Over the summer, Maya Entertainment promoted their psycho-bitch thriller Playing House by giving fans an opportunity to win a date with the film’s super-sexy star Mayra Leal. A gringo-square named Mark from Los Angeles won the contest and was treated to dinner with Leal at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood.

The 5-foot-3, Texas-born Latin stunner, best known for her nude role in Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, spoke during the date about her big, moist lips, going naked in movies and the effect it has had on her Facebook page, and her love of pork.

Mark asked about her zodiac sign (because favorite color is too risque on a first date), opined that she should do Telemundo (way to pigeonhole, dude), and proceeded to perform an awkward impersonation of an effeminate Latin lover. Needless to say, Leal was quick to drop the “F’ word (”We’re friends”).

Peep it:

Halloween may be over, but try telling that to horror legend William Castle. The man won’t even acknowledge the fact that he’s been dead for over 30 years. As those who knew him best will say, Castle does what Castle likes … and what Castle likes most is terrifying the pants off people.

That’s why the infamous producer of Rosemary’s Baby has released “House on Haunted Hill: A William Castle Annotated Screamplay,” a 248-page book featuring the working script from his 1959 classic horror show House on Haunted Hill, complete with his very own hand-written notes and original formatting. An introduction from renowned producer/director Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins) is also included.

“House on Haunted Hill: A William Castle Annotated Screamplay” is now available at Amazon and selected retailers (visit the William Castle website for more info). But, those living in Los Angeles can pick up a copy autographed by Castle’s daughter Terry at Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7:30pm.

Those attending the event will be treated to trailers, clips and secret surprises … who knows, maybe, even a William Castle ghost sighting.

Castle returned from the dead last May during the 33rd anniversary of his death and has since published the young-adult novel “From the Grave: The Prayer” and set up Twitter and Facebook accounts to stay in touch with fans.

So … the wife and I found ourselves down at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles this weekend to partake in their annual Spider Pavilion event. The show, which presents a variety of exotic spiders brought in from around the world, runs from now until Nov. 6.

The deadly species are kept encased in a viewing area, while the harmless—but still very creepy—arachnids are housed in a walk-thru landscaped area, where they spin their webs freely, feed on bugs, and occasionally drop down to scare the curds and whey out of visitors.

Over the Halloween weekend, the Spider Pavilion was held at night. Aided by small complimentary flashlights and buckets of alcohol (consumed prior to the event), Mrs. Muertos and I braved the experience and even took a few photos for your viewing pleasure.

Happy Halloween!

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Want to see a fight between a zombie and a shark? Then you won’t want to miss Blue Underground’s special midnight showings of horror icon Lucio Fulci’s 1979 gore classic Zombie, playing in theaters Oct. 21 and 22. Digitally restored and remastered from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative, the film will also be available on DVD and Blu-ray on 2-disc sets on Oct. 25.

Says Hostel director Eli Roth:

Fulci’s ZOMBIE contains the greatest scene ever committed to celluloid, and that is a zombie fighting a shark. Fulci put a stuntman dressed as a zombie in a tank with a live shark and made them fight – it’s one of the craziest, most insane and irresponsible scenes ever put on film.

This was 1980, years before CG. And the zombie wins! To this day, nobody knows how in the hell he did it, it’s simply jaw-dropping. There’s nothing you will see in any modern zombie movie that comes close to what Fulci did in 1980. Viva Fulci!

You won’t see that on “The Walking Dead.”

Zombie, originally released in Italy as an unofficial sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, centers on a woman’s (Tisa Farrow) search for her sick and missing father (Ugo Bologna) on the island of Matool, where a local doctor (Richard Johnson) is attempting to find a way to stop the undead from eating the living. The film is beloved by gore-geeks and cited as influential by filmmakers such as Roth and Guillermo del Toro.

Zombie plays in Los Angeles tonight at the New Beverly Cinema. To find a theater showing near you, go here.

Back in my youth, when I used to frequent bars to meet up with  hookers friends, I sometimes arrived too early and had no choice but to sit alone and pretend to watch whatever game was on the big screen. Without fail, some sports-loving social-butterfly would approach me and ask my opinion on a game, team, or player.

