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WILLMAN: Tonight,
the four remaining teams of master food artists
head back onto the "Halloween Wars" battlefield.
JEFF: Oh, my gosh!
I'm doing a little freaking out here.
WILLMAN: Each team made up of a pumpkin-carving expert...
No time for mistakes left.
...a candy craftsman...
Come on, baby, melt.
...and a cake artist...
It's a fricking line! Chill out!
...will have to work together in perfect unison
to come up with thrilling...
I'm loving it!
...chilling...
WOMAN: That's awesome.
...Halloween themed creations.
I need to turn and burn.
One team has already been frightened away.
I'm sorry, Twisted Trio, you're going home.
And at the end of this battle,
the judges will send another one home.
It's just still too cute for me.
He's absolutely frightening.
Awesome!
WILLMAN: Just three more head-to-head competitions
that will determine the ultimate champion
who will walk away with $50,000.
This could cost us $50,000, right here.
Oh, man! Don't say that.
This was gonna be our big comeback.
What happened?
DAVE: You completely ruined my paint job.
David, shut up.
Tempers are just flaring right now.
No, I mean, I got to be able to move!
It pisses me off!
Be warned -- Things are about to get spooky
'cause this is "Halloween Wars."
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
[ Laughs evilly ]
[ Thunder crashes ]
[ Crow caws ]
Hey, guys, I'm Justin Willman,
and the battle for Halloween supremacy
has already gotten bloody
as one team has fallen.
But four teams have proven themselves
worthy of sticking around
and will face off once again.
Judging them will be award-winning cake artist
Shinmin Li
and Emmy-nominated special-effects make-up artist,
Brian Kinney,
whose work has been featured in horror hits
such as "Insidious" and "Dark Skies."
The spirits are already out,
and now it's time for our contestants
to make their way into the "Halloween Wars" kitchen.
Coming back for the second battle of "Halloween Wars,"
we really have something to prove.
Skeleton Crew...
your cheesecake saved you.
JON: Last time we just squeaked by.
We cannot have that happen again.
SUE: Just because we won the first big challenge,
we're the team to beat.
Congratulations, Team Crypt Creepers.
Yes!
You're the winners of this first battle.
SUE: We really want to take that momentum
and give them something spectacular
that they haven't seen before.
Teams, let's do it again. Join me.
Welcome back, friends,
to the second battle of "Halloween Wars."
We only have three more fright-filled fights
until we crown a champion who will walk away with $50,000.
Tonight, there are two rounds --
a Small Scare challenge, the winner of which
will get an extra assistant in the second round,
The Spine Chiller challenge.
You guys, of course, already know our judges,
Shinmin Li and Brian Kinney,
so let's meet our guest judge,
horror-movie icon
and star of the legendary "Candyman" series
as well as the new hit movie "Sushi Girl,"
Tony Todd.
[ Thunder crashes ]
What's up, Tony?
How you doing?
JEFF: Tony Todd walks out and freaked us all out.
I mean, this is the Candyman.
He knows fear.
I'm ready for the pain! Come on!
[ Laughs demonically ]
In this first round, you're traveling back
to a time when monsters walked the earth
terrifying and ravaging mankind.
I'm talking about the horrifying creatures
from ancient-Greek mythology.
We're given the classic Greek monsters.
This theme is fantastic.
I mean, there's tons of mental reference to draw from.
WILLMAN: So, no matter how you choose to interpret these monsters,
get it done in 45 minutes.
Good luck, 'cause your time starts now.
All right, guys.
Here we go again.
Guys, awesome.
I've always wanted to do Medusa.
We can do some great snakes.
As a kid, the idea that a snake-haired lady
could turn you to stone was really terrifying,
so I really want to make sure that
we can convey that to the judges and freak them out.
We have to have a full head of snakes.
I mean, otherwise, there's no way else to sell it.
Let's do a puddle of green blood.
We're going for completely terrifying.
We're gonna have Medusa's head
sitting there on a slab of marble.
There's gonna be green ooze coming out of her.
Her eyes are gonna be glowing, and the snakes will have eyes.
Okay, let's go.
All right, guys. We have the Cyclops.
I know I could do an awesome Cyclops head.
That's great, but why don't we have him, like,
popping out of the ground,
coming back from Hell, or something like that?
Our vision is a Cyclops.
It's a really well-known one-eyed monster.
I can make you some chains out of pumpkin.
Chains? Chains?
Chains?
You mean, like, movable chains?
Yeah. Absolutely.
The Cyclops will be
surrounded by chunks of earth,
and he's wearing a collar that has
movable chain link made out of pumpkin.
Hey, Jeff, I need some help
with this big pumpkin -- It's huge!
He's going to get this huge pumpkin.
The larger the pumpkin, the thicker the rind,
and he could get a better shape out of it.
We're running out of time.
DAVE: Guys, I got a baby.
I decided to do a griffin,
which is half-eagle, half-lion
who guards the treasure.
Does it have a lion head or an eagle head?
