PUZZLE #22: Movie Monster Mash

       





The picture above is part of a really bizarre set of Halloween postcards that I recently found from this old Buzzfeed article. I couldn’t tell if this one was a joke or an actual, unintentionally hilarious vintage postcard — I’m leaning towards the former — but either way, it’s going up here.

So, puzzle time! This one’s my first Super-Spicy themed offering. I have to give some credit to another constructor, but I don’t want to give too much away — in fact, I highly recommend that you stop reading now and go solve the puzzle first. I’ll give you one more sentence to warn you to stop reading now………finished??? Okay. I’ll just say that this puzzle is probably my most Blindaueresque one to date, and borrows a similar trick that Patrick used in a puzzle last year. Patrick, by the way, wrote this week’s meta suite for the New York Times. You probably knew that already. But if you haven’t gotten around to solving his meta challenge, you have until 6 pm ET tonight to do it and submit your answer to crossword@nytimes.com. Get on ‘er right quick!

Some final announcements:

1) There’s another indie crossword constructor in town. Chris King has a new website appropriately called Chris Words, where he publishes a new puzzle every Sunday. Unlike many indie puzzlemakers who break into the mainstream by getting a byline in a big paper like the New York Times and then building a website, Chris did it the other way by building his site first. Check out his latest puzzle here.

2) My first funding drive for Devil Cross is now complete. Thank you a million times to everyone who donated, blogged about it, spread the word, and solved the bonus puzzles. It means a lot to me.

Happy Halloween, and enjoy today’s puzzle. There will be a new one on November 8.

Update, 10/26/14 @ 2:15 pm ET: The link to the PUZ file was originally broken, but it should be fixed now.