Hollywood Gothique

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Here are some last-minute additions that you will not find listed on our Halloween Yard Haunts page. We have not visited any of these attractions, so we cannot vouch for them personally; if you happen to encounter any of their spooky spirits, drop us a line and let us know what you think about the Haunted House on Punta Del Este Street, Mourning Rose Manor, and/or A Nightmare on Leaf Street.

We had written the gruesomely good Halloween yard maze known as Nightmare Junction, since it had been out of operation for 2007, 2008, and 2009. To our surprise, during a swing through Burbank on our annual yard haunt odyssey, we found the haunt resurrected – as big, bold, and bloody as ever.
Back when we first [...]

Three ghosts of Pioneer Cemetery bid you enter and hear their tales…
The Voices of Pioneer Cemetery Flashlight Ghost Tour is a welcome variation on the usual Halloween Haunt, a walk through an authentic graveyard from the 1800s, with actors portraying the souls of those interred beneath the cemetery’s earth. Although the emphasis is on history [...]

It’s the final weekend; time is running out! You have paused and prevaricated, allowing the October days to slip through your fingers, and now you are in a last-minute flurry, trying to see as much as you can before midnight of November 1 arrives, bringing Halloween to a conclusion. In this limited two-day window of Saturday and Sunday, what are the absolutely essentail Halloween haunts that you must see in 2010? Read on to find out…

We have heard a couple of disheartening reports about over-crowding at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. Sure, if one delays one’s visit until this late in the season, waiting in line behind large numbers of people is inevitable. Nevertheless, it is disturbing to hear from people who paid their money, got in on [...]

With the Halloween weekend upon us, I have been busy updating the Hollywood Gothique website, making sure all the information you need is at your fingertips. Much of this is simple re-organization, but there is some new information, too.

The rather vaguely titled “Other Halloween Haunts” page has morphed into Halloween Parties & Street Fairs, which you can access here. The previous version of the page was a bit of a jumble, including harvest festivals, plays, and other activities more family-friendly, which didn’t sit well on a page mostly occupied by adult parties.

Location: MJ’s Bar, 2810 Hyperion Ave., Silverlake, CA
Date: October 31, 9pm-6am
Website: www.thegayboymansion.com
Description: MND Events & The Gayboy Mansion present their annual Halloween Costume Contest! $300 in prizes! Hosted by Ongina from RuPaul’s Dragrace, with DJs and dancing.
21 and over.
$10 admission

Location: Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard
Date: October 31 at 10am, 12:30pm, and 3pm
Link out: Click here
Description: Cemetery of the Stars Tours will take place on Halloween at 10am, 12:30pm and 3pm. Visit the final resting places of such notables as Cecil B. Demille, Marion Davies, Tyrone Power, Rudolph Valentino, Vampira, John Huston, Carl [...]

Location: Homestead Museum, 15415 East Don Julian Road, City of Industry, California 91745
Dates: October 30 & 31 at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
Link out: Click here
Description: American attitudes toward death changed dramatically from the 1840s, when the Workman family built their home, through the 1920s, when the Temples built La Casa Nueva next door. This tour [...]

Location: Pioneer Cemetery, 14451 Bledsoe Street, Sylmar, CA 91342
Dates: Octotber 29 & 30
Link out: Click here
Description: Pageant of the Masters meets Dracula in the “Voices of Pioneer Cemetery: Flashlight Ghost Tour” on Friday, Oct. 29 and Saturday, Oct 30. Provoking, disturbing, different. Ticket form at www.sfvhs.com or call 818-970-1286. $20 until Oct 15, then $25 [...]

Location: Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard
Date: October 30, 2pm to midnight
Link out: Click here
Description: The 11th annual Dia De Los Muertos Festival at Hollywood Forever, Los Angeles’s oldest memorial park, observes the mystical beauty and wonder of this ancient spiritual celebration. Partake of various sacred ceremonial tributes and memorable altar creations on the [...]

Planning your Halloween Weekend? Wondering What to do with these final days of October? Looking for something new and different? With the opening of the Theatre 68 Haunted House this past Friday, all of Los Angeles’s professional Halloween haunts are in full swing, leaving the Halloween yard haunts to dominate the concluding weekend of October, along with various horror movie screenings. Here is a rundown of Halloween events and attractions opening around Los Angeles this weekend.