Does it have wings? We didn't really know.
All right. I'm starting to carve the body.
Our concept for this theme
is to take the griffin and place him on top
of a traditional, Halloween jack-o'-lantern
that's enticing the children in to this treasure
and lure them down into this lair.
TERESA: Hey, Brian, what do you think?
Look what I found that I have in there.
Oh, those will make perfect wings.
Is that good?
BRIAN: We are putting so many details that just sell the story,
so we need to move really quick.
22 minutes? Okay. All right.
DAVE: 42, 42.
But work like there's only 22.
I got you.
SUE: Oh, nice pumpkin!
This has a lot of meat!
For our story, we stuck with the classic Greek Minotaur.
He's half-bull and half-human.
And these are the arms starting?
Big guns. Big Guns.
Big guns, just like Benny.
I'm gonna be carving the entire
Minotaur head and body out of pumpkin.
We're gonna rock, and we're gonna kick some...butt.
Benny is going to be creating the wonderful
opening to the labyrinth -- That's the gateway.
Bob is going to be working on
the spectacular horns of the Minotaur,
and he's gonna be giving us the flames.
Oh, do you hear it boiling, baby?
He pours hot sugar over ice,
and the little gaps form these great shapes
which become the flames.
Minotaur is awesome to do
because he was a scary, awful beast.
Hey, Shinmin,
you want to see my Candyman impression?
Of course I do.
[ As Candyman ] 30 minutes!
SUE: That was a scary 30 minutes.
[ Normal voice ] I scared myself.
Candyman.
I saw that movie.
Scary.
Sick on that movie.
Sick.
JON: How's it going, guys?
Time crunch. Time crunch.
Mark's doing the snakes,
and he's gonna make those out of modeling chocolate.
When you think of Medusa,
you think of a head full of snakes,
so he's got a lot on his plate.
I'm making the puddle.
Santosh is in charge of doing
the eyes and tongue on the snake
as well as the green ooze coming out of Medusa.
I'm carving Medusa's face very thin out of pumpkin
so Mark can work on the snakes
and I can attach it when we're finished.
God, my tools are digging into this too much.
There's a delicate balance and finesse
with the way that you have to handle these two mediums.
Oh, that's looking good, Mark.
JEFF: A lot of things, and a little time.
Sarah's going to be sculpting the entire head
and airbrushing it perfect.
All right, guys, so I'm making the eye right now
with red and a black pupil.
That would be great.
I'm in charge of the sugar eye,
the sugar tusks,
and some sugar rocks along the edges.
All right, Gabriel, how's that pumpkin working?
Is it gonna work out?
GABRIEL: It's gonna work.
Gabriel is gonna make a working chain out of pumpkin.
The chain-link pumpkin is definitely outside the box.
I've never seen it before.
Done.
That looks -- that is...
Never seen that before. I love 'em.
How you doing, B.?
BRIAN: Good, just trying to make him
a little more bony, a little scarier.
TERESA: Make him creepy. He's got to be creepy, guys.
I'm making the body and the head of the griffin.
I'm gonna make him out of modeling chocolate.
I got to make sure that it's scary.
You feeling good?
Feeling good.
And David's making the lair out of pumpkin.
Okay. I've got to start on these wings, guys.
BRIAN: Teresa's gonna make the wings of the griffin.
She takes a mold, dips it into the hot sugar,
and then casts it over a form
in order to get the shape of the wing.
Ah, that's gonna be awesome.
The sugar work is gonna blow everyone out of the water.
There's a lot of money at stake.
Teams, 15 minutes.
[ All groan ]
Oh! No! No! No!
GABRIEL: Sarah, how's that head sculpt coming along?
It's coming along.
BENNY: Airbrushing.
SUE: That's awesome.
ROBERT: Nice.
All right. You ready for me to brush him off?
Yes. Let's do this.
So, I'm carving out this face for Medusa.
You ready for the eyes?
Well, in a minute, I will be.
I've taken all the meat out from behind here
so that Santosh can get in these eyes.
[ Gasps ] [Bleep]
It broke in half!
[ Sighs ]
And then it just snaps.
MARK: What happened?
It broke.
I want to vomit.
This is it. It's over.
I can't start over. We're done.
[ Gasps ] [Bleep]
It broke in half!
[ Sighs ]
I can't start over.
I have to fix this.
I'm trying to pin it together with these sticks.
MARK: She just has to lay down, so that's fine.
Okay.
There's enough support.
She doesn't have to sit up.
JON: So, I take some wooden skewers,
pin that to the back part of the pumpkin.
This has got to work.
What do you guys think?
DAVE: Aw, that's bad, man.
That's tough. That's tough.
Creepy enough?
BRIAN: I'm done making the body and the head of the griffin,
and we got to get these wings into our griffin.
These sugar wings are incredibly delicate.
TERESA: Ugh, I broke part of the wing.
You broke it?
Yeah. I just broke that one.
I'm doing a little freaking out here.
