CC2K Fright Week: Seven Days of Halloween
Written by: Paula Haifley, CC2K Horror Chick
CC2K's resident Horror Chick prepares this list of must-do events for any serious horror fan. As in, if you don't do all this stuff, then you clearly don't like getting the crap scared out of you.
If you’re like me (and I know I am), you love Halloween. If you’re even more like me, you want to celebrate it for more that one day. And you’re a gorgeous blonde who lives in the greater Los Angeles area. So for all of you Angelenos who think that October 31st is the most wonderful time of the year, here’s the must list for the coming week:
Saturday the 25th:
Check out the corn maze (or maize?) at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. By day, it’s a family harvest/Halloween festival with a regular corn maze (maps available). At night, there’s a haunted corn maze WHERE GUYS CHASE YOU WITH CHAINSAWS. Their regular haunted house is fun too. Last year they had the best scary clown I’ve ever seen.
Tickets are $25 for regular maize maze, creatures of the corn haunted trail, and factory of nightmares indoor maze.
http://www.halloweenharvestfestival.com/about.htm
Sunday the 26th:
For the broke as a joke:
Free in West Hollywood, the annual Drag Race and Beauty Pageant is held at the West Hollywood Park Library from 4pm-6pm. If you want to see fully made-up queens in 5” platforms race each other, then this is your event. There’s also a beauty pageant, but that’s less fun.
http://www.weho.org/calendar/index.cfm/fuseaction/Detail/EventID/3592/
For the tightwad:
You can check out the Orange County hearse procession, which has Dr. Demento serving as Grand Marshall. The tickets are a $2 entrance to the swap meet, held at the Orange County Fair & Event Center from 9am-4pm. Don’t worry, I won’t make a pun about people dying to get into the parade.
For the big spender:
The Cicada Club’s costume party is a bit spendy, but they have a live twenty-piece big band, and if you want to rub elbows with the LA art deco society, this is the place to do it. Vintage, fantasy costume, or evening attire is strongly encouraged.
Tickets for the show and the after party (which is another show, but in the art deco penthouse) are $70, but if you just want to catch the after party, they’re $40. You can get dinner reservations too, but that’s even more dough you’ll spend on your doll.
http://www.cicadanightclub.com
Monday the 27th:
A Monday is a great time to visit a haunted house. Spooky House is supposed to be pretty awesome. This year they have a haunted asylum, a haunted forest, and a mansion maze where zombies surround you. It’s $20 for both, open from 7pm-10pm on weeknights, in Chatsworth.
Tuesday the 28th:
The Drkrm. Gallery is showing a bunch of paranormal photographs, most in their first public viewing. The exhibit asks the question, is this “the way we see ghosts, or is it the way ghosts see us?” I just think it sounds fucking cool.
The gallery is usually open Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm, with special Halloween hours. See website for details. It’s free.
The USC art gallery has Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence. The exhibit is based on old shadow plays “in which familiar scenes and stories were performed with the use of magic lanterns and rear projections to create dancing shadows and frightening theatrical effects…” In these modern pieces, “the artists evoke the history of the shadow theater.” Basically, cool new shadowy stuff that’s supposed to evoke the feeling of old cool shadowy stuff. Much better than making a shadow puppet dove on the overhead projector before your teacher got to class.
http://uscfishermuseumofart.org/
Wednesday the 29th:
The New Beverly Cinema is hosting a creepy Clive Barker double feature, with Barker in attendance: the creepy Candyman and the monstrous Midnight Meat Train (which I loved and gave a very good review on this site a few months ago).
Tickets are $7, so you have no excuse because renting both films would be more expensive. 7:30pm. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 W. Beverly Blvd.
Thurs, Oct. 30th: The Egyptian theatre in Hollywood is having a double feature of 70s vampire films from the legendary British house of horror, Hammer Studios. Horror of Dracula features Christopher Lee as Dracula in all his bodice-ripping action, and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing who, you know, tries to stake him. Brides of Dracula has a lot of hot chicks in nightgowns biting each other, and Cushing returning as Van Helsing.
7:30pm. Tickets are $10.
http://www.americancinematheque.com
Friday the 31st: HALLOWEEN!!!! There’s a bunch of really cool stuff going on tonight, here are my top picks:
Family Fun/If You Want An Early Night:
Samhain Fleadh Cheoil
The Celtic Arts Center is having a Samhain (pronounced Sow-wen) celebration. Nerdy history note: Halloween is our bastardization of the ancient Celtic New Year. Pumpkin carving also comes from the Celts, who used to keep the skulls of their revered ancestors. When the Christianization of Ireland took hold, and keeping skulls was associated with being evil and a weirdo, the Celts substituted carved gourds for the skulls. Be sure to tell the kiddies! Anyway, according to the Arts Center, “it's a time when the shadowy veil between this world and the Otherworld is at it's thinnest and the spirits of the past mingle amongst the living.” It’s $12 and there will be a buffet and cash bar, as well as traditional music and storytelling.
7:30PM at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church and School in Winnetka/Canoga Park, CA.
http://www.celticartscenter.com/Special_Events/Year_2008/Samhain_2008.html
2) For the movie lover:
The Cinefamily is having a SUPER FUCKING RAD event: they’re showing The Tingler, the awesome Vincent Price 60s film, produced by master of the gimmick William Castle. Price plays a scientist who’s studying the nature of fear, and finds a weird lobster-like creature living in the base of everyone’s spine. When you get scared, you feel a tingle at the base of your spine, and if you scream, you’ll be okay, but if you can’t scream, the Tingler will get bigger and you’ll die of fright. When it was originally released, Castle had buzzers rigged up in movie seats to give filmgoers a tingle, and the Cinefamily is going to bring it back. So go watch a kick ass fun film, get your ass buzzed a little, and then after the film there will be dancing, food, drinks (for more buzzing), costume contests, and karaoke and more fun crap. Tickets are $12, and I recommend that you buy them online, special events often sell out.
http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/calendar/events.html#tin
3) If You’re Planning on Taking A Cab Home:
Well-known horror news/blog site shocktillyoudrop.com is co-sponsoring a party with local retro designers Pin-Up Girl clothing, so you can guess what that means: monster go go girls. Burlesque. Live horror rock band. Strong drinks. Dancing. The uber-hot fetish/pin up model Masumi Max doing a fire act (yes pun intended).
Tickets are $35. The fiendishness starts at 8pm at the Regent Theatre (448 S. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90013).
www.myspace.com/ghoulsnightoutlosangeles or www.shocktillyoudrop.com
Saturday, November 1st: Happy Celtic New Years Day! Today is the last day of Halloween mazes in the theme parks, so if you want hit Knott’s Scary Farm, Universal Haunted Horror Nights. There’s also a ton of Dia de los Muertos stuff going on Saturday and Sunday, so check out www.alleycatscratch.com/halloween/DayDead.htm to find out where to get your sugar skull fix.