Meet the Go-Go Ghoulie Gals

In order to celebrate the holiday right, resident ParanormalPopCulture.com artist David Rosenberg has given us these lovely ladies of Halloween. They might rip your head off, but you boys out there will be begging for more when they do. Without further ado, I give you ... The Go-Go Ghoulie Gals

(Clockwise from top): Franken-Cutie, Gorgon Betty, Nefratiti Shivers, Necra Ophelia,
Maddie Moonbeam, Kitty Va-Voom & Sammi/Terri.

Syfy 'Ghost Hunters' talk life, living and dead

After dealing with demons, ghosts and poltergeists, you wouldn’t think the stars of Syfy’s “Ghost Hunters” would be bested by group of Colorado kids. Still, while investigating the case of a little boy haunted by dead celebrities, Jason Hawes wet his pants – and Grant Wilson, Hawes’ co-star of the supernatural reality-TV show, experienced much, much worse incontinence issues – before running out of the house screaming, all the way back to their homes in Rhode Island.

Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, meet Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of Comedy Central’s “South Park.” In the Oct. 7 episode, the two co-founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) – the paranormal investigative group around which the Syfy show is based – were spoofed.

Far from being offended or incensed, Hawes and Wilson say they loved being made fun of alongside Michael Jackson and Billy Mays by a show notorious for taking the pulse of a zeitgeist before giving it a shot of adrenaline. Although the ghost hunters weren’t involved with the making of the episode and didn’t lend voices to their animated counterparts, they helped promote it through their very active Twitter feeds and TAPS fans responded by pushing “#ghosthunters” to a popular “trending topic” of the day.

Paranormal Pop Column: Monsters exist, but I'm not afraid

There is a lot to be afraid of out there in the big, bad world; terrorism, swine flu, Lady Gaga and bad sushi, just to name a few. But of the things that frighten me, vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies (which are just antique, gift-wrapped zombies) and ghosts are not amongst them.

Of course, it’s not because they don’t exist - as I’m certain you’re thinking - because they most certainly do. All of the full moon or no moon creepy crawlies that cause the jeepers and the creepers, the heebies and the jeebies, are all real. And by my standards, they’re also alright. See, without them, I’d be really freaked out.

As a kid growing up in Central Florida in the early to mid-’80s, I remember the night. Not even a Muppets nightlight penetrated more than a few feet of the inky black that enveloped my childhood home. It wasn’t an old home. As was the case with most neighborhoods I knew as a kid, our subdivision seemed to have recently sprung from marshy areas complete with K-Marts and drug stores. The Amityville house at the end of a long, creepy road ours was not.

Yet it terrified me.

'I Kissed A Vampire' aka 'High School Vampire Musical'

What do you call a blood-sucker who is dancing theatrically?  I would have accepted "vamping vampire," but the better answer is the cast of I Kissed A Vampire, the new musical comedy show on iTunes.

The Twilight-meets-High School Musical web series premiered Oct. 13 and stars Musical alumni Lucas Grabeel and Drew Seeley.

Grabeel is Dylan, a teen going through that awkward vampire-transition phase while nurturing a crush on his gal pal, Sara (Adrian Slade). Luckily Seeley plays Trey Sylvania (Get it? Get it?), the bad-boy living-dead mentor to Dylan.

The show hits the right target audience - namely the tweens and teens who consider Zac Efron a thespian and have fierce loyalties to teams Jacob or Edward.

'Zombi 2': Shark vs. zombie scene. Just because

Although zombies are experiencing pop-culture rebirth lately, let's not forget the cool zombie work that came before.  As a brief reminder, I give you the awesome shark vs. zombie, maneater vs. maneater, "wrangle under the waves," "melee in the sea" scene from Italian director Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2.

Eat it up.

Zombie Strippers: Night of the Stripping Dead

If you plan on heading to a Chicago strip club tonight, you may be in for a lapdance of the dead.

Kevin Pang of the  Chicago Tribune reports the Admiral Theatre (a "gentlemen's club" with a deceptively mundane name) is holding "Night of the Stripping Dead" tonight.The event will include normally-lively and lithely naked performers transformed into an undead army of dancers by professional makeup artists.  The highlight of the night, however, is a performance by Miss Maya Sinstress, a zombie burlesque performer known for removing her metal clothing - with a chainsaw.

Jim Morrison's ghost dances on his own grave in new photo

If we learned anything from last week's South Park episode that spoofed TAPS, it's that dead celebrities are sometimes held up on a psychic runway, awaiting departure.  I'm no expert, but that sounds about right to me.

If it is true, then it looks like Jim Morrison showed up late to the gate and missed his shot to board.

The Daily Express newspaper in the UK broke the story that respected American rock historian Brett Meisner claims to have caught The Doors frontman's ghost on film in 1997, hanging out in front of his grave at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris (seen here, maybe, to the right of Meisner towards the background).

Meisner said he didn't notice the image until 2002. Apparently researchers (yes, researchers!) have examined the photo and determined it's legit and is indeed the ghostly image of the Lizard King who died in a Paris

Batman and Blade: The mash-up

While I can't say it was bound to happen, it at least looks like it was.  In this SilverLightsaber mash-up starring everybody's favorite tax-evading vampire hunter and Gotham City's protector, Blade and Batman butt heads and compare growly voices. It looks far better than you might think.

Without further ado, here's ... uh, "The Dark Knight vs. Blade"? "The Dark Knight's Blade"? "Vampire Hunters B"? "Batty for Vampires"?

[via /Film]

It's official: 'Ghost Hunters Academy' premieres Nov. 11

While we've known about this for some time, Ghost Hunters Academy is officially premiering on Nov. 11 on Syfy. Run by experienced TAPS members Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango, Academy will feature student paranormal investigators as they travel the country learning the ropes of the ghostly biz.  Those that "pass the course" will get a shot to join the regular Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International teams.

Not surprisingly, the new spinoff also allows the folks from TAPS to have their own young investigative show to counter Paranormal State on A&E - and to show an alternative to the PRS methods.

To kick things off, the show will re-visit old GH haunts (yes, pun, I know) such as Fort Mifflin and Eastern State Penitentiary, both in
Philadelphia, and the St. Augustine lighthouse in Florida.

'Most Haunted' investigates Hugh Laurie's haunted House

Last weekend's SNL spoof on the Bio Channel's Celebrity Ghost Stories wasn't the first time the show found fodder in paranormal reality TV.  Lest we forget, Dr. House himself Hugh Laurie investigated a stinky ghost as Derek from Most Haunted when he hosted back in 2006. 

Proof of a ghost on the set of 'Patient X' vampire movie?

When you write about paranormal pop culture, you rarely expect things to be, well, normal.  Instead, it's sort of par for the course to be researching some news bits and then find yourself sucked into a rabbit hole where you're following bread crumbs on an odd story for a couple hours.

That's the story on my relationship with Patient X, a Filipino horror/suspense flick about a doctor who returns home after 20 years to discover a bunch of aswangs (bone-sucking vampiric monsters) eating up his town. The film opens Oct. 28 in the Philippines and the trailer, which follows, is pretty bloody, engaging stuff.

But wait, there's more. 

Top 10 creepiest ghost movies

For the countdown to Halloween, I was going to write a list of the spookiest ghost movies - until Movie-Moron solidly beat me to the punch.  This creepy collection hits all the high notes, including my faves The Others, The Haunting and The Sixth Sense (what is it about putting the article "the" in a movie title that increases chances of being freaked out?). 

After reading the rest of the Moron's list, stick around for their vampire and werewolf movie best-ofs. Meanwhile, here's a lovely little clip from a favorite ghost movie of mine to get your adrenaline pumping this morning.

'Saturday Night Live', Drew Barrymore gets into 'Ghost Stories'

After beginning her career as paranormal pop culture's go-to adorable tyke in Altered States, E.T., Firestarter and Cat's Eye, I can't help but still have a soft spot for Drew Barrymore. Well, in case you missed it, she did a swell job with her hosting duties on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Her take on Sharon Osbourne in this Celebrity Ghost Stories sketch was especially nice - although her (maybe?) boyfriend Justin Long stole the bit with his Matthew McConaughey spoof.

Meanwhile, if you've never seen Celebrity Ghost Stories on the Bio Channel (the channel-formerly-known-as Biography which has a Paranormal Zone on their site), I highly recommend it for the over-the-top cheeze and dramatic cutaways.  The show is frequently entertaining, if even in an eye-rolling way.  Although their definition of "celebrity is often questionable," this week's episode features tales from Carrie Fisher, Jon Waters and Rue McClanahan.  Which makes me wonder, why hasn't this bawdy, curse-word prone trio been assembled before for some wacky, ghost-hunting hijinks??

'Ghost Hunters' get roasted on 'South Park'

A new season of South Park premieres tonight, and it promises to be an offensive, tastelessly topical episode.  Just the way we like it.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker return tonight, presumably with their take on the "summer of death." In the episode, Ike is being tormented by dead celebrities, so Kyle and the guys bring in professional ghost hunters to snuff out the otherworldy interlopers.

Can it be? Might we see South Park-ized versions of Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from Syfy's

Napoleon Dynamite 'Woke Up Dead'

OK, so maybe it's not fair to typecast Jon Heder forever as Napoleon Dynamite, but what can I say? It worked as a headline and I happen to quite enjoy Dynamite.

But, if Heder decides to go all method-actor on me for the faux pas, I should expect a brain-eating visit any day now since his newest role is that of a zombie in the Web comedy, Woke Up Dead.

The series, which premiered Monday on the Sony Pictures-owned Crackle, focuses on Drex Greene (Heder), a young guy just entering the workforce who is trying to get his life together - even after he suddenly begins a transformation into a zombie.

The 4-5 minute episodes are piling up like bodies and there are already six viewable for your undead funny bone. Backed by a low seven-figure budget, as reported by the

'Where The Wild Things Are': What was added to the monster cut?

Spike Jonze's film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's tale will finally arrive in theaters on Oct. 16 after being in production since 2005.

The images from the movie look amazing, and if the trailers are to be believed, the movie strikes the right fantastical chord to match the short Sendak masterpiece. Still, when you're dealing with a 48-page book made up of only a few hundred words, you've got to add some things, and that's exactly what director Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers did.

About that 'Zombieland' cameo ... [Spoiler]

If you haven't seen Zombieland yet, you might want to Abort! Abort! Abort! this post because there be spoilers here ...

Haunted USA: The rundown of the nation's cities with the most ghosts

Paranormal pop culture spikes around Halloween when everyone becomes fascinated with ghosts, goblins and monsters - basically the stuff we fill our entire year with.  Still, one perk of all the suped-up supernatural coverage is the lists that are released each October.

For instance, Digital City has done some digging and collected the spookiest spots across the country. Among the cities that make the Top 10, there are a few surprises (Galveston, Texas; Key West, Florida), the old standbys (New Orleans, Savannah, Gettysburg, Chicago) and a few omissions (New York City? Philadelphia? Boston?). 

Over all, the site does a swell job adding it all up.  Although, based on my personal experiences, may I suggest Buffalo, NY, in the future?

Werewolf mania continues with upcoming book and movie

If you're loopy for lupines, you'll be happy to hear werewolves are continuing their ascent as the next paranormal pop culture darlings.

First up, Mediabistro's GalleyCat book blog reports that Del Rey will publish Little Women and Werewolves by Porter Grand, a classic lit and paranormal mashup in the vein of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The synopsis:

In this retelling of Louisa May Alcott's classic, the beloved little women must keep not just the wolf, but the werewolves, from the door...and the kindly old gentlemen next door and his grandson may have some secrets to hide - or share with the March girls.

If that's not enough to feed your feral appetites, Variety says that Unique Features has picked up the screen rights to Shiver, part one of the werewolf romance series by Maggie Stiefvater about "a teen who

Ghost hunts haunt Georgia politics

Obviously we've all heard of skeletons in a politician's closet, but ghosts in the closet are a pretty new development taking place down in Georgia.

Political columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Jim Galloway published a blog today tracking a congressional race in Macon between U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D) and potential paranormal investigator, Republican Paul Rish.

According to Galloway, he called the Georgia Ghost Society to inquire why