Put the energy towards getting it done.
All right. I am. I'm trying.
Here we go -- 5 minutes.
Ah, there it is.
DAVE: It's a dark and grim pumpkin.
The horns just won't stay.
They want to slide down.
I just have to get sugar across the top, too.
SUE: We are making the Minotaur.
We're getting down to the last few minutes,
and these horns have to work.
The piece is ruined if the horns don't stay in.
ROBERT: I'm gonna have to put sugar across.
Yeah.
I'm gonna have to. That's cool. That's cool.
Okay. That's cool.
SARAH: I'm putting the eye in right now.
JEFF: We are making Cyclops.
The eye defines the beast.
I'm working on the teeth,
and Gabriel's doing the chain link,
and it looks great.
It's a working, moving chain!
WILLMAN: One minute!
That's it.
ROBERT: Red eyes, teeth,
some blood, and big guns.
JON: That looks fantastic.
Be very careful. Light hands.
TERESA: We got one shot at this, guys.
Mark, I need you to do a little bit of red, quickly.
Red -- red.
JEFF: Awesome!
I'm loving it!
SUE: Oh, those are fantastic!
I need more sugar underneath there.
Good.
See if we got it now.
WILLMAN: 10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1.
Time's up!
Boom!
Nice.
Great job. Look at that.
Check that sucker out, man.
[ Thunder crashes ]
Teams, for the Small Scare, we asked you each to give us
your most menacing interpretation
of a classic Greek monster.
Crypt Creepers, tell us what you did.
We have gone with the classic Greek Minotaur.
He's guarding the entrance to the labyrinth,
and he's waiting for his next victim.
We have these beautiful, pulled,
two-tone, twisted sugar horns,
poured-sugar blood,
and some pumpkin guts for the blood there.
Well, Shinmin, what do you think?
LI: I really love the duo tones in the horns.
I can tell that, while you were
twisting the sugar colors together,
you had really great control
because the two are very even.
I'm just not crazy about the fact that
I can see the extra sugar that was poured on afterwards
to really stabilize the heavy horns.
Brian, what about this spooks you?
In the effects world,
scale and proportion are very important,
and I think the scale of these horns
might have limited you.
Tony, what do you think?
Well, as an actor
and someone who has actually appeared in
a movie called "Minotaur" about seven years ago,
this is very frightening.
I love the airbrushing of the color.
This use of blood in both the teeth and the eyes
is very frightening to me.
Crypt Creepers, thanks, guys.
Nice work.
Thank you.
Skeleton Crew?
What we gave you is Medusa's head
the moment Perseus chopped it off --
using pumpkin for her face, carved.
The snakes are actually made out of modeling chocolate,
and then also sugar for the tongues and eyes
and Medusa's eyes and tongue as well.
There's some really nice design work here.
You've got the classic, glowing-green eyes --
That really sells it.
For me, though, I think,
even though it's a severed head, I would have liked to see
a little more life in the snakes.
Some of the ones towards the top have gone a bit limp.
As a cake artist, I am naturally inclined
to use fondant or pastillage,
but you have the advantage
of having a sugar artist on this team.
I think that using pulled sugar, you would have ended up
with thinner, stronger, longer snakes
with more permanent curl.
Tony, does this have the scare factor for you?
Uh...no.
What bothers me is that
there's a lack of femininity in the face of the pumpkin.
It almost looks like an old man.
Thank you, judges.
Skeleton Crew.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Team Psychotic Misfits, tell us about your griffin.
We decided that he was going to be
perched on top of a pumpkin,
which is actually the lair that he's protecting
with the treasures of gold and the rubies.
The pumpkin, of course, is the lair,
and the griffin is modeling chocolate.
Then, the wings are sugar.
My favorite part is the pumpkin.
The lines and cuts are so clean.
The coloring is just beautiful.
It really stands out to me.
I have a little bit of trouble with the creature itself.
I would have carved deeper, just to create more distinction
between the eagle face and the lion body.
Right now, it's a little soft for me.
I'm getting the scare from the pumpkin,
but the griffin is just still too cute for me.
There's a nice bit of contrast.
I like that he has a bit of an iridescent body,
beautiful wings,
but I'm just not getting the scare.
This is like a combination
of a prairie dog and a sparrow on top.
Now, the pumpkin is a little frightening,
but I did not get the treasure stuff on the bottom.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you guys.
BRIAN: It was the body and the head that didn't excite them,
and that was my part, so I'm disappointed.
And lastly, Team Black Magic.
JEFF: We put all of our efforts into making the character alive,
and hopefully the judges understand that.
How you guys doing?
Good.
What'd you bring us this time?
Well, here we have the Cyclops,
and he's bursting out from the depths of Hades
to exact revenge on the hero that sent him there.
So, we've got a sugar eye
as well as modeling chocolate
on top of rice-cereal treats.
We also have the environment
made out of pumpkin and sugar.
So, Brian...
what do you think?
This is scary.
I think there's a really nice,
uniform terrain here.