Unfortunately, I was too be busy setting fires and torturing small animals as a kid to ever take an interest in sports. To this day, I feel so excluded when people carry on about football, basketball, hockey, ping-pong, and so on. But, that changes today … today, I’m talking football!

Cheerleaders for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers recently took their tone and scantily-clad butts down to the Howl-O-Scream haunted event at the Busch Gardens theme park in Tampa, FL. While the maze (see video below) doesn’t look all that frightful, the girls nonetheless shriek, run, and jiggle like true scream queens.

How’s that for sports talk? Nailed it!

Now, let’s go to the video:

Halloween is lurking around the corner and, if you’re a parent, that means it’s time to start planning some fright-filled activities for your kids. But, what can you do when haunted events cost too much money and letting your children trick-or-treat only exposes them to rape-happy pedophiles and type 2 diabetes?

Well, if you live in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and/or New York City, you can treat your little terrors to a reading from iconic horror producer/director William Castle’s new young-adult novel “From the Grave: The Prayer,” his first completed project since dropping dead in 1977 at the age of 63.

Excerpts from the book will be read by Castle’s daughter Terry. The all-ages event will also feature book signings and plenty of Halloween tricks and treats, including a demonstration of the Castle family’s “secret fake blood recipe.”

“From the Grave: The Prayer” is set be released on Oct. 2 and will be made available in print and eBook versions ($15.99 and $9.99 respectively) via Amazon, Kindle, NOOK, and iBooks. It is the first in a planned series of “From the Grave” books.

William Castle is the legendary producer of Rosemary’s Baby and the director of such demented frighteners as The House on Haunted Hill (1959) and 13 Ghosts (1960). He returned from the dead last May during the 33rd anniversary of his death and immediately launched his blog and  Twitter and Facebook accounts to stay in touch with fans.

“From the Grave” readings will take place at:

BOOKS OF WONDER on Oct. 16 at 1 pm.

18 West 18^th Street

New York, NY 10011

(212) 989-3270

website

BOOK PASSAGE on Oct. 21 at 7 pm.

51 Tamal Vista Blvd.

Corte Madera, CA 94925

(415) 927-0960

website

STORIES BOOKS & CAFE on Oct. 27 at 7:30 pm.

1716 West Sunset Blvd.,

Los Angeles, CA 90026

(213) 413-3733

website

Shark Night 3-D opened today. I have no idea if it’s any good, but last week’s Rogue Pictures’ Swimming with Sharks Pool Party sure looked like fun. The event, held at the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica, California, reeled in stars Sara Paxton, Alyssa Diaz, Dustin Milligan, Sinqua Walls and Chris Carmack.

Also making a splash at the shindig were dancer-turned actress Keltie Colleen (Footloose) and “Bachelor” contestants Natalie Getz,Vienna Girardi, Erica Rose, Deanna Pappas and Melissa Schreiber (single girls gotta eat too).

Shark Night 3-D is directed by David R. Ellis (The Final Destination 3-D). Click here to see promo stills from the flick. Sara Paxton is part of Clatto’s list of The 20 Hottest Women Working in Horror/Sci-Fi Today.

Peep the gallery (via Zimbio):

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G4TV has released video of “Attack of the Show” cohost—and former Playboy Playmate—Sara Jean Underwood making the rounds at this year’s Anime Expo, held in July at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Underwood, a cosplay freak, attended the event as Lum the Invader from the manga series Urusei Yatsura. If that doesn’t make you squeal like a 12-year-old Japanese boy, then you obviously don’t know what the costume looks like.

Peep it:

For the past few months, I had heard stories about an unholy experiment taking place at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles. From the sounds of it, horror legend Stuart Gordon, director of indie-frighteners From Beyond, The Pit and the Pendulum, Dolls, and Fortress, had discovered a formula that would revive Re-Animator, his renowned 1985 feature film debut, as an onstage musical.

