The BEAST: Buffalo's Best Fiend

I was running through a pitch-black maze and could smell the gas of the chainsaw roaring behind me. A polar bear was spitting blood on the wall, a girl was hanging from a shower rod and the television was all static, on channel 13. There was a seven foot goat stalking me. This was not an acid trip at Marilyn Manson's house. This was 21,000 square feet of barely controlled mayhem at the Galleria Mall.

Like running through a gothic and bloody dream, the House of Horrors sprung from the imagination of Tim Bunch. An ex roadie for the Misfits and acquaintance to other shock-rock/punk prop and gore bands like Gwar and Marilyn Manson, Tim supervises his creation with a pair of night vision goggles.

How many years have you been doing this?

3, this is our second year at the mall.

How many people have crapped their pants?

2 [this year]. One person ran to the bathroom and didn't quite make it. It was gross, everywhere.

Not impressed with the local offerings of haunted houses, Tim decided to realize his horrific vision in the most banal of settings, a shopping mall. Despite the fact that the current House of Horror already takes a half hour to get through Tim has considered moving to a bigger space, "I have two semi trailors full of stuff I'm not even using."

Where do you get your ideas from? Did you fall in a well when you were a kid, or something?

No… and I wasn't dropped on my head…. I guess you can blame it on my dad.

Did his father beat him in an abandoned barn? Was he chained in a basement, forced to watch unspeakable acts by local Kiwanis members? No. "My mother wouldn't let me watch horror movies, but my dad would. She'd come in and I'd turn my head to the wall. 'He's not watching anything.'"

Which explains all the references to horror film in the House of Horrors, including scenes from Poltergeist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And of course there are the teenagers, dressed in black, who can hear and see you coming, while they hide in corners, with masks on.

"Yeah, that gnome freaked me out," said Karen, who I went through with and made a decent human shield. "He pointed us the wrong way (toward another masked volunteer)." Tim laughed "Yeah, if you can't trust the gnomes in a haunted house who can you trust?" Good question.

But it's not all voyeuristic giggling, for Tim. Running a haunted maze this size does present logistical problems. " We lose shoes every night. People go all the way through without their shoes, then ask for them back at the end…. One girl freaked out, when she lost her big gold hoop earring that said 'Sharleese' on it."

[The earring was found.]

What are you doing Halloween?

Hopefully not getting out of here too late, get a costume on and go out... Last year a friend of mine brought a (chainless) chainsaw down to Chippewa and started chasing people down the middle of the street. People were falling in the road. The cops came with their lights on. They were like, 'Somebody's down here with a chainsaw chopping people up!'

[I laugh.]

Dr. Chudd, drummer for the Misfits will be signing CDs at the House of Horrors Oct. 29th, check www.houseofhorrorsbuffalo.com for details.

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Truth is Overrated Al Uthman

It's been almost a week since the second Presidential debate, and I'm still baffled at the post-debate coverage.

Well, no, that's not really true. I remember turning to a fellow viewer as we watched Bush go to pieces and saying, "watch; they're gonna come on and call it for Bush."

Political Snicker-ing Matt Taibbi

The good folks at M&M/Mars and BBDO New York have combined recently to give the world one of the more uplifting cinema experiences of the year: a series of commercials in which hapless, ambitionless zeroes with terrible haircuts make improbable journeys from their couches to the throne of mankind after eating Snickers bars.

Big Brother Knows Best Paco Alameda

True story: After eagerly awaiting the DVD release of Fahrenheit 9/11, I take a bus to The Hamburg, NY Blockbuster and ask the first friendly clerk I see to point me toward the new releases. He walks me over to the Fahrenheit 9/11 display and being a very helpful chap, takes a DVD, hands it to me and says "Is this what you were looking for?"

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