I get that he's escaped.
And those razor-sharp teeth are as terrifying
as any I've ever sculpted for a creature.
Initially I thought,
"I would not want to do the Cyclops,"
because it's really easy
to make him look cheesy and cartoony.
But he's absolutely frightening.
I'm just fascinated by the teeth,
and as an actor, it's like --
the character is something
I would love to sink my own into.
Good job, overall.
Black Magic, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Teams, we're gonna give our judges
a chance to discuss.
We'll meet back here in a few. Thanks.
JON: The judges didn't like our piece.
This was gonna be our big comeback.
What happened?
Our piece just wasn't scary enough,
but they thought the pumpkin was cool.
Teams, we asked each of you
for your grisliest interpretation
of a Greek mythological monster.
Some of you really delivered
the bone-chilling scares on this one,
while some of you, not so much.
You teams are really gonna have to step it up
if you want to stay competitive with this round's winner.
Congratulations...
...Team Black Magic.
You are once again the winner of the Small Scare.
Nice work.
You have earned an extra assistant
in the next round.
JEFF: We got the extra assistant again,
but we have to prove ourselves on the big one.
[ Thunder crashes ]
WILLMAN: You gave the judges
a real scare in the first round,
but they ain't seen nothing yet.
This next round, the Spine Chiller,
is gonna make them cry for mommy.
[ Thunder crashes ]
We want you to take a classic nursery rhyme...
[ "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" plays ]
...and then turn it on its terrifying head
[ Music distorts ]
by giving it a gruesome twist.
BRIAN: I'm pretty stoked.
Who better to take something simple
and make it really twisted than me?
One more very important thing --
every good story needs a treat.
Start with something that looks like
an ordinary children's treat on the outside,
but once the judges bite into it,
the flavor should give them the shock of their lives.
You have just five hours
to create the ultimate twisted nursery rhyme.
And the clock starts... now!
[ Siren blares ]
BRIAN: Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!
All right.
We got it.
Congratulations.
We won again, so I'm feeling really good.
What about "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man"?
SARAH: Let's put a Halloween spin on it,
and make a really big, scary witch.
A witch. That sounds like a great idea.
We are gonna do "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man."
Instead of there being a baker man,
there's gonna be a life-sized witch,
living in a dark, dreary kitchen
with pumpkin cauldrons with faces,
skulls with melting candles,
spiders all over the place.
I'm gonna focus solely on this witch.
I'm gonna go and exploit these pumpkins
as much as I can, really take my time.
I have got to start cooking some sugar down.
How about "Three Blind Mice"?
"They all chased after the butcher's wife."
Oh, I thought it was the farmer's wife.
Let's make it a butcher's wife 'cause that's scarier.
So, I can make the butcher's wife out of cake.
I just think she should have, like, a really big knife.
BRIAN: We're gonna make this twisted, grotesque scene
where there's three mice with their tails all chopped off,
and then have this very stylized butcher
just taunting them with their tails.
Pumpkin meat hanging on a big rack.
Let's do it. We only got five hours.
Let's get to work.
The judges have just really
knocked us the last two challenges,
so we really have to kick our game up a notch.
This time, there's no playing around.
We have to go over-the-top scary.
These judges have to be freaked out.
What about "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary"?
Yeah. What's a twist?
Maybe it's a graveyard.
We picked "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary."
She's watering the flowers in the graveyard,
and her undead victims are rising from the grave.
I'm gonna go start on Mary
and start working on the armature.
I'm gonna go get the pumpkins for the heads.
I've got to start cooking the sugar.
There you are!
We have a lot of work for you to do.
Grab some of this modeling chocolate
and start kneading it for me.
JEFF: We got the additional assistant,
and I'm glad we did because there's so much to do.
I'm going life-sized with this --
I want it to be big and scary.
Sarah's making the witch
out of modeling chocolate and rice-cereal treats.
Gabriel is responsible
for three talking cauldron pumpkins
that are enormous.
I'm making the sugar broom, bottles,
and some spiders all over the place.
I'll blow the body of the spider
and then pull the eight long legs.
They're gonna look freaky.
I got a nice, big pumpkin to start with, guys.
[ Saw whirring ]
All right. This is a big daddy.
WILLMAN: Four hours.
We've got an hour down.
Oh, my gosh. This is way too much work.
Big pumpkin, guys, for a little girl.
We landed on "Miss Muffet."
We want poor Miss Muffet to look like
she's about to see her last few minutes on earth.
Benny is carving the spider,
and he's doing all of that out of cake covered in fondant.
ROBERT: Lots of webbing.
I'm gonna have to do two tiers on the webbing.
Bob is creating the web
with poured sugar and spun sugar.
I'm making the spider legs
and "Little Miss Muffet" out of pumpkin.
This pumpkin's carving pretty good, guys.
I think we're gonna be okay.
The biggest risk we're taking
is that the web is gonna melt if it touches wet pumpkin.
Bob, this pumpkin's pretty wet.
