This year there was no Fangoria party, we were too busy, sorry. So we took the opportunity to see what the rest of the country does for Halloween.

First we visited Thorpe Park’s Fright Night, which was, y’know, OK. They had 4 ‘mazes’ (that’s what you call walk through horror shows if you’re cool, like us), All with really good themeing, lighting, sound and (seemingly) loads of actors to jump out at you and go "BOO!". And that’s the problem, most of the mazes just seemed to lack narrative and pacing. They did have a back story if you cared to read about it or listen to an announcer as you file in but this all got a bit lost with actors simply jumping out at you and generally being a bit spooky, which made each maze feel a little pointless. That said it was all still jolly good fun, and all the normals in the crowd seemed to be pretty much terrified (we’re somehow broken, we can’t seem to get scared anymore, or maybe we’re just tough).

Next we headed north to Alton Tower’s Scare Fest. It’s only their second year of putting on a Halloween event but they definitely seem to have their hearts in it. They only have one maze actually inside the park, Terror of the Towers, and this is set in the ruins of Alton Tower’s house, so the set is instantly pretty sweet. Also they have nice little points in the maze where actors stop you and interact with you to play out scenes in the narrative (yup, they have a story, yay!) so you don’t feel rushed through. The acting is really quite good and the the maze itself is well paced with a big special effect finally. The poor chap behind me spent more of this scene cowering on the floor clawing and my back trying to get out. Bless him.

Alton Towers also have 2 more mazes outside the park you have to pay extra for, which take some degree of trudging round odd roads and going round the back of buildings to find, which only adds to the excitement. One of them, Boiler House, was good, but a bit more like Thorpe Park’s offerings, the other one, Field of a 1,000 Screams, was frickin’ awesome: Right, so last year there was a zombie outbreak in the small village of Alton, it was quarantined and fenced off from the public (this is a really nice tie in to last year’s maze and is made to feel real by a crackling radio tuned to the local station giving out warnings and easy listening music as you enter the maze), so we journey up through to the edge of the fence and a deranged Alton local invited through a hole and into the village. The hole thing is set in a proper corn field, you walk through a narrow passageway that has been cut out of the corn, all the time hearing zombie moans and growls from the surrounding pitch black corn (oh yeah, this maze only operates at night). Again they have various scenes with different characters to play through the story and help protect us from the zombies who are now hot on our trail. The finale really is great, and I won’t go into in great detail in case they do it next year but involves being locked in a small wooden cabin with zombies busting through the walls and one zombie in there with you. IT ALL KICKS RIGHT THE FUCK OFF.

So next we headed further north to a place called Farmageddon. I’m just going to wait a while for the brilliance of that name settle in. … OK then - it’s a work of art isn’t it? It’s set on a Farm (you guessed that bit) that’s normally all cute and fluffy for kids. I guess the attendance drops off in the winter so they re-invent the place into this Horror-fest thing, with 2 pretty slick mazes, one of which felt like it must be permanent it was so well built, and about 3 thousand local Liverpudlian teenagers a night, all 127% pumped for horror goodness. I’ve never felt more part of a baying mob in my life. If people chickened out of a maze they were announced by the hosts, and then jeered and boo-ed until they went running into the toilets crying. I’m not making this shit up. OK so we had to queue for 3 hours in total during the night (Freddy and friends kept us entertained though), but you can see how this place is only just starting out. As with Alton Towers, it’s only their second year, they only had one maze last year, and with the "tens of thousands of people" turning up in just a few weeks, I’m sure they’re going to up the anti next year.

A short trip up north to visit a few haunted attractions afforded us a brief excursion to Blackpool. The weather was angry, the back streets derelict and bustling, the accomdation broken, the punters were drunk violent and bloody. I really can’t say how much we love Blackpool. After spending many childhood holidays in it’s fizzy glow, the horror that is Blackpool to the adult eyes only excites us more. It’s crumbling beauty and rotten fringes can not hide the heart of this undead seaside paradise. Well, that’s what I think anyway. There’s quite a lot of photos in the set from the Wax Works. It was our first visit, a truly Blackpoolian experience. Here’s the set.

You’ve all noticed the ‘OPERA HOUSE’ signs tied onto lamp posts everywhere right? no? well I first noticed them in Romford, and then on the main road to Southend, and then when I got into work they were all over London as well. What’s the deal? Are they advertising something? Are they a very elaborate signage system leading to, well, an Opera House? Or, and this is the one I think is closest to the truth, are they a race of alien invaders disguised as sign posts waiting for the signal to spring into action and murder us all, or merely enslave us in thier caverns of toil and general nasty going on? - if it the later I just want to say: I called it first.

And no, it’s not just me they’re after, a mate of mine noticed they are surrounding his office in a devilish pincer movement of doom as he shows here

If you have any information please get in contact, don’t go to the Police or the Goverment, they’re in on it for sure. Of course Google ‘knows nothing’ of this, they’re in on it too. Stay alert people.

Woah, it’s a bit odd to see your own work pop-up in your rss reader but that just happened. That film we helped out on a few months back, Waiting for Gorgo, with a bit of good ol’ graphic design and some set building has been getting some geeks all excited it seems.

Jas noticed it first over at io9 where they have a link to our set photos, so I did some digging. I found it menioned on a forum on badmovies.org which then sent me all wobbly at the knees at the sight of a link to an article on FANGORIA ONLINE.COM! Get in! There’s totally a photo of our work on Fangoria’s website - hell it might even be in print for all I know. This is probably due to the film’s writter, M J Simpson, being a regular Fangoria scribe, he’s also put up a page about the film on his site, including a link to our photos, which is smashing.

It’s all jolly exciting. Here’s a few more links to help make us feel important:

• RoboJapan / Monster Island - I Think this guy picked it up pretty early
• Quiet Earth - Who also have the trailer from the original movie
• Kailuphile - A mildly excited forum where Quiet Earth seemed to have found it
• Cinemagine - The official site run by our mate Ben Craig, who directed the film
• Monsterverse - This mainly links to io9 but it pads out this list nicely

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After an hour’s play we we are asked to decorate our pod… oh dear, we made a bit of a mess, maybe one too many donkey tails? The eyeballs on springs really pull the room together though.

An (actually quite small by our standards) collection of photos awaits your gaze here

So we’re off to buy some trendy hats and jeans that look like dad’s worn them to paint the kitchen ceiling - that’s right folks, we’ve directed a music video, so we’re cool now. We shot it ages ago, since then we sodded off to the states, and editing the beast took a lot longer than we’d though, but here it is, all done, and in glorious HD (well, Vimeo HD, which is kind of glorious).