Theme Parks & Haunted Houses: Kunz Geister-Schloss

The delightfully cheesy and colourful picture above features Munich, Germany's Kunz Geister-Schloss (Kunz Haunted Castle). I've watched a few videos of it, which look absolutely amazing! You walk through parts of it and sit in a ghost train for others, whilst the "castle" does its best to scare you with a combination of animatronics, actors, props, lighting and sound. Next time I 'm in Germany, I need to visit this place!

Website (in German): http://geisterschloss.com/geisterbahn.html

Ghostly videos after the jump.

Shopping: TheHorrorDome.com

Ah, the end of August is looming, casting a gloriously gloomy shadow over September and welcoming Autumn. That can mean only one thing: the best day of the year is coming up. That's right! My birthday! HALLOWEEN!

Whilst I'm sure you're all already prepared, just in case you need anything extra for this years grotesque gatherings and spooky seances, look no further than TheHorrorDome.com, the "Halloween superstore"! They have everything you could want from horrific halloween masks and zombie risers to creepy dolls and haunted clocks! And more!!

Not only do they sell great items, but they even provide free how-to guides in their prop directions section. Guides featured include such ghastly delights as 'Horror Ribs', 'Vampire Blood' and 'The Army of Darkness'.

Movies: The Last Exorcism

Presented as a 'found footage' movie, Daniel Stamm directed supernatural tale 'The Last Exorcism' opens in US theatres on August 27th.

A troubled evangelical minister agrees to let his last exorcism be filmed by a documentary crew.

 

I'm not expecting much from this film, but I always enjoy exorcism movies no matter how ridiculous/predictable/overdone they are, so it'll still be worth watching. The power of badly told stories compells me!

Official Site: http://thelastexorcism.com/

Animation: Ernest, le Vampire

I owe many thanks to my friend Nasu-hime for finding out that the cartoon I loved when I was a child so much that I forgot the title of it was in fact the French show, 'Ernest, le Vampire' (Ernest, the vampire)!

"Each morning as dawn breaks, after nights of lunatic activity, Ernest the Vampire settles himself comfortably into his coffin and falls asleep. Ernest is somewhat clumsly and does not exactly strike fear in the heart of others. He is never short of ideas but they invariably end in catastrophes."

So of course, I thought I'd share it with you!





Except that I watched it on a German TV station, so it was called 'Ernest, der Vampir', not that it really mattered anyway though, because there isn't any dialogue. If you want to buy the series on DVD you can do so from the ICTV website.

Ah, spooky childhood memories!

Speaking of which, if you happen to read this entry, tell me - what's your first horror/Halloween-related childhood experience? Anything from trick or treating to being completely freaked out by a movie to hearing an urban legend.

Movies: Let Me In

Based on the Swedish vampire novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist and the movie of the same name (directed by Tomas Alfredson), 'Låt den rätte komma in' (Let the Right One in) has been remade by 'Cloverfield' director Matt Reeves as 'Let Me In' and Hammer Film Productions and is set to be released in the US on October 1st.

A bullied young boy befriends a young female vampire who lives in secrecy with her guardian.

Having never read the original novel, I cannot really make any judgements about this film from the trailer. However, the difference between the two screen adaptations appears to be that 'Let Me In' seems to play up the horror elements of the story, whilst 'Let the Right One In' focused much more on the relationship between Oskar and Eli (Owen and Abbey in 'Let Me In') rather than the fact that Eli was a vampire. The setting too has been changed from Sweden to New Mexico, US as well as the character names, and that will surely have some bearing on the story too.

Like so many remakes, 'Let Me In' has the potential to be a good movie. However, I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not Hammer and Reeves take that potential and use it.

Offical US Site: http://www.letmein-movie.com/

Official UK Site: http://www.letmein-movie.co.uk/

Viral Site: http://www.helpme.net/
(solve the riddles to gain access)

Music: SaTaN

Tokyo horror rock band, SaTaN released their new album, '13 I Scream' at the end of June. I did actually receieve my copy of it from the Starwave Records store the day before the release, which was great, but I haven't gotten around to reviewing it until now.

Anyway! I was already a fan of this band because of their previous releases (a mini-album and 2 singles) and the live performance of theirs that I had the pleasure of attending last year, but I have to say, thanks to this album, I now like them even more. I absolutely LOVE it! The tongue-in-cheek horror lyrics (which are, by the way, entirely in English), driving guitars, crazy vocals and occasional use of spooky synths make this album fantastic! The genre sways between black metal, horror rock and even a little punk, quite frequently and it works very well and creates a style that is both influenced by other artists (for example, older Murderdolls) but remains unique to SaTaN at the same time. Admittedly, with regards to the lyrics, sometimes their English is not perfect, but the meaning of the songs is clear (plus, they've included a Japanese translation of the lyrics, which makes it even clearer what the lyrics are supposed to mean).

I was going to finish by recommending my favourite songs from '13 I Scream', but honestly, I can't choose because every track is great!

Buy online