Hollywood Gothique

Steve Biodrowski owns and operates Hollywood Gothique. Since graduating from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema, Steve has worked as a film critic, script analyst, journalist, and interviewer. As a film journalist, his work has appeared in Movieline, Premiere, Le Cinephage (in France) and The Dark Side (in England). He served as the West Coast Editor of Cinefantastique magazine in the 1990s, then worked as the Vice President of Editorial Content at Fandom.com and, more recently, as the Executive Editor at Cinescape Online. He is currently the Managing Editor of Cinefantastique Online, the website incarnation of Cinefantastique magazine.

Delirium was the best of three new attractions at last year’s Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt. Although perhaps a bit short on scream-inducing scares, the walk-through maze benefited from a surreal if somewhat vague theme, which allowed for a variety of weird and wild imagery: eyeballs embedded in walls, corpse covered in cockroaches, and assorted [...]

Last October, Hollywood Gothique made its first trip up north to check out some of the Halloween events in the East Bay Area near San Francisco. Previously, we posted the fruits of that endeavor in a review and video of the Candle Lighters Ghost House and in a review of the Pirates of Emerson. The [...]

Date: November 25 at midnight
Location: The Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd, West Los Angeles, CA 90025
Link out: Click here
Description: The Nuart presents a midnight screening of the 1980s time-travel action-comedy, starring Michael J. Fox as the young man whose trip back to the 1950s interferes with his own conception. Robert Zemeckis directed.

Horror fans who are looking for a shot of adrenalin to revitalize their spirits now that October’s monster mazes, haunted hayrides, ghost ships, and harvest festivals are have closed their gates, could do worse than taking in THE THING, before it exists from theatres. Although neither a box office nor a critical powerhouse, the film [...]

Date: November 26 at midnight
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: The New Beverly presents a midnight screening of a Hong Kong action-science-fiction film, selected by Quentin Tarantino. The story involves a madman who transfers his consciousness into the body of a human-looking robot and then proceeds [...]

Date: November 19 at midnight
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: The New Beverly presents a midnight screening of director John Carpenter’s action-horror film, starring James Woods.
John Carpenter’s Vampires Sat: midnight (11:59 pm)
1998, USA/Japan, 35mm, 108 minutes
All tickets $8
directed by John Carpenter; starring James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, [...]

Date: November 20-21
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: The New Beverly presents a double bill of animal-themed horror.

The Birds Sun: 2:40 & 7:30 pm; Mon: 7:30 pm
1963, USA, 35mm, 119 minutes
directed by Alfred Hitchcock; starring Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright
Jaws Sun: [...]

Date: November 18 @ midnight
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: The New Beverly Cinema presents a midnight screening of the over-the-top action-comedy-romance, in which the title characters must battle his new girlfriend’s seven evil ex’s.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Fri: midnight (11:59 pm)
2010, USA/UK/Canada, 35mm, 112 [...]

Date: November 11-17
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: ANGEL-A – Luc Besson’s best film, about a small-time hood and loser who hooks up with a fascinating, possibly angelic woman – screens on the bottom half of a double bill with actor Rie Rasmussen’s directorial debut, HUMAN [...]

Date: November 12 at midnight
Location: The New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Link out: Click here
Description: The New Beverly Cinema presents a midnight screening of the 1987 cult comedy, a grab-bag of comic vignettes spoofing old movies, TV shows, and commercials.
All tickets $8
Amazon Women on the Moon Sat: midnight (11:59 pm)
1987, USA, [...]

So, you’re Halloween high has ended, and you feel your morose soul descending into the abyss of withdrawal. The zombies have returned to their graves. The vampyres have fled to where the ghouls and Afrits rave. The restless spirits have shuttered up their haunted house. The cannibal crazies have disappeared into the maze of the backwoods. The delusions have disappeared, and the ghosts ships have all set sail. What is left? What is left?

I just wanted to take a moment to offer a brief, belated review of this year’s Halloween & Mourning Tour at the Heritage Square Museum this weekend. Heritage Square, which preserves Victorian mansions built in Los Angeles near the turn of the previous century, has offered this self-guided tour every Halloween for the past eight [...]

Drum roll, please – or should that be a funeral dirge? Whatever soundtrack you choose to play in your mind or on your computer while reading this, it is time to bestow our annual accolades for the Best Los Angeles Halloween Events. As with last year, I will dispense with rigid categories in favor of [...]

The final installment of our 2011 Halloween Yard Haunt Odyssey takes us to a pair of old favorites, both restless and eternal, and also ventures into previously uncharted realms of mishaps and darkness. The wide spectrum of approaches – from shivers to shocks, from simple to sophisticated – is a remarkable testament to the impressive variety [...]

Boo-tiful Downtown Burbank Howl-o-ween
We know you’re out there, you prevaricators and procrastinators, wasting the precious days of October until Halloween Night rolls around, when suddenly you realize: This is it, the last chance to visit this year’s Halloween Theme Park Attractions, Halloween Haunted Houses & Hayrides, Halloween Yard Haunts, Community Halloween Haunts, Halloween Haunts for [...]

After Burbank, Tarzana, and Woodland Hills, the next leg of Hollywood Gothique’s 2011 Halloween Yard Haunt Odyssey takes us from Los Angeles all the way to Simi Valley. The little bedroom community seems quiet and safe, but you never know what sort of hidden terror lies just beneath the placid surface – until now…

The House at Haunted Hill
The previous installment of our annual Halloween Yard Haunt Odyssey took us through two terrifying mazes in Burbank, The Backwoods Maze and Rotten Apple 907’s Space Oddessey. Moving on to Tarzana and Woodland Hills, we encounter a trio of Halloween Yard Haunts that are less interested in shocks and surprise than [...]

Our exploration of 2011’s Halloween Yard Haunts began last week with our trip to Boney Island (reviewed here). Next, we move on to Burbank for a pair of Amateur Halloween Events that display enough skill and imagination to rank along side professional Halloween Haunted Houses & Hayrides in Los Angeles.
The Backwoods Maze (1912 North Pepper [...]

Date: November 5 at 7:30pm
Location: The Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Avenue Santa Monica, CA 90403-1710
Link out: Click here
Description: The American Cinematheque presents a screening of the motion-capture animated comedy, with the director in person to answer questions after the film.

Date: November 20 at 7:30pm
Location: The Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028-4605
Link out: Click here
Description: The American Cinematheque invites you to join them for a beautiful new big screen digital presentation on the occasion of the 30th anniversary or RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, Paramount, 115 min, Dir: Steven Spielberg). Archaeologist [...]

Date: November 11 at midnight
Location: The Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036

Link out: Click here

Description: The Cinefamily presents a screening of the 1980s horror film – which strives mightily to top THE HOWLING’s transformation effects – with the director and star on hand to answer questions after the film (schedules [...]

Ghoulish piano player aboard Ghost Ship
I thought I had said everything I had to say about Ghost Ship, the new Halloween attraction in Newport Beach that completed its final voyage of the season last night, but I stumbled upon something in an apparently irrelevant article that seemed worth noting. In a Salon.com review of “Lulu,” [...]

The Captain of the Ghost Ship, seeking volunteers to join his crew
A final update for those considering a trip out to Newport Beach to enjoy the much maligned Ghost Ship:
As last we noted, the opening weekend reactions prompted Ten Thirty One Productions to promise a new and improved attraction during its second week of operation. Although [...]