Hollywood Gothique celebrates the beginning of the Halloween season with a new layout

Thanks to the opening of the Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt this evening, today can be considered the official start of the Halloween season. In honor of the occasion, we are experimenting with a new look for this website (although it’s not really new, having been briefly tried out a few weeks ago).

One big advantage over this layout, versus the previous one, is that it displays Calendar listings in the upper left navigation bar. Just float your cursor over any of them to get details on upcoming screenings, haunted house, appearances, and other events. This saves you the trouble of having to go to our Calendar page just to see what’s happening over the course of the next couple days. Of course the Calendar page still has its advantages if you want to plan your schedule weeks ahead of time.

Looking over the Calendar, you would see that Knotts Scary Farm is not the only Halloween attraction opening this weekend. Several others are also getting a jump on the competition by opening on Friday, September 26:

• Disney’s Halloween Kingdom
• Old Town Haunt
• Spooky House
• Skull Kingdom

The last of these is a new one this year. We plan to check it out on Friday night and give you the straight dope on whether it is worth the drive out to West Woodland Hills.

Of course, we will be hitting Knott’s tonight to see how this year’s presentation stacks up. There should be lots worth seeing: six of the thirteen haunted mazes/rides are new for 2008. (That’s not counting the other shows and attractions, of course.)

One of our favorite new mazes from last year, The Doll Factory, will be returning for 2008. You can check it out in the video above.