I hope it doesn't melt all of your sugar.
These gravestones are gonna work out, guys.
JON: Mark's making the headstones
out of rice cereal, modeling chocolate, and fondant.
What kind of expression should I put on these heads?
SANTOSH: As creepy as possible.
We've got to scare the Candyman.
For this challenge, I'm carving
the undead maidens rising from the graves.
Santosh is in charge of the sugar flowers
and a brooch and a necklace for Queen Mary.
For the taste challenge, Santosh is making
a Bloody Mary peanut butter and jelly bar.
This is gonna be
the peanut butter and milk chocolate ganache
which goes on top of the Bloody Mary jelly.
Nice.
You need the stool? [ Chuckles ]
BRIAN: I'm about to.
BRIAN: I'm making the butcher's wife.
It's a really daunting task
because this thing is loaded with cake.
Brian, I'm gonna put this brioche in the fridge
so I can actually let it proof.
For our "Three Blind Mice" tasting element,
Teresa's making this really cool twist
on a PB&J sandwich.
She's making brioche for the bread,
a pomegranate jelly,
and a hazelnut crunchy spread.
DAVE: Guys, this thing is going to be one monster T-bone.
David's sawing up all these pumpkins
and making big steaks and whatnot
that we're gonna hang from the back of our riser.
And so, with the steaks, I mixed
a little bit of brown, a tad bit of pink,
and a little bit of ivory fondant together.
And that just kind of gives it that fat-meat kind of a look.
You even want to just pick one of those things up
and throw it on the grill, man.
It was like...protein!
I got the peanut ganache going,
got sugar cooking.
SUE: Bob is creating this incredible take on PB&J
using roasted peanuts,
milk-chocolate ganache,
strawberry gelée,
and sweet, vanilla crème and cheese curd.
Curds and whey.
That looks beautifully disgusting,
just as it should.
Yep.
[ Thunder crashes ]
WILLMAN: Teams!
You got three hours.
Three fricking hours.
Hot sugar.
SUE: Bob created poured sugar supports
to hold up this delicate web.
Here's these panels, Benny,
that we're gonna have to put on.
SUE: When I looked over,
I thought, "Oh, no! This is a disaster!"
ROBERT: Here's these panels, Benny,
that we're gonna have to put on.
This is a major setback for Bob.
It takes a long time to get these poured and cooled.
BENNY: Well, then put it together.
Got it.
Bob's gonna have to redo it.
I'm not sure how we're gonna fit everything in,
and that has to get up now.
I hope this marble table is thick enough
to pull the heat out of all this work.
DAVE: Just thinning out the bone.
Good thing witches are lumpy and bumpy.
BRIAN: Unusually enough, this structure's holding really well.
Okay. Don't break this one.
Don't break this one.
BENNY: No breaking nothing.
Come on, baby, get off.
Nice.
What genius.
For the tasting element this round,
I'm going to make a fig and walnut brownie
with a popping-candy caramel center
and a goat-cheese icing.
It's supposed to look like a classic childhood treat,
but give the judges a shock when they bite into it.
They'll never know what hit 'em underneath.
TERESA: What's happening, Brian?
Uh, the double chin -- I just don't think it's quite big enough.
The story we're telling is
the butcher's wife is taunting the three blind mice.
All right, guys. I'm buttercreaming the face.
So, I'm making the butcher's wife out of cake.
Everything about this woman is utterly disgusting.
And you just -- You make her menacing and scary.
JEFF: All right, Gabriel. How's it going over there?
GABRIEL: Very good. The face is almost roughed in.
Already?
Yep.
The environment has to be a character in our piece,
and instead of there being a baker man,
there's gonna be a witch.
This is taking longer than I anticipated.
SARAH: I'm feeling pretty good right now.
Sarah's doing a witch, and we need a witch
that's huge, menacing -- a classic witch.
I have got to start airbrushing.
ROBERT: We need to start getting a map out there.
Everything's got to be in the air.
We landed on "Miss Muffet."
In our version, Miss Muffet doesn't get away.
I need to start with this, guys, so...
Got to.
...I'm airbrushing.
SUE: I'm making the spider legs out of pumpkin,
and this is a real challenge because they have to be light,
and pumpkin is wet, so it's very, very heavy.
I will have the other half of the spider
ready for you as soon as I can.
I cut all four legs at once.
Jon, Santosh, how you doing?
I'm good.
Yeah. I'm tense.
I'm tense.
I feel like I'm getting a little behind.
"Mary, Mary" is our nursery rhyme.
Mark has to focus on making sure
that Mary's dress is extremely realistic
and proportionate with the head and the hands.
Anybody who sculpts knows what we're up against.
It's got to look great.
I mean, she's the main character.
I agree.
TERESA: I am not behind schedule, no.
I am on schedule,
but I haven't done the mice yet, so...
maybe I'm behind schedule.
BRIAN: That scares me.
So, I think we have about an hour and a half left,
and Teresa hasn't even started the three blind mice.
