantern.
[Sarah A] I'm trying to make these crow wings,
each a little different.
So, they all have their own unique kind of motion.
[Aarti] Sarah has pulled and blown the crows.
-[Shinmin] Yes. -The crows have to look menacing.
It's making me feel more like a cute little bat is coming to say hi.
-[Shinmin] Yeah. -[Aarti] Rather than a crow's coming to peck my eyes out.
[Shinmin] The reason for that is because
-their wings are just a little too small. -[Jonathan B] Okay.
-Surprisingly. Yeah, yeah. -Crows are really big birds.
-Yeah, they're huge. -And these look like friendly little sparrows.
[Emerlie] I'm browning my butter
so I can add a touch of nutty flavoring
to my chocolate taffy.
[Shellane] For the tasting element,
we are given a traditional Halloween candy
which was chocolate taffy.
[Emerlie] I have a cherry puree in there,
so I have a cherry-infused chocolate taffy
and it's going to be delicious and chewy.
Emerlie comes up with an idea
to do a cherry bomb chocolate taffy pop.
She pulls the taffy to make sure to incorporate air
to get that really signature taffy texture.
[Emerlie] I thought I would infuse it
with some maraschino cherries,
bring out that burst of flavor.
I'm gonna roll this into little balls,
and then I'm gonna dip it in isomalt,
that's been flavored.
We have chocolate taffy.
[Kristina] I'm literally about to be ready to color,
like very, very, very soon.
[Jamie] That sounds great, and I will be with you.
Kristina is now doing this painting technique that she loves,
using luster dust.
She used the luster dust on pumpkin in the very first challenge,
and that worked out really well, because why?
-It was about this size. -Ah.
-Right. -And this is three feet tall.
-[Jonathan B] Right. -[Shinmin] I think she needs to use
about 20 containers of luster dust
to even fill just the front of the skirt.
The better way to approach that
is to just airbrush a base color...
-[Aarti] Yeah. -[Shinmin] And then dust the luster dust over it
to get that shine,
-because the pumpkin sucks up all the color. -[Aarti] Correct.
[Eric] So, when I'm airbrushing,
I like to use straight food coloring,
liquid food coloring, bright colors.
Eric is taking the sculpture to the extreme.
Creeping them up a little bit.
And some guts hanging from his mouth.
[Briea] He's literally using
not only just the pumpkin, but he's using the stems,
he's using the seeds,
he's using the pumpkin guts.
I cannot I believe
that this is the same team that we saw in the first challenge,
-where they were having a hard time... -[Shinmin] Yeah.
[Aarti] ...figuring each other out, working together.
-[Jonathan B] Mmm-hmm. -[Aarti] And now there's just
-this contented hum coming out of that team. -Yeah. Yeah.
[Briea] Ooh, come on, baby.
I still have a lot of sugar elements to do.
I have a sugar lamp to produce.
I also have all the leaves.
Taper, taper, twist, pull off, pressure mold,
press, press, press, press.
Pull up, twist.
Bad news, one hour left.
-You've got one hour. -[Al] Oh God!
There's not a lot of time left,
and this pumpkin is not looking like Medusa
dressed up for trick or treat.
So, I'm quickly adding colors to this Medusa
to try to bring her to life.
As team captain, I kinda have to make sure
everyone else is being successful on our team.
Not many people will put buttercream on a pumpkin,
but I will.
The face was very lacking in detail,
so I decided just quickly get some black buttercream
and start drawing the face on for him.
[all exclaiming]
[Becky and Matt] No.
Oh, no.
-The whole-- the whole thing fell off. -[Becky groans]
I feel so bad for Matt,
and this is where I think Al's demeanor
-is really gonna come into play. -Yeah.
So listen, Matt, instead of the back of the head with more pumpkin,
-we're gonna just get some modeling chocolate, all right? -[Matt] Okay.
-Yeah. -[Al] Just cut a piece
and just got to start working it like a-- like hair.
-Okay. Yup. -That's the best thing to do right now.
It's really important to me to make sure my team's feeling good.
I don't want anyone to ever feel like they didn't do their best.
I want them to leave this, no matter what happens, feeling amazing.
Death by Deco is in triage mode right now.
[Becky] Maybe blend that color in with the rest.
