Hollywood Gothique
The Vault

2012 Halloween Season Starts Today!

The Hollywood Gothique staff (which is to say, yours truly) wants to take a brief break from administrative work to note that the Halloween Season has semi-officially started, thanks to the September 14 opening of Disneyland Halloween Time down in Orange County. It may seem strange to think of Halloween – a holiday that was once restricted to a single day on October 31 – beginning in mid-September, but when you look at bloody crypt-full of Theme Park Halloween Attractions, Halloween Haunted Houses & Hayrides, Halloween Yard Haunts, Halloween Festivals and Community Haunts, and Halloween Horror Shows & Excursions lined up over the course of the next six and a half weeks, you realize that Halloween cannot begin too soon, because there is never enough time to open every tombstone in the cemetery.

Just take a look at what happens next. After the mild-mannered beginning offered by Disney’s family-friendly event, Halloween in Los Angeles begins in earnest next Friday, with the September 21 opening of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, which goes head-to-head with the Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt in Brea. The following week brings us Sinister Pointe, The Empty Grave, Delusion: Presented by Haunted Play, and the brand new Paranoia Haunted Attraction 2012. After that, there is no stopping the swarming hordes of Halloween mazes and monsters, and Los Angeles fright fans are in serious danger of being overwhelmed.

We ourselves are particularly looking forward to this season, which offers not just one but two new Halloween haunts in Los Angeles: the aforementioned Paranoia Haunted Attraction in the Santa Monica Mall and the Blumhouse of Horrors in old Variety Arts Theatre downtown. Besides those two events, we are contemplating a brief sojourn up north for Fright Nights at the Winchester Mystery House, and we are hoping to float down Corona’s Coffin Creek for the first time. Of course, we also want to pay respects to our old favorites, and well – as you can see, we already feel hopelessly behind schedule even before the season has gotten underway.

So, let this be a lesson to you. Follow our advice: Start early. Make a schedule, and keep to it. Putting off events until later only creates a pile-up that will result in your missing out on some of the Halloween fun that you promised to get to after missing it last year.

Great times are ahead. You want to savor every moment, like Count Dracula nipping at the neck of a nubile victim – except that, unlike the Count, you don’t have an eternity of time at your disposal.