[ Laughs ]
I'm totally freaking out
because this is the story.
I mean, it's really not the butcher's wife --
Or the butcher in this case.
It's the fact that these mice have had their tails cut off.
So, are you saying you might need help doing a mouse?
I might need some help.
All right.
No time for mistakes left.
Okay. I'm on it.
None.
This is the size of our ribs.
Do it.
T-rex.
MARK: I'll fix the neck, and then you work on your pumpkins.
That looks like flesh.
JEFF: Perfect.
Sadly, not every nursery rhyme has a happy ending.
You've got one hour left!
One hour! Oh, my gosh.
DAVE: Yeah, man. I don't like hearing that.
SUE: I'm making the spider legs.
BENNY: Uh, one leg just went down.
We lost a leg.
And the leg starts to come off, and it's not holding.
I've got to make this work, and I've got to fix it now.
I'm gonna have to drill
and make sure it's sturdy enough.
And I can't see what I'm doing inside the cake.
It has to hold it.
It has to work.
It has to.
TERESA: Nope. No sugar hair. No time.
BRIAN: We have almost no time left,
and then I've got to airbrush all these details on.
I was really stressed out.
DAVE: Hit that really quick. Just a couple shadows.
That's way too big.
Way too -- yeah.
Dude! Quit moving!
No, I'm saying not too close.
Yeah, there you go. Easy.
I know,
but when you move it, it jacks me up.
We're racing against the clock.
David's jabbing at me, and I'm so frustrated.
Dude, did you -- Who the hell white painted
that front of this piece of meat like that?
What piece?
This.
I did.
That's terrible. Don't --
Dude, it's a fricking line! Chill out!
Please do me a favor and just, next time,
don't jump on the pieces I'm working on, all right,
unless we ask for each other's help?
No, I mean, I got to be able to move!
It pisses me off!
If he doesn't stop arguing with me,
I'm gonna set him on fire.
Just saying, dude, you completely ruined my paint job.
'Course I did.
I painted one line.
"Of course you did" nothing. Don't say it like that.
But you did. It looks [bleep]
I'm done, David. Shut up.
I got to be able to move!
It pisses me off!
BRIAN: If he doesn't stop arguing with me,
I'm gonna set him on fire.
Just saying, dude, you completely ruined my paint job.
'Course I did. I painted one line.
"Of course you did" nothing. Don't say it like that.
But you did. It looks [bleep]
I'm done, David. Shut up.
Even with all this dysfunction,
we have to work together as a team in order to win.
It's all right, man. Breathe it in and out.
It's part of the game.
I will.
Let me just chill down, dude.
TERESA: It's okay, Brian. It's okay.
Shake it off, buddy. Shake it off.
Who's it gonna be? 30 minutes!
I'm gonna use some shredded coconut
to make the grass.
MARK: That would be great.
May need a touch-up, but I think he's going back on.
JEFF: You want to tell me what you think, Gabriel?
GABRIEL: Right in front of her.
MARK: You just plop her on, I'll fix the neck,
and then you work on your pumpkins.
Hey, guys, the fangs are in,
and they're looking good.
Bob was putting the spun sugar on for the web.
I couldn't believe how similar it looked and felt
to a real spider web.
Where's the brown?
DAVE: I'm spraying the rope first.
[Bleep] man.
I got to do the arms.
There. That's better.
DAVE: Come on, guys. Come on, guys.
Finish up. Let's finish strong.
One minute!
I'm going in the middle one.
SUE: That's it. The more web the better.
Everywhere you can put it.
MARK: Stick 'em in, Jon.
Stick 'em in.
JON: Yeah, I'm trying.
WILLMAN: 10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
2...
1.
Time is up!
ROBERT: Yeah, baby.
Nice.
Nice.
Time's up.
Nice.
Wow. What do you think?
I think it looks good.
That is intense, man.
That's huge.
I'm not sure that the judges are gonna get the style.
It's certainly not as clean as we really wanted it to be.
I honestly don't think we have a shot of winning.
[ Thunder crashes ]
[ Thunder crashes ]
So, teams, we asked you to take
a charmingly innocent nursery rhyme,
and then terrifyingly reinvent it
for Halloween.
Hello, Crypt Creepers.
Hello.
Please, tell us a story.
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider, and sat down beside her,
and convinced Miss Muffet to stay.
Our spider's body and head
are all made out of cake.
The spider legs and Miss Muffet
are carved out of pumpkin.
And there is pulled sugar all over the piece.
ROBERT: The treat tonight is a peanut chocolate ganache,
and the gelée on top is strawberry,
and the twist here is the spilled whey.
I like the mix of the savory and the sweet.
I definitely tasted the peanut butter and jelly element.
LI: I would prefer to have
a little bit more texture to the ganache,
perhaps a little bit more of a bite or a chew
because the entire piece is very soft.
Well, let's talk about
this terrifying fairy tale here.
"Little Miss Muffet" is part
of this Old English, classic environment.