I was certain the tales were untrue. To tinker with one of horror’s most beloved works would be madness. For starters, who could possibly match Jeffrey Combs’ performance as Herbert West in the original? What would happen to the gore? How would the film’s outrageous “head” scene play out on the stage? There was only one way to find out.

The Steve Allen Theater is an intimate venue with a small stage. Mrs. Muertos and I took our seats just behind the “splatter zone,” a designated area for those who prefer a more interactive experience (ponchos are available upon request, but I’m told the blood doesn’t stain). Gordon, who directs the musical, soon took to the stage and graciously welcomed everyone to the show.

Re-Animator, for those unfamiliar with Gordon’s film and the H.P. Lovecraft story it’s based on (”Herbert West: Re-Animator”), follows the grisly havoc caused by med school students Herbert West and Dan Cain after they set out to test West’s reanimating serum on human corpses. Things go from frying pan to fire when West’s nemesis Dr. Hill, a shameless plagiarist and pervert, attempts to steal his work.

Graham Skipper owns the role of Herbert West, shifting  effortlessly between the character’s bratty narcissism and psychotic rage. That those emotions are expressed through song makes West appear all the more mad, especially during the numbers “I Give Life” and “Basement,” the latter sung by West as he responds to Cain’s ad for a roommate.

Chris L. McKenna as the affable Dan Cain and Rachel Avery (whom some may recognize from her appearances on HBO’s “Big Love”) as Dan’s sexy, but wholesome, fiance Megan Halsey project a playful chemistry that shines during a hilarious bedroom duet in which they can’t seem to agree on wedding plans (She’s thinking grand; he’s favoring City Hall).

Of course, wedding bliss is not in the couple’s future. Megan is betrayed by Dan when he takes interest in West’s work despite her protests. She is later sexually accosted by a headless Dr. Hill, played with perverse glee by international opera singer Jesse Merlin. The girl’s luck only worsens from there.

Reunited with original Re-Animator writers Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris, and FX artists John Buechler and Anthony Doublin, and aided by Mark Nutter’s brilliant maniacal score and gut-busting lyrics, Gordon has not only delivered a love letter—or, perhaps, singing telegram—to Re-Animator fans, but has also created what could very well be the next Rocky Horror Show (I am selfishly hoping it stays in LA).

“Re-Animator: The Musical” plays it final shows this weekend at the Steve Allen Theater located at 4773 Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. Tickets can be purchased by calling 1-800-595-4TIX (595-4849) or online here.

Writer/director Eli Roth is teaming up with the dreadful folks at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood to create Eli Roth’s Hostel: Hunting Season, a gruesome new maze inspired by the sadistic and deadly exploits of the Elite Hunting organization seen in Roth’s terrifying Hostel films.

Read what’s in store:

“Hostel: Hunting Season,” for which Universal will build elaborate sets re-creating locations in Slovakia, will mark the horror auteur and star’s first effort at transforming his screen work into a live theme park experience.

The maze will re-imagine the film’s dehumanizing torture chambers and send guests on a spiraling journey through the corrupt halls of Elite Hunting’s torture factory. Elite Hunting, a secret society that tortures and kills American youth for sport in exchange for large sums of money, will prowl the factory and prey on its many maze visitors.

Roth, who also directed the 2002 flesh-eating bacteria frightener Cabin Fever and produced last year’s box office hit The Last Exorcism, is also threatening to participate in the maze as a torturer.

He warns:

I am so happy to join forces with the creative team at Universal. Our collaborative vision to bring ‘Hostel’ to life will give both fans of my movie and horror fans a scare they could never have imagined.

People will have a chance to experience some exact moments from their favorite ‘Hostel’ scenes, along with some new surprises.

This is something I’ve dreamed of for years. I may even dress up and appear in the maze one night as a torturer. So when you say ‘I scared you,’ you can literally mean that I scared you!

Halloween Horror Nights runs on selected nights from Sept. 23-thru-Oct. 31. This year’s frights will also include a maze based on Uni’s upcoming prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi classic The Thing.

To see pics from one of my many visits to the event, go here.