Trick or treat!

When I filled in my first of the 15's in Jim Hyres' Halloween-day NYT puzzle, DOWN FOR THE COUNT, I thought "Aha! A Dracula theme." Then it crossed SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, and I thought "Ah, surely there will be a ghost and a witch, too." As it turned out, the theme was commands to a dog, so I was tricked, but with fill like I GUESS SO and a vertical 15 intersecting three horizontal 15's, it was also a treat. There was no ghost, but there was a HAG, and HMOS can be pretty scary, too.

Updated:

Anyone know if the LA Times puzzles are still going to be made available in Across Lite, or if they'll be exclusively available through a crapplet™? (That's what I'm calling any Java crossword applet that isn't the NYT's elegant and easy-to-maneuver-in applet.) Crapplets irk me, so I generally don't do puzzles in that format.

And updated again, Monday evening:

Gary Steinmehl's Sun puzzle had the Halloween theme I was expecting in the NYT, with movie titles like GHOSTBUSTERS. Interestingly enough, THE VAMPIRE BAT crosses VAMPED, and SKELETON COAST crosses KEY. (Man, I loved that skeleton key to the attic at my grandparents' when I was a kid.) Intentional or coincidental? And right in the middle of the grid is George TAKEI, who played Sulu on "Star Trek." He was in the news last week for talking about his coming out, among other topics, in this interview. (He also discusses being a child in the internment camps for Japanese-Americans.)

NYS 3:35
CS 3:11
NYT 3:00
LAT tba