I think that perhaps you could have spent more time
perhaps creating a backdrop to the environment
because right now, it's quite sparse.
When creating a character, I like to know that
I'm using the right materials for the right job,
and I see that there's
a lot of detail in the spider's legs,
but I think maybe even using a different material,
like the fondant, may have saved time
and allowed you to maybe explore
adding a little more to this.
Thank you, judges.
Crypt Creepers. Thanks, guys.
Team Black Magic,
tell us a twisted tale, please.
The nursery rhyme that we chose
was "Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake."
Our twist on it, though, is that our baker is a witch.
The witch is made of rice-cereal treats and cake,
and the pumpkins, of course, are hand carved.
And then we have a sugar broom,
the sugar pillars on the side,
blown-sugar spiders.
We also have the eyeball cake in the back
that's done with fondant and modeling chocolate.
And what tasty treats has she baked us?
The treat that we chose is walnut and dried fig brownie,
and it has some popping-candy caramel in the center.
This was a really multi-dimensional experience.
My favorite part of it is really the pop candy,
and I love how that is hidden in a really chewy caramel,
and so it's completely unexpected.
This is a very classic Halloween tableau.
This is some of the best carving I've ever seen --
great pumpkins, nice use of highlight and shadow.
The only thing is, with any project I create,
the distressing and the aging has to be uniform throughout.
I'm sensing age and distress from most of this.
I need to see that the vines are distressed,
even the pumpkins.
LI: I feel this is a real far stretch
from the nursery rhyme.
Yes, you've created a witch instead of a baker's man,
but it could be any story.
If you want to stay here on "Halloween Wars,"
you're really gonna have to pull together
and create a very uniform scene
and ask yourself, "is anything not fitting in?"
I love the details like the broom up top.
Although they're very detailed and very beautiful,
I really want and I expect more
for my scare to be complete.
Thank you, judges.
Black Magic, thank you.
I was confident before their critique,
but now we might be going home.
Team Skeleton Crew, tell us a story.
The rhyme we chose was "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,"
and it's actually based on Queen Mary,
whose nickname was Bloody Mary.
So, Mary is actually made out of rice-cereal treat
along with the gravestones.
We have crushed cereal and crushed sandwich cookies
for the dirt,
shredded, colored coconut for the grass,
gum paste and sugar flowers,
and we also have pumpkins that are made out of the undead.
What treats does Mary grow?
I have a peanut butter and jelly bar.
Strawberry "Bloody Mary" jelly
with peanut butter ganache.
LI: When you bite into it, it's really beautiful,
and then the flavors are very well pronounced.
Perhaps I would like a little bit more tart
from the strawberry jelly.
Well, Bloody Mary's a fantastic character.
I love the wry, twisted smile she's got on her face.
It really sells it all.
The distressing of the dress really ties it together.
I notice that,
Mark, you worked on the body of Bloody Mary
and, Jon, you worked on the head,
and it's so seamless that I'm floored.
I cannot tell that that was done by two people.
I'm also a veteran "Night of the Living Dead,"
and I love the detail in their faces.
Each one is different.
Skeleton Crew, thank you.
Hello, Psychotic Misfits.
For our nursery rhyme, we picked "Three Blind Mice."
Instead of putting it in the farmer's wife,
we had it the butcher's wife.
The butcher's wife is made out of cake,
and that is all cake in there.
As you can see, the pastillage knife,
and in the back we have carved-pumpkin meat
that is hanging off these hooks.
The mousetraps right here
are actually adorned with the treat for today,
which is a homemade brioche and a pomegranate jelly
that has a little pepper in it.
Unfortunately, I wasn't crazy about
the flavor of the brioche.
There was a slight bitterness to it,
but the hazelnut spread was really great.
Really nice mix of flavors.
Went down very easy.
I love taking it to the butcher's kitchen.
The steaks are super realistic looking,
so the attention to the detail is great.
What's really, really good is that butcher's knife,
the perspective of that.
It's dangerous.
It's just the right amount of viscera. There's layers.
In my work, I never use just one color of blood,
and neither did you.
There's many, many bloods in there.
One thing I might have liked to see is,
since she lopped the tails off the mices,
maybe a bit of viscera on the knife,
but otherwise, beautiful, beautiful piece.
Thank you very much.
Psychotic Misfits, thank you.
Well, teams,
we're gonna give our judges a chance to discuss.
We'll bring you back in a bit. Thank you.
My heart's pounding. My palms are sweating.
We really need a morale boost right now.
We've come this far, and we deserve to stay.
[ Thunder crashing ]
[ Evil laughter ]
Judges, we gave these teams the clear mission
of taking some of our most beloved nursery rhymes
and just turning them on their heads,
and I think, for the most part,
they knocked it out of the park.
You guys are gonna have a very tough decision.
Black Magic took "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man."
LI: We keep giving them the same note --
there's a real lack of cohesion.
The sugar's brand-new looking,
and the rest of the creations are aged
but almost on a different level.
