Hollywood Gothique

You are browsing the archives of 2009 October.

The fourth installment of our video tour through the Haunted Queen Mary’s Shipwreck Halloween event takes us aboard ship and into the House of Horrors. The “House of Horrors” theme is a little generic – basically, anything ghastly or gruesome will do – but, like the Isolation Ward, this is a maze that takes advantage of [...]

You have idled away the Halloween season; your best of intentions have dwindled away to almost nothing, and now you find yourself on October 31 with too little time and too many haunts. You cannot get to all of them on Halloween night, and unfortunately most are not taking advantage of the weekend to stay open an extra day on November 1. What are you going to do? How can you prioritize? Well, it is your great good fortunate that you are reading this article, because we are about to enumerate 2009’s must-see Halloween events in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. These are the best Halloween haunts, rides, and mazes – the ones you will regret missing if you do not make the extra effort necessary to enter their murky portals before the witching hour sounds tonight. Be bold and brave, dear traveller, and as you ride through the night, urged on by ghosts and goblins, do not despair of reaching your final destination before dawn, for remember: “the Dead travel fast….”

Nightmare at Scareview Farms is the new Halloween attraction at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, replacing Fearplex(which was sold off after the death of owner Bob Koritzke) Located in the fairgrounds’ Big Red Barn (instead of the stadium that housed Fearplex), Nightmare at Scare View Farms offers three mazes, which benefit from the vast expanse of available space, creating wide open environments quite different from the claustrophobic confines of most walk-through Halloween haunts. The results are not as intense as in some scare factories, but they are frightening in a fun sort of way that should appeal to families as long as their children are not too easily frightened (recommended age is over twelve). Also, Halloween fans looking for something besides the usual chainsaw-killer-in-the-corridor approach will appreciate the distinctive approach.

Our third video from the Haunted Queen Mary’s 2009 Halloween celebration is the first one that actually takes you aboard ship – into the Isolation Ward. As the name implies, this maze suggests an insane asylum, and you can bet that the inmates don’t stay in isolation for very long! As with all the mazes aboard [...]

The American Cinematheque invites you to spend All Hallow’s Eve at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Starting at 7:30pm, you can thrill all-night long to a series of horror films guaranteed to give even the sturdiest neves a shudder: Wes Craven’s THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, George A. ROmero’s DAY OF THE DAD, Brian Yuzna’s SOCIETY, David Cronenberg’s THE BROOD, William Lustig’s MANIAC, and Norman J. Warren’s THE TERROR.

For some reason, the people who put on Halloween haunts seem to never tire of Killer Klown mazes. We’re a little tired of the theme, but we understand how it can work in a theme park with multiple mazes, providing a brightly colored contrast to the darker, spookier attractions. The Psychedelic Killer Klown maze at [...]

Running out of ways to celebrate the October season? Or are you simply looking for a different kind of way to enjoy Halloween in Los Angeles? Well, you’re in luck! Here are a handful of last-minute additions to our monthly Calendar of Events: Slly Spectre: The Musical, Halloween Spook-tacular at Universal City Walk, a screening of NOSFERATU at Walt Disney Concert Hall accomanpied by a live musical performance, and several costume masquerades.

Here is our first video of the Long Beach Halloween attraction, featuring a walk through Vampire Village and the Graveyard of Lost Souls. Although set on land, Vampire VIllage is located in the old Fishing Village, whose architecture is well suited to creating a wonderful old-fashioned Gothic ambiance perfectly suited to a Halloween haunt.

Here is our video walk-through of Horror on Frankel Street’s 2009 haunt, “Dark Carnival.” In the past, we have expressed some reservations about the proliferation of clown mazes during the Halloween season, but we have to admit that we enjoyed several this year, including Dark Carnival. An amateur effort located in a back yard, Horror [...]

The Los Angeles County Zoo’s website asks you to “Have a safe and spooky Halloween weekend at the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens, where fun festivities take place throughout the Zoo.” Activities include Creepy Creature Encounter, a variety show, a Witches Bew puppet show, a pumpkin patch parade, pumpkin carving demonstrations, face-painting, and “Halloween [...]

