Undead Puppets and other Halloween Hijinx.

The old Oriental Movie Theater holds court over the pub scene of my town. It stands vigil over the city streets, adorned with spiral towers that hint at it's Asian motif.

Within it's walls visitors are taken back in time when going to a movie was a real event. There's a grandiose staircase leading up to the balcony. Within the main theater statues of Asian deities watch over the crowd from the walls. It is probably this city's most beautiful landmark that hearkens back to more easy going times.

But, there's also something slightly sinister about the place. It's almost as if there's something watching from behind the curtains and corners of the old establishment. Something no longer living.

There are ghost stories about the place. I knew one girl who said she saw a "shadow person" in the women's' room. Other tales of netherworldly visitors who lurk about the theater are told in hush voices.

Last night I was at the theater and experienced a far different form of undead entity. Zombies! Not just any type of zombies....PUPPET ZOMBIES!!

A performance troupe known as Angry Young Men Ltd have been putting on a puppet show version of George A Romero's Zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead (I'm not going to Wiki link all of that since I've been doing so in the last few blog posts) for a few years now. I first heard about it last year at the now defunct ZombieconX. I didn't get to see the show but I heard it was quite funny.

When I heard they were coming to the Oriental Theater to do their show, I went down to the box office and bought me a ticket!

The next night was the show and I had arrived there just in time. The line was large but moved quickly once they opened the doors. To say that it was a good turnout would be an understatement. It ended up being standing room only for a few late arrivals.

The show started with a puppet zombie host who had a Draculaesqe accent slinging one liners here and there and then introducing the opening acts. This is where the show became very reminiscent of the old Vaudevillian days of theater as a sideshow circus group, Dead Man's Carnival, and a very interesting mime group, The M.U.T.E.S., went back and forth with skits and tricks of daring do. I found the The M.U.T.E.S. particularly interesting since usually I REALLY.... HATE.... MIMES. The M.U.T.E.S. were something different entirely. Imagine an old black and white silent films from the early 1900's being brought to the stage. The skits were all fun, creative and quick....the only way I can like mimes.

Once they were through, out came the zombie MC again with more hilarity and then on to The Night of the Living Dead Puppet Show!

The puppets themselves were life size torso, cartoonish likenesses of the characters in the movie. They were operated with the puppeteer in full view, but draped in black to hide their faces. The show took the 90 minute movie and condensed it into 30 minutes of dark humor and puppet gore!

What is puppet gore, you may ask? The Angry Young Men used red fabric and red ribbons as blood splatter. At one point there were red ribbons flying everywhere with zombie puppet heads exploding after shotgun blasts! Yes, it was pretty awesome!

All of the main plot points and famous scenes were kept in the show. "They're coming to get you, Barbra" had new meaning when the poor girl is literally torn to pieces by flesh eating zombies. Even her puppet entrails were being gnawed on by undead puppets.

The show may have been short, but it was certainly sweet and brought forth a standing ovation at the end. Well deserved, I must say.


On to other Halloween news....

Sadly, I don't think I'm going to make it to any other haunts this year. Not enough interest from others and a tight schedule put a damper on my haunt attendance this year. But, in my own sad and pathetic little way I did get to "virtually" visit a few through the YouTube channel Hollywood Gothic.

Hollywood Gothic is run by a guy who lives in LA and visits as many local Haunted Attractions out there that he can. You can check out the website also HERE.

My Halloween weekend will be far from a total bust. Tomorrow I'm going to a family friendly Halloween extravaganza thrown by the wonderful DelAmorte's that will feature an inflatable Haunted House and lots of sweets.

Then on Halloween my family will get together and have a nice diner and watch a Horror movie.

Then the next day I immediately dive into seasonal effective disorder since I consider November 1st to be the first day of the 6 months of crap that is the Holiday and winter season. Yuck!

I'm hoping to do some more movie reviews and post tomorrow. We'll see.

Until the next time, make sure you do something spooky this weekend!

Zangz.