Resident Evil Afterlife Scarab Movie Prop
Location: Premiere Props Warehouse, 128 Sierra St. El Segundo, CA 90245
Date: October 31 at 11:00am
Link out: Click here
Description: The annual live auction takes place on Saturday, the day before Halloween.Premiere Props will be showcasing over 500 never-before-seen Halloween and horror props. Even if you are not so luck as [...]

Well, not necessarily new – they might simply be yard haunts of which we were unaware until now – but “Previously Unlisted Yard Haunts” is not a very snappy headline, is it? Anyway, as the Halloween season draws near its conclusion, some Happy Home Haunters are crawling out of their graves and proclaiming their living-dead status to the world – or at least to Hollywood Gothique, which certainly qualifies as a macabre microcosm of the world when it comes to Halloween horror. At any rate, here is information on two new yard haunts – which should be a baneful boon to those of you who write in, lamenting, “I have seen everything you listed! Is there nothing more?”

One of the highlights of the Heritage Square Museum’s Halloween and Mourning Tours this weekend was a display of “spirit photography” in the Perry Mansion, performed by Mario Corral, Jordan Byrne, and Donna Anderson. Although I am no expert on the subject, I did attend an exhibition of spirit photography a few years ago (”Immaterial [...]

Not every Halloween event in Los Angeles needs to be a night-time fright-fest; some can be daylight excursions with educational value. Case in point: this past weekend, the Heritage Square Museum presented their 7th annual Halloween and Mourning Tours. Heritage Square is a small parcel of land off the Pasadena Freeway, not far south of [...]

If you find yourself too wearied in spirit to visit the many haunted houses and garage haunts manifesting on Halloween night, you might check out SyFy Channel’s GHOST HUNTERS HALLOWEEN LIVE, which airs on October 31 from 7:00pm to 1:00am. Cast members from the entire GHOST HUNTERS franchise, along with some other special guests, will [...]

Dates: October 21-31, 8pm
Location: Mountain View Mausoleum and Cemetery, 2300 Marengo Ave, Altadena, CA 91001
Description: Wicked Lit presents three short plays, based on classic literature and performed live inside an actual cemetery: THE CHIMES, THE UNAMABLE, THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

Dates: October 22 through 31
Location: 5419 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood
The Theatre 68 Haunted House is back in business, doing what it does so well: scaring hapless victims foolhardy enough to wander into the seemingly innocuous Hollywood venue. The 2010 version of the annual Halloween event retains the general approach and several specific vignettes from previous years, but scenes and settings have been rearranged, so that even if you remember what to expect, you will not know quite when to expect it. Now that we are in the waning days of October, when the major Halloween attractions have been operating for weeks, and their actors are perhaps losing some of their spontaneity and enthusiasm, it is an enormous pleasure to encounter a professional haunt operating at full intensity for the last ten days of the month. If you feel your nerves have been deadened by all the frights you have endured thus far, Theatre 68’s Haunted House will jolt them back to life.

Dates: September 24-26, October 1-3, 7-10, 13-17, 19-24, 26-31
Location: Pierce College, 20800 Victory Blvd at Mason Avenue, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Description: For 2010, all of Fright Fair’s usual virtues are intact in 2010 – and amplified to the nth degree. We cannot quite put our finger on what is different, but whatever the reason, this year’s dose of Halloween horror is even scarier and more fun than before.

Dates: October 14-16, 21-23, 28-31
Location: Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Avenue, Pomona, CA 91765
. For 2010, Nightmare at Scareview Farms expands to five mazes and adds some other entertainment as well. If the results seem stretched a little thin, the haunt still offers solid Halloween entertainment for those who enjoy a good scare in a setting that is more fun than frightening.

The annual Theatre 68 Haunted House in Hollywood returns on Friday night, offering ten nights of Halloween horror during the final days of October. 2010 represents the 68 Cent Crew’s fifth year of haunting, and if the evidence of past years is any indication, unwary visitors are in for some serious scares as they enter [...]

Dates: October 15-16, 22-24, 28-31
Location: Janss Marketplace, 215 North Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks
In the past, we ranked Reign of Terror among our “Must-See Halloween Haunts for 2009,” but we never quite pinpointed exactly where it ranked in that exalted upper echelon of delightfully horrible Halloween entertainment. Well, the fence-sitting finally ends here. For 2010, we feel confident in declaring that Reign of Terror is the best walk-through attraction we have encountered this Halloween.