This is old news at this point, but I wanted to follow up on a post I wrote back in September, about Shipwreck Productions attempting to launch a new Halloween haunt in the wake of losing their gig at the Queen Mary TerrorFest. Basically, Shipwreck had been set to do the Haunted Queen Mary again this [...]

The Theatre 68 Haunted House in Hollywood is in full swing for the last week of Halloween, and if you decline to sample the horrors contained therein, then you are only hurting yourself (in the sense of the old joke: “What do you do to hurt a masochist? Nothing!”). This is one of our favorite Halloween events in Los Angeles: it was great last year, when we first encountered it, and it is every bit as good this year. A handful of the old vignettes are back, but this is a largely new presentation that should be on every Halloween fanatic’s must-do list, whether or not you have experienced it before

The Fright Gallery in Burbank
If you are a busy fright fan making up lists of Halloween yard haunts you would like to visit this year and lamenting that you cannot get to all of them, you can rest easy knowing that several old favorites are not around for 2009: some are taking a year off; others [...]

It’s the last week of Halloween. Afrid of the lines and ticket prices at the theme park attractions? Then check out the numerous yard haunts and community haunts in operation this week. The home haunts are decorated houses, free of charge, that sometimes include walk-through mazes; the community haunts, which tend to charge a nominal fee, are put on by schools, churches, and community centers in order to provide a safe and fun Halloween experience for local families. Despite their amateur status, many of these attractions are among the most amazing Halloween events in Los Angeles, making them a great way to wrap up the October season for little or no expense.

Just got an email from the Cinefamily, announcing that their 50th anniversary screening of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, doubled billed with ED WOOD, has been cancelled “due to forces beyond our control.”

From the demented mind that brought you the Haunted Cellar comes this new Halloween attraction, one of the largest single-maze haunts anywhere, offering “over 50,000 square of terror.” Having never visited the old Haunted Cellar, we cannot vouch for whether The Empty Grave is truly “all new” or merely rebranded and expanded, but it does [...]

Our biggest disappointment of Halloween 2008 is that we did not make it out to this unique yard haunt, located in a house once owned by silent movie comedian Buster Keaton. According to the descriptions we have heard, the Forest of Mirrors  features a cemetery that seems endlessly extended thanks to strategic use of mirrors. [...]

The Terry Haunt in Anaheim has been around in one form or another for over ten years. Once a Halloween yard haunt, it expanded beyond the confines of its home and turned into a community haunt a few years ago, benefiting the Loara Band Booster Club. After sitting out 2008 because of location problems, the [...]

Horror on Frankel Street is a nifty little amateur effort that impressed us last year with its “Scarecrow Village” presentation. The new theme for 2009 is “Dark Carnival” – yet another clown maze! – and even though we are a bit tired of the clown-concept, this one really works; in fact, it is better than the [...]

We got a kick out of the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, a new Halloween attraction for 2009. The open-air setting provide some opportunities not available to indoor haunts, and the experience of riding in a trailer while being assailed from all sides was quite remarkable: the slow and steady tempo is quite different from the [...]

The Gayboy Mansion invites you to their annual Halloween event at MJ’s Bar, which includes a costume contest with $250 grand prize. This year’s theme is “Pet Cemetery.” There are $5 drinks till 11pm for those in costume. The promoters recommend purchasing tickets early because, they warn, the event will sell out.
Title: Pet Cemetery Costume [...]

This community Halloween haunt promises a themed maze and a block party fall festival, with snack shack, carnival style games, prizes, drawings, and more. The back story is that every October 31 the martial arts academy is haunted by spirits of Ninja slaughtered in a sneak attack, who rise from the dead to take revenge [...]

Hollywood Gothique is giving away two tickets to Nightmare at Scareview Farms, and we have some bloody candy to go with them! Nightmare at Scareview Farms is the new Halloween attraction at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. It offers three mazes full of Halloween horror (Pirate of the Dead Seas, The Vampire Vault, and the Haunted Cattle Barn). Regular tickets are $19.99, but you can get your free tickets and candy by sending an email to: STEVE@hollywoodgothique.com. Please include your name and mailing addres and put “Scareview Tickets” in the subject line. Tickets will be mailed to you, so don’t forget to include address.