And also, I think the premise was a little bit thin.
The only characteristic I got from the rhyme
was a cake with a "B" on it.
Sarah, she's an amazing sculptor.
That face is terrifying.
Shinmin, Team Black Magic gave you a treat
that, it seemed like, was one of your favorites.
The goat-cheese topping --
I didn't expect to like it.
That was really unexpected.
I didn't expect to like that either,
but there were so many layers.
It was probably my favorite treat.
WILLMAN: Crypt Creepers took
the "Little Miss Muffet" story.
What do you think?
The spider itself is really beautiful.
It has great presence,
and I wish that there was more of that in the piece.
It was a really nice contrast
between the cute "Little Miss Muffet"
and this giant, evil spider.
There was a lot of flow. I liked the webs.
But I wanted to know where I was.
I wanted to be in a spider's lair,
or maybe a larger web,
have a little bit more of the environment.
They should have used their creativity
to create a decent backdrop
that would have maybe galvanized everything together.
They had the advantage of curds and whey
being a part of their nursery rhyme.
Did it work for you?
I appreciate them incorporating
the ingredients into the nursery rhyme.
That was great.
Psychotic Misfits took the "Three Blind Mice" story.
I didn't expect to like this piece.
This definitely had that graphic-novel style,
and it made up for the fact that
this is the same face from the previous Small Scare
and their previous Spine Chiller.
They definitely have a distinct style,
and I'd like to see them get out of that a little bit.
The elements are tying together pretty seamlessly.
The longer I looked at it, the more story I found.
But can they go elsewhere?
Yeah, they gave us more than a treat --
they almost gave you guys a meal.
TODD: I liked the juxtaposition of the hazelnut
and the pomegranate and the spicy pepper,
but it just needed to be less for me.
LI: It was missing pop,
and perhaps if it were smaller
and I could pop it in my mouth,
I would be able to taste
all the elements together.
Next up is Skeleton Crew
with their take on "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary."
In my work, every department
has to work together seamlessly, and they did.
I can't tell where one begins and one ends.
LI: What I really loved is that
Mark created so much texture in the fondant clothing.
He created lots of folds and pleats in the skirt.
The arms are moving.
The pinky was sticking up.
She was active.
She was about to come to life.
Absolutely. There was a lot of flow to her character --
the aged fabric, the movement to it.
Detail, detail, detail.
I mean, look at her face.
Let's talk about their tasting element.
That was a beautiful bite.
There's such clear levels of color and textures and taste.
And he absolutely knows his portions.
I finish his treat every time.
It's just the right amount.
Well, judges, you guys get
to decide how this story ends.
Do we have a winner?
Yeah.
All right.
I'll bring back the teams.
Teams, your assignment today
was to take a children's nursery rhyme
and infuse it with terror,
and the judges want to applaud each and every one of you.
This is a beautifully disturbing bunch of displays.
From Team Black Magic's
brilliant carving and spot-on detail
to Skeleton Crew's flawless
"Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" with its zombie surprise.
And then there was Team Psychotic Misfits
with their horrifying take on "Three Blind Mice"
complete with outstanding detail
as well as Crypt Creepers'
delicately flowing sugar spider webs.
The judges felt that one team above all others
was able to blend their work so seamlessly
that it was impossible to separate
the different facets of pumpkin, cake, and candy.
Congratulations...
...Skeleton Crew.
Yeah!
You're the winners
of the second battle of "Halloween Wars."
Nice work.
We won!
This was a major redemption for us.
I mean, we are pumped up now
to try and just take this whole thing.
WILLMAN: Which means now comes the bad news.
For one of you, this nursery rhyme
does not end with "happily ever after."
The team going home had moments of true brilliance,
but the overall piece just did not have enough
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the competition.
The team leaving tonight is...
...Crypt Creepers.
I'm sorry, guys. You're done in the war.
SUE: My heart just dropped
when I found out that we were leaving.
This has been a really intense experience,
and I know that we have a lot more in us.
Three teams survive.
Two battles left to determine a champion.
And, guys, from here on out,
this competition will be pure carnage.
We'll see you next time on "Halloween Wars."
[ Thunder crashes ]
BRIAN: We have to step it up to stay in,
and I'm just not sure if
we're all gonna pull together to make that happen.
Two down, two to go.
At this point, it's anyone's game.
JON: We're heading into the third battle.
We have our confidence up. We're really pumped.
We have what it takes to take it all the way.
WILLMAN: Next time on "Halloween Wars"...
This is it.
Who wins and who loses
comes down to a millimeter's difference.
BRIAN: Come on! Hurry, please!
MAN: Watch out! Watch out!
Have to make this one count.
BRIAN: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
DAVE: It's not going anywhere.
If we don't come together as a team,
we're not gonna win.
I don't even know where the front of it is.
I think we're in big trouble.
JON: I can't --
Hold on. Hold on.
DAVE: This is not how I envisioned it, guys.
It's completely chaotic.