Hollywood Gothique

"The Body Snatcher," based on Robert Louis Stevenson
Tonight, Wicked Lit returns to the Moutain View Mausoleum and Cemetery for another October season of immersive theatre productions. Rather like TAMARA, the play staged in the American Legion Hall in Hollywood back in the 1980s, Wicket Lit productions take place in an actual location, requiring the audience [...]

On Saturday, October 2, Yours Truly appeared on KFWB’s “Home Wizards,” hosted by Cindy Dole. The home improvement show was doing a Halloween theme for its first hour, offering advice to homeowners thinking of decorating their domiciles for the delight of neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Dole asked me about the different levels of home haunting, dealing with [...]

The Queen Mary Dark Harbor sees the majestic ocean-liner-turned-hotel revamping its Halloween presentation for 2010, with the long-term goal of challenging the Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt and Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood – a daunting task approximately equivalent to taking on both Dracula and Frankenstein in a tag-team wrestling match. How does [...]

Queen Mary Dark Harbor, the new Halloween event making its debut this weekend in Long Beach, promises 160 monsters delivering 270,000 scares per night. There will be five walk-through attractions one in the Fishing Village, one in the Dome, and three on board the Queen Mary herself. The proprietors also promise to present a holistic [...]

PARASOMNIA – the new independent horror film from director William Malone (HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) – screens at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood as part of a tribute to the late artist Zdzislaw Beksinksi, whose work inspired the movie’s dreamscape imagery. Before the screening, there will be a panel discussion with Malone, Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAINSAW [...]

MY BLOOD VALENTINE IN 3D, the remake of the 1981 Canadian slasher film, opens in theatres nationwide today. Last night, director Paul Lussier and writer Todd Farmer attended a preview screening at the Arclight Cinemas Hollywood and answered questions about the film. (Lussier will be appearing after the 8:00pm screening of the film at the [...]

Bruce Campbell comes to town this week as part of his promotional tour for MY NAME IS BRUCE, which starts a one-week run this Friday at the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles. The film is a sort of horror movie variation on THREE AMIGOS and GALAXY QUEST, in which actors found themselves confronting real-life [...]

A few days ago, we reviewed this year’s version of the Old Town Haunt in Pasadena. Now we’re back with this video, which takes you on a tour through the depths of the underground labyrinth and also feature an interview with the proprietor, Ron Rogge, who provides some insights on what makes this Halloween haunt [...]

Four months since the West Coast premiere of DIARY OF THE DEAD at Screamfest, I took advantage of the opportunity to see it again at the American Cinematheque’s preview on Wednesday night, in the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. This is the theatre where I saw ALIEN during its initial run, so the venerable venue [...]

THE SIGNAL was one of the best movies I saw at last October’s Screamfest Film Festival in Hollywood. The premise involves a mysterious transmission that turns those who view it into homicidal maniacs. The plot follows a married woman and her lover, who are trying to avoid her husband after he views the “signal.” Although [...]

TIMBER FALLS is opening on Decmeber 7. I saw the film at Screamfest in Hollywood last October and was pleasantly surprised: the plot (religious loonies kidnap a couple out camping and try to force them to conceive a surrogate child) did not sound particularly auspicious, but the characters suspense were handled pretty well, and the horror [...]

About a month ago, I wrote up an excerpt of anecdotes offered during the question-and-answer session after a screening of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 at the Screamfest film festival in Hollywood. Here is the video of the event…

<P><FONT face=Verdana size=2>One of the strongest films at this year’s Screamfest horror film festival was STORM WARNING, written by Everett DeRoche and directed by Jamie Blanks. It’s about a couple out boating off the coast of Australia who get caught in a storm and end up on an isolated island with some rather unfriendly inhabitants. [...]

I approached MR. MAGORIUM’S WONDER EMPORIUM with almost equal parts anticipation and dread: anticipation because writer-director Zach Helm scripted STRANGER THAN FICTION, one of last year’s best films; dread because the trailer for MAGORIUM looked absolutely insipid. Walking onto the 20th Century Fox lot for a preview screening last night, I had no idea which [...]

Apparently, the influence of Western culture extends to Korea, which is jumping on the Halloween bandwagon. Although there may be no trick-or-treating there, Korean Times has an article listing major hotels throwing Halloween parties.

After launching with the West Coast premiere of George A. Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD on Friday, Hollywood’s Screamfest horror film festival continued on Saturday with a series of short subjects, followed by a violent German murder-mystery titled DEAD IN 3 DAYS. The big event of the day did not arrive until late in the [...]

Haunts USA opens their doors this evening for their second Halloween at the Northridge Mall. As in 2006, the haunt will feature three mazes; this year there will also be talent shows and contests (prizes include $1000 and an opportunity to appear at the House of Blues). “Haunt Idol” kicks off at 6:30pm; rock-n-roll acts [...]

Last night, Universal Studios launched the 2007 version of Halloween Horror Nights. The company – which has a long horror tradition that extends back to black-and-white thrillers like PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) and DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (both 1931) – had resumed their Halloween attraction last year, after a six-year hiatus. 2006 (which we reviewed [...]

Starting Friday, Hollywood horror fans can enjoy HATCHET – an homage to ’80s slasher films – at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood. The film will be playing in approximately two dozen other cities around the country; Anchor Bay is basically using this limited, platform release of the R-rated version of the film as a way to [...]

It was with a certain trepidation that I attended an advance screening of Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN in Hollywood last night (”advance” being a relative term – the film opened in the theatre at midnight). The charm of John Carpenter’s original 1978 film mostly eludes me, and there is little about Zombie’s career that would have [...]

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to admit one thing about the SAW franchise: it has managed to avoid the pit that sucks so many horror sequels down into box office oblivion. The first SAW was a sleeper hit, considered a success because its tiny $1-million investment netted nearly $50-million at U.S. theatres; both [...]

Esplatter.Com has posted my article on SAW IV, featuring an interview with director Darren Lynn Bousman.
Of course, the major issue of the day is whether the sequel will do welll, in the wake of the box office failure of HOSTEL PART II. Says Bousman:
“First off, if you look at a lot of movies that went [...]

Event Date & Time: Press mixer for SAW IV
Location: Parc Restaurant in Hollywood
In Person: Darren Lynn Bousman, Tobin Bell, Mark Burg, Oren Koules

I attended the press mixer in Hollywood for SAW IV last night, and it went pretty well. It was held in a trendy little Hollywod restaurant that I never knew existed, tucked into [...]