On Saturday night, three friends and I went to the Haunted Hayride at Griffith Park.  I hoped for some overpriced cheap thrills and instead found something far more terrifying: a Purgatory filled with lost souls searching, pleading, clawing for escape. It starts promisingly enough.  The smell of fresh hay hangs in the air, red and green lights cut through the manufactured fog, intricately carved jack-o-lanterns lay about.  Vendors dressed as zombies circulate through the crowd selling drinks, hot dogs, and candy.  I hop up and down, an excited five year old swept up in the carnie-goodness of it all.  My friends and I go to stand on line. The line is long. Very long. It stretches maybe two hundred meters up a hill.  It loops in on itself a few times.  Just to the side, several small sideshows have been set up to entertain the crowd.  They don’t seem particularly active.  Danny Elfman music pumps from speakers strategically placed around the line.  The fake fog hangs thick.  I’m still excited. A guy behind us is markedly sullen.  “How long is this line,” he gripes to his girlfriend.  Then he plunks himself on a bale of hay.  My friend leans over to me “What a jerk,” she says, “Why can’t he get in the spirit of this thing?”  I nod.  What a jerk. Ahead of us are three guys in their early twenties.  At some point, a costumed character comes up and shocks one of them.  The kid shrieks like a six year old girl.  He jumps up and covers his face with his hands.  I think he might be crying. We decide that we like these kids and will do everything in our power to ride with them.  Everything is more fun with shrieks and...

One of the many things I love about living in New England is that Halloween starts at the end of September. It’s not just that the Halloween candy starts showing up in the stores, that happens everywhere, it’s that tons of haunted attractions open their doors a full month before Halloween so they are in full swing as the actual day approaches. New England has a rich history of being creepy. Most of our nation’s fun Halloween activities, such as carving pumpkins and trick or treating, have their roots in terrified people desperately trying to stave off death for one more winter. Fierce If you want to be just a little afraid for your safety, you need to head to Fall River, MA. First of all, you can rent the actual room where Lizzie Borden may or may not (the court found her not guilty) have given her (step) mother forty whacks. During the day, you can go on the tour and see where Lizzie may (or may not) have given her father similar treatment. Lizzie Borden’s home is a B&B, of course Fall River knows how to celebrate Halloween! The older and better known of Fall River’s two major haunted houses is the Factory of Terror. It’s promoted as three haunted attractions in one. What that really means is, it’s a long haunted house. You won’t be in and out in five minutes. You will have time to be truly scared and a little concerned that it will never end. Just by virtue of being in an empty factory in a once industrial part of town, the place is creepy. The special effects are quality and the actors are generally enthusiastic. It’s a popular attraction, for good reason, and the downside is long...