Hollywood Gothique

You are browsing the archives of 2009 September.

Replacing Fearplex (which was sold off after the death of owner Bob Koritzke), the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds offers this new Halloween haunt, which runs the last three weekends in October. Nightmare at Scareview Farms offers three mazes located in the fairgrounds’ Big Red Barn: Pirate of the Dead Seas, The Vampire Vault, and the [...]

We shot over a half hour of footage at Old Town Haunt in Pasadena this past Friday (we reviewed the event here); in fact, we  cam away with so much good footage that we decided to dice it up into two separate videos. The first is a sort of behind-the-scenes preview, featuring interviews with proprietors [...]

Just a reminder that the annual Shriekfest festival runs from Friday through Sunday this week. There will be numerous world premiers of independent horror films, and some question-and-answer sessions with filmmakers. All events take place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, except for the opening night party on Thursday, which takes place at Hollywood Billiards.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1st
8:00 [...]

John Casella, who helped design and build Spooky House, writes in to clarify the details about what is happening with that haunt and the other Halloween properties once owned by the late Bob Koritzke. Basically, it sounds as if elements of those attractions will be incorporated into this year’s Haunted Queen Mary:
Due to the unexpected death [...]

Pasadena’s underground lair of scares is bigger and better than ever.
Hollywood Gothique began its Halloween Season 2009 with a trip out to Pasadena to enjoy the frightful fear-mongering located in the lower depths of the Old Town Haunt. Since its inception in 2005, this underground walk-through maze has consistently been one of the best Halloween [...]

Circumstances beyond our control prevents us from attending the opening of Knotts Scary Farm last night. Fortunately, a Hollywood Gothique reader writes in with his impression. The news is not as good as one might have hoped:
I just came back from opening night of Knott’s Halloween Haunt, and Zombieland was disappointingly nowhere to be found. [...]

Knotts Scary Farm officially launched Halloween Season 2009 last night, getting a jump on the competition. Not wanting to be left behind, four other Halloween haunts are opening today: Old Town Haunt in Pasadena, the Halloween Harvest Festival near Pierce College in Chatsworth, and Disneyland Halloween Time and The Empty Grave, both in Anaheim.

The Sacred Heart Church’s Youth Ministry presents “The Catacombs: A 3D Haunt” for two days in October, the 23rd and 24th. Haunting since 2004, this amateur Halloween event, set up in the Youth Center behind the church, is designed to provide fun for the local kids, while bringing in money and food donations. The proprietors promise “a [...]

The Beacon House Association of San Pedro offers a “Nightmare on Beacon Street,” an annual Community Halloween Haunt including a maze, a street fair, dancing, contests, food, and entertainment. Suitable for the whole family. This annual Halloween event has been produced by the for over twenty years, providing a safe way for the community to [...]

Previously I mentioned that Old Town Haunt in Pasadena will be getting a helping hand this year from some of the people involved in last year’s one-shot newbie Halloween attractions, Skull Kingdom. Now I hear about even more changes at Old Town Haunt. The proprietors have been able to purchase additional rooms, previously unavailable, in order [...]

[ October 25, 2009; 7:30 pm; ] Joel Hodgson – creator of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 – brings his latest project, Cinematic Titanic, to Los Angeles for five nights of live shows in October. Joel and other former castmates from MST3K will riff on a different infamously bad cult movies each night:

SUNDAY OCT. 25th , 7:30pm– “LEGACY OF BLOOD.” See the first-time [...]

[ September 24, 2009; 11:59 pm; ] As part of a series of free midnight screenings coordinated with the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, Oren Pelli’s micro-budget 2007 supernatural thriller will screen at midnight in the Arclight Cinemas Hollywood. (Other screenings are in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Seattle.)

The following evening, PARANORMAL AC TIVITY will begin limited release midnight screenings [...]

Rotten Apple 907’s theme for Halloween 2009 is “Burbank Underground” (”It all floats down here”). This imaginative amateur yard haunt is one of the more elaborate Halloween events in Los Angeles, featuring a spooky walk-through maze that is fairly family-friendly, although a bit too intimidating for very young children. Their annual theme shifts from year [...]

Here is another news tidibit for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. This year, the Chiller-Eyegore Awards – which take place on HHN’s opening night, October 2 – will honor makeup artist Rick Baker for his lifetime achievements in the horror genre, which include AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) and the upcoming THE WOLF [...]

Believe it or not, the 2009 Hallowen season begins this week. As usual, the annual Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt gets a jump on the competition by opening on the last Thursday of the month, September 24. After that, the haunted theme park attraction runs Wednesdays through Sundays until October 31. Even if you went last [...]

The 9th annual Shriekfest, the Los Angeles International Horror-Thriller-SciFi-Fantasy Film Festival and Screenplay Competition, offers another showcase for established and up-and-coming filmmakers and writers this October. Running from Thursday through Sunday, October 1 through 4, Shriekfest’s 2009 lineup includes such familiar faces as Jeffry Combs in DARK HOUSE, Ving Rhames in EVIL ANGEL, Dameon Clarke and Matthew [...]

In a recent post, I noted the changes taking place at the Haunted Queen Mary for Halloween 2009: new management, new mazes, lower tickets prices. But what of Shipwreck Productions, the company that haunted the ship for the previous forteen years (under the banner of the “Queen Mary TerrorFest”)? On their MySpace page (www.myspace.com/queenmaryshipwreck) they [...]

PONYO – Hayao Miyazaki’s anime adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” – has completed its run at the Arclight Hollywood, the Bridge Cinema De Luxe, and the AMC Loews Broadway 4 in Santa Monica. As of October 2, the only theatre near Los Angeles that is still screening the movie is Edwards Simi [...]

Dates: October 16-18, 23-25, 29-31
Location: L.A. Live Steamers at Griffith Park – 5202 Zoo Drive – Los Angeles, CA 90027 (323) 662-8030
Looking for a kid-safe way to enjoy Halloween in Los Angeles? Well, look no further! This family-friendly ride is the perfect Halloween event for children – spooky enough to be fun but not the least bit scary.

More sad news: The Witch’s Castle – the superbly spooky but family friendly yard haunt in Studio City – will not be open for Halloween 2009. Even worse new, unlike the temporary hiatus of Jackson Manor (mentioned here), the Witch Castle is probably gone for good. Now, all we have left are the memories.
Well, at [...]

Sad news: Jackson Manor – a nifty yard haunt in Burbank – will not be opening its crypt for Halloween 2009. Fortunately, the news is not as bad as it might have been: the official website has been down for months, leading us to fear that the haunt was gone for good; however, proprietor informs us that he is merely taking the year off and will have a new website and a resurrected yard haunt for Halloween 2010.

In the meantime, you can console yourselves with a glimpse of Jackson Manor’s past glories in this attached video, which is Part 2 of our 2005 Halloween Haunt Odyssey. Enjoy!

There are big changes taking place in Long Beach for this Halloween. Shipwreck Productions’ old “Queen Mary TerrorFest” has morphed into “Shipwreck Halloween Located at the Haunted Queen Mary,” which bills itself as “15 Nights of Terror,” featuring “Haunted Attractions & All-Night Parties.” The Queen Mary has long offered one of the biggest Halloween events in Los [...]

The Haunt with No Name Yet will be returning for its eighteenth year this October. Located in Tarzana, this atmospheric Halloween yard haunt will be open for three nights: October 30 (7-10pm), October 31 (dusk to 11:00pm), and November 1 (7-10pm).
The Haunt with No Name Yet is not as loaded with mechanical effects as some [...]