I'm gonna try.
-I am on, like, speed demon mode right now. -[Becky chuckles]
Twenty minutes left, you have 20 minutes.
So it's our pecan praline crunch on the bottom,
and then we have the silky, bourbon milk chocolate ganache on top.
[Kyle] Sarah is gonna make her tasting element
look like moths that are stuck around the house.
[Sarah A] Just be careful of these moths 'cause they're like, balancing.
[Shellane] I'm looking at Alan's pumpkin carving,
and the sculpting looks great.
But, the pumpkin over the dragon's head
is a little small to scale.
I have an idea to create a banner
to kind of hide the scale of the pumpkin
and to add to the story that our dragons
have gone through the town parade and took down the banner.
And hopefully that disguises the scale issue.
[Emerlie] Okay, I'm gonna add the tasting element.
Be scared, five minutes, you have five minutes left.
-Hey. -Yeah, babe?
The light, forget about the light. I'm gonna do it.
[Briea] I have a sugar lamp to produce,
but I'm running out of time.
-I'm gonna make it out of-- -Really?
Make a lantern out of the pumpkin.
-It's all-- it's all pumpkin. -That would be awesome.
I'm gonna make it out of pumpkin.
[Briea] Eric says he can pivot.
He's already finished the creature,
and he can carve out an easy light.
As it was with that reptile creature,
there was more pumpkin on this display
-than any other team. -[Jonathan B] Yes.
[Aarti] But now, he's adding more.
He literally punched a hole in the pumpkin
to hollow it out and then made that lamp.
-This is it, one minute left. -Right.
[Kristina] One minute, okay, one minute.
Keep going. Okay.
Go, go, go!
[Shellane] All the tasting elements are on?
[Emerlie] Yup, all of them are on.
-[Sarah A] Why did you let me agree-- agree to this? -[Kyle laughs]
Ten, nine...
-[Kyle] Don't trip, don't trip. -[Jonathan B] Eight...
-[Kyle] Don't hit it. Don't hit the gate. -[Jonathan B] Seven, six...
-[Kyle] Don't hit the gate. -[Jonathan B] Five...
-[Becky] Get that crown on too. -[Matt] Yeah.
-[Jonathan B] Four, three... -[Becky] Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.
-[Al] Like that? That looks good. -[Jonathan B] Two, one...
Time is up!
Scream of the Crop.
Why don't we talk about this trick or treating monster right here?
[Kyle] This is "A murder comes for Jack."
So, our main character right here
is made out of pumpkin.
The plague doctor is made out of rice cereal treats
and modeling chocolate and fondant.
Sugar are the crows that are flying.
Kyle, I'm so proud of you.
It's been, what, ten years
-since we've seen each other. -Yeah.
Your artistry has grown,
your sense of confidence in what you do has grown,
and I really love seeing that.
It makes me wanna cry.
I think that you went for it.
The face is my favorite part.
You put so much emotion and texture and highlighting.
I think that you could use some more texture in the rest of the body.
I think you would agree.
I like your sugar birds,
I just don't think they look like crows.
I don't think that they look menacing enough.
I think they look a little sweet,
-like somebody else I know. -[Kyle chuckles]
[all chuckling]
Oh my God, you think they look like me?
-[all laughing] -That's so--
Oh my gosh, that's so nice, Aarti, thank you.
What was your candy and what we eating today?
So our candy was a chocolate-covered wafer cookie.
We have a milk chocolate bourbon ganache
with a pecan praline crunch,
and a brown butter pecan shell
with a little orange tuile cookie on top.
Hats off to you, making them look like moths.
I think that's really cool,
and an added way of like, taking your tasting element
and making it make sense in your design.
It's a great job there.
That ganache, I just wanna bathe in it.
It is so silky.
[Shinmin] This is really yummy.
And it definitely tastes like a really sweet Halloween candy.
I'm not sure if I'm getting the chocolate covered wafer candy reference.
Scream of the Crop, great job.
-Thank you. -[contestants] Thank you.
[Al] This is called "Franklin's first trick or treat."
Franklin over here is cereal treats, modeling chocolate.
The gravel is actually a mix of different chocolates, believe it or not.
The star of our piece, Medusa the Princess
is entirely made out of pumpkin.
-Matt, you didn't choose an easy character. -[chuckles]
You went for ding-dang Medusa.
I really like her face.
I think that there's a lot of emotion there.
-I do think that your snakes look a little friendly. -[Matt chuckles]
And Becky, I adore your sugar cobblestones.
I didn't realize that they were sugar.
I know today is the pumpkin challenge.
But, Al, you created a character just as large.
And, Matt, you really gave us a giant pumpkin here.
I think that you could have put
more detail in the shading of your pumpkin,
because right now it's so stark, orange and green.
The finish looks a little simplistic.
So, what was your tasting element today?
Our candy was chocolate-covered nougat.
[Becky] I made for you a chocolate bourbon nougat
glazed in a gourmet chocolate. Trick or treat!
[all chuckling]
Okay, Becky, I can definitely taste the bourbon in here.
It brings a much brighter, kind of slightly bitter,
almost citrus note to it.
But, because you added the bourbon, the nougat is really soft.
And it's tasting a bit wet,
as opposed to that nice, chewy texture
that you would expect from a nougat.
I love the sort of, caramel notes
that the bourbon brings to it.
I like the milk chocolate.
I think you could have used a good sprinkle of salt over the top of it,
because it's sweet on sweet at the moment,
and just a little bit of salt would have been great.
-Okay. -Death by Deco, great job.
-Thank you. -[all] Thank you.
Well, you're never too old to go trick or treating.
And what better house to visit than the candy mansion
on Witchy Lane in Halloweenville?
The Mummy Princess
is completely out of pumpkin.
And Jonathan has the isomalt windows.
And Zeke the zombie is made out of cake items.
First of all, I wanna talk about the environment.
I feel like the zombie in the back
really looks like it's just caught by the collar
and he's trying to get out.
I also just really love everything in the background.
All the colors, all the finishes.
Now in the front,
we have the pumpkin challenge.
Kristina, your sculpting is incredible.
You're able to get these super clean edges,
and that's what makes your work so recognizable
and also so realistic.
The one problem I have with this pumpkin is the paint job.
The pumpkin has sucked up
all the luster dust that you put on there.
I think the thing is that everything else on this design,
in terms of color, is so bang on.
And then you have this transparent wash on yours.
And so it ends up looking messy,
-and it ends up looking unfinished. -Yup.
That's a shame to me, especially today,
when today was your day.
[Jonathan B] So, tell us what candy you got and what you made.
So, we got chocolate covered toffee.
Typically with toffee, you think it's hard and crunchy.
So, I wanted to kind of change it up.
I did a toffee almond tres leches.
It's gonna have the tres leches base.
It's made with amaretto, almonds,
and it does have toffee in as well.
-[Shinmin] Mmm. -[Jonathan] Served in a little edible chocolate cup.
You're so intelligent, it's scary.
You gave us all the crunch and toasty flavor of toffee,
but in this very sophisticated way,
with the addition of the tres leches cake.
-This is wonderful. -Thank you.
I didn't think this needed a tres leches cake, to be honest.
When you're thinking of a toffee candy,
you want it to crunch and crackle in the mouth.
But, then the crumbling of the nuts all around,
you've captured all of that.
-Thank you. -Shriek Squad.
Great work. Thank you.
[all] Thank you.
Delectable Demons.
Tell us about this trick or treating monster.
[Briea] There's no time to clown around on All Hallows Eve
when candy is on the mind.
And our monster just wants to get his claws on all the candy.
But, is stealing it the way to go about it?
I just wish there was a little more pumpkin.
-[all laughing] -[Shinmin] I mean,
if he could just pump up the pumpkin.
[all laughing]
[Aarti] Where is it?
-I'm going on the record. -Okay.
The most pumpkin I've ever seen on a display
-in all the seasons of Halloween Wars. - -Oh my gosh.
Yay!
[Aarti] Serious job, Eric.
-[Shinmin] Yeah. -[Eric] Thank you.
[Aarti] Eric, one of my favorite parts here
is the way that you kept these sort of membrane-y gills
-right here and got so much depth... -[Eric] Yeah.
[Aarti] ...and like, gore right there in the mouth.
Shannon, I love that even though this was a pumpkin spotlight,
-you did not back down, sister. -Thank you!
[Aarti] You gave us such a delightful character.
I love how much emotion is just right there.
And Briea, I love the multi-tones
that you've got in the leaves.
It is really pretty and really gave it that autumnal feel.
What was your candy today and what'd you make for us?
I got sour candy.
So, I have made for you a white chocolate shell
and it has a passion fruit marshmallow
with a passion fruit reduction.
Briea, I'm still chewing.
And that to me, is sour candy all day.
-[Jonathan B] Yup. -[Aarti] It is sour.
It is chewy.
It is so citrusy.
I love it.
-Thanks, Aarti. -[Aarti] It's so smart
because the passion fruit also comes back with that,
real, kind of tartness, the sweetness.
This is the best thing you've made so far.
-[Shinmin] Yeah. -Thank you.
Delectable Demons.
-Great job. -[Shannon] Aw.
-Thank you very much. -[Shannon] Thank you.
-[Briea] I know. -[Eric] You guys did a good job.
[Briea] Good job.
[Shellane] Our story is about Drago,
who visits Earth from another dimension with his son.
So, our costume is entirely out of pumpkin.
We have our cake,
a witness to all the chaos.
Drago's son is also made out of cake.
Our tree is isomalt.
All the candy is isomalt and chocolate.
Alan, Alan, Alan.
This pumpkin work is really great.
I think your shading work is exquisite,
but so is your carving.
You carved so beautifully deep
and uniformly across all of those pumpkins.
And one of my favorite parts here is in that third character.
I did not think you needed it.
But, what this third character adds
is that sense of like, "What the heck is happening?"
-[all laughing] -[Shinmin] The little baby dragon in the back,
if you just brought him forward a little bit,
then I would be able to see the pole that he's using to hold up
that dragon costume, and because he's so far back there,
I don't see that pole, so I'm not quite understanding
what's happening there.
So, tell us what candy you got and what your tasting element is.
We got chocolate taffy,
so I did a cherry infused brownie taffy pop.
And then I coated it in a isomalt candy
-so that it looks like a sucker. -[Aarti] Mmm.
And it's got a touch of sour kick to it.
[all laughing]
[Shinmin] You've really captured that chocolate taffy texture.
It is so chewy.
And the isomalt that you dipped it in
gave us that really lovely crunch,
that I definitely did not expect.
It was such an eruption of flavor, chocolate, cherry, sour.
Every single time I bit into it,
there was a different evolution
of that flavor going on.
Two Ghouls and a Butcher, great work.
-Thank you. -[all] Thank you.
With the first spotlight shining brightly on the pumpkin carvers,
we asked you to go big or gored home.
And you did.
So congratulations.
But, one of you really smashed it.
The winner of this challenge is...
Delectable Demons.
-Congratulations. -[team members chuckling]
Now, for the trick part of the night,
two of you are up for elimination.
Death by Deco.
You embraced the spotlight this week
with your three foot tall Medusa.
Unfortunately, it wasn't fully successful.
And Becky did some really nice work.
Although your treat was a bit sweet.
And Shriek Squad.
You find yourselves in the bottom again this week.
The sugar and cake work were really successful,
as with that amazing tres leches cake.
Kristina, your pumpkin mummy was also looking good.
Until you started to paint it.
The piece left us feeling more trick than treat.
The team going home tonight is...
Death by Deco.
I'm sorry, but your time on Halloween Wars has come to an end.
-Thank you. -Thank you, guys.
-[Al] Thank you guys very much. -[Shinmin] Thank you, guys.
-[Matt] Thank you so much. -[Aarti] Thank you.
[Al] Good luck, everyone. Thanks.
[Jonathan B] Good luck, guys.
That means Shriek Squad,
Two Ghouls and a Butcher,
Delectable Demons
and Scream of the Crop,
we'll see you next time.
Thank you.
On the next Halloween Wars...
-[Sarah B] All right. -[Jonathan B] The four surviving teams
look for monster love...
-I want to suck your blood. -[people laughing]
[Jonathan B] ...in all the wrong places.
[Shellane] I just gotta give her an upper lip
that doesn't look like Botox.
[Jonathan B] When vampire dates...
He's sexy.
[Jonathan B] Go wrong.
Team might have bitten off more than they can chew.