MGWCC crossword 4:10
meta 5ish 
[3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
hello, and welcome to episode #909 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, a week 5 puzzle that came out on halloween—in other words, the most terrifying possible set of circumstances for a MGWCC. the puzzle is called “Scary Movie”, and the instructions this week ask for a descriptor for some scary films. what are the theme answers? there are six longish answers in the grid whose clues all contain a number set off by a double hyphen:
- {Uninvited guest — 1} GATECRASHER.
- {No-goodnik — 2} MISCREANT.
- {Went down — 3} DECREASED.
- {Utterly destroy — 4} EVISCERATE.
- {Made smart-alecky comments — 5} WISECRACKED.
- {Make holy — 6} CONSECRATE.
the six numbers are the numbers 1 to 6, so i’ve put them in that order above even though they are not ordered in the grid. it seemed likely from the start that this would be the correct ordering for extraction of the final meta answer.
what about the theme answers themselves? well, they all contain a five-letter sequence that is a rearrangement of the word SCARE. this wasn’t, like, blindingly obvious at first, but for a week 5 it did seem a little more findable than some mechanisms i can think of. (for example, this month’s week 3, which i never got anywhere near.) it’s at least evident from looking at these six words that they have a lot of the same letters, and then the SCARE thing made sense in the context of the puzzle title, instructions, and overall setting. i guess it’s possible that the last across clue {Jump-scare in horror movies, e.g.} TROPE was also intended as a hint, though i don’t think it was needed as such.
the next thing i noticed was that if you take out those five letters, what’s left spells a word in all six cases: GATHER, MINT, DEED, EVITE, WICKED, and CONTE. one of those is even a movie (though not a horror movie), but at any rate, now i do think we were indeed hinted to “jump” the arrangement of SCARE in these answers.
the next (and last) step is familiar enough: there’s a clue in the puzzle that could work for each of these six new words. actually, in some cases, more than one, but let’s take a look:
- GATHER was actually the last one i found. i believe it’s {Get together for a purpose} RALLY. at first i wanted it to be {Gets together} COLLECTS but the verb agreement doesn’t work.
- MINT is {Flavoring for some ice cream} RUM.
- DEED is {Undertaking} ACT.
- EVITE is {Party-thrower’s tool, often} TONGS. indeed, this is a much better clue for EVITE than it is for TONGS.
- WICKED is {Just plain bad} EVIL.
- CONTE is {Italian noble title} DOGE.
reading off the first letters of the answers to those clues gives R RATED, which is indeed a descriptor for some scary films. i hope nobody submitted CRATED, which is a word (and what you would have gotten by having COLLECTS instead of RALLY), but not really one that fits the prompt.
i enjoyed this meta, but i was expecting a significantly more difficult puzzle, if i’m being honest—it felt more PG-13 to me. not that i’m complaining, mind you! i’m pleased to have collected the last two MGWCC achievement badges i was missing, too spooky (solve a puzzle on halloween) and nothing scarier (solve a week 5 on halloween). overall, 300+ solvers are listed on the leaderboard, so that is indeed a lot for a week 5—more treat than trick, certainly.
if you didn’t get the nothing scarier achievement, i believe you will have one more chance in 2026, which will also be a five-friday october. indeed, you’ll have 24 extra hours to solve that week 5, as the 5th friday will be october 30 and then you can submit your correct answer on saturday the 31st.
that’s all i’ve got this week. hope everyone had a happy halloween, however you observed it!
Thanks, joon –367 right answers this week.
In retrospect I should’ve left out the “jump-scare” hint in the omega-Across clue. My original intention was to do just that, but then I got nervous on Friday morning that if you don’t happen to know that term then the puzzle would be — maybe not unsolvable, but the mechanism wouldn’t make much sense. So I chickened out and put the “jump-scare” mention right in that clue. I figured it would raise the correct # of entries of course, but not as drastically as it did.
I for one am glad to see so many people are fans of the achievements!
Puzzle: MGWCC; Rating: 3.5 stars
I got everything right except the one for GATHER. I remembered (incorrectly) COLLECT, and wrote the C in.
Later I googled C-Rated and found it is a thing, which generally means you have to be 18 (though in some places in means for children)
So, that’s what I submitted. Later, I remembered the clue for RALLy and said, “Oh, s**t!”
As Joon said:
GATHER was actually the last one i found. i believe it’s {Get together for a purpose} RALLY. at first i wanted it to be {Gets together} COLLECTS but the verb agreement doesn’t work.
I think it a flaw in the clueing that two clues work except for the distinction of verb agreement.
Seems to me that the 2 badges “Solve a Week 5 puzzle on Halloween” and “Solve a puzzle on Halloween” are redundant, becasue there’s no way Halloween can fall on anything but a 5th Friday. I don’t agree with Joon’s example for 2026, that submitting an answer on Halloween for a puzzle published on the 30th counts as “solving a puzzle on Halloween” (correct me if I’m wrong, Matt!), hence the next opportunity for either badge will be in 2031.
I do agree with Joon that relative to most Week 5’s, this was a gimme, but I’ll take it.
I don’t think the achievements are redundant and I’m definitely with Joon on the ability to “solve” the week 5 by submitting the day after it’s published (ie Saturday after Friday the 30)
I think “solve” is synonymous with “submit” in this case. So you could submit an answer on Tuesday October 31 from a week 4 puzzle that was published on Friday October 27. That gets you one achievement but not the other.
Barring arbitration from Matt, we’ll have to agree to disagree…I didn’t submit until Nov. 2nd, yet I still got credit for both badges, which argues for solve date being publication date.
The next chance to directly test whether submit date counts will be for the Ada badge for solving on Feb. 3rd…that’s a Tuesday next year, within the submission time frame for the Week 5 puzzle on Jan, 30th. I don’t have that badge, and have set an Outlook reminder to submit on Feb. 3rd (presuming, of course, I can solve that Week 5, which is not a high-probablility event!)
And what if the publication date is delayed? Not that that would ever happen, of course ;-), but say for the sake of argument that last week’s puzzle didn’t come out until November 1st…is it still a “Halloween” puzzle? Suppose the upcoming puzzle scheduled for Dec. 19th doesn’t publish until the 21st, and the submission deadline is extended from Tuesday, the 23rd to Thursday, the 25th, would you get the Christmas badge for submitting then?