october is horror

This is the month that ends with Halloween so it's a good time for horror fans in a lot of ways. For one there are Halloween stores. In California there are tons, not just in L.A. I've found out, but in Orange County too. The dollar stores sell lots of Halloween goodies and even costumes. We've got the theme parks here too. I have not been to any this year, funds and time are scarce, but I sure went to a lot of them last year. There are tons of haunted house attractions as well, way more than in Boston.

I don't know what I'm doing on Halloween yet because I don't know my work schedule. As far as costumes go, skull paint it is.

I read the October Fangoria, there is a new one, but so what, I'll talk about the October issue. I had not read Fangoria in a long time and this magazine was not as bad as the ones that I remembered from the last couple of years. Here is the breakdown.

- The piece on The Grudge was great, I learned a lot, and I'd already heard a lot of talk about this remake. That movie opened at number one this weekend as I'd hoped. Team America: World Police did not do so well on its opening weekend. I thought for sure that one would be huge. The Grudge, I have not seen it yet, but was lucky to catch the Japanese version on the big screen here in the O.C. a few months ago. I have high expectations for this new Grudge, twice as scary, yes, since it's aimed at Americans, scarier to me. I'm not an idiot who can't understand a Japanese film, but the culture is very different and it's not just language that does not translate, but images as well. Japanese films are a little off to me, which can make them more intriguing, but possibly less effective.

- An article on Jim Van Bebber. I think his full length movie Deadbeat at Dawn is overrated, but his short gore flicks are sick beyond belief. You can see a bunch of them on the Necrophagia home video. I highly reccomend this tape or DVD, the music is not as good as their old stuff, but the band plays on a cheap looking theme park haunted ride set, which is hilarious to me. The interviews show the band members' enthusiasm for horror movies including Amityville 2, which I'll be mentioning again later. Van Bebber has made a movie about the Manson family and I'm sure it's nuts. There is a sidebar article about Charles Manson's Lie record.

- The Fangoria classifieds are still cool though nothing like they were in the 80's. I did see an ad for a guide to making eyeballs for movies. Rad.

- An article on Celular. booooo! What's that doing in there. I did learn that the movie was originally conceived by Larry Cohen. Man, what the hell.

- One ad the magazine was selling puppets of Cohen's It's Alive baby! Also Tombs of the Blind Dead templars masks and a Gates of Hell mask.

On the whole Fangoria was not shit, but are you gonna pay eight or nine dollars for it? Read it in the store.

AMC Monsterfest is going on right now and I love it. This year we've got The Omen trilogy and the Amityville trilogy as well as the first five Haloween movies. The Omen movies were awesome, with lots of gore intact. Amityville 2 was a lot better than I remember and the family murder scene is absolutely horrifying. Wow.

Monsterfest is also showing some Hammer films and Amicus films this season. My girlfriend and I will be watching whatever is on tonight.

The amctv.com website is all Monsterfest right now and mentioned some haunted Los Angeles spots. I found out that the Sweet Lady Jane Bakery right around the corned from my West Hollywood apartment is haunted by Orson Welles. Many times I walked by that place late at night with no one in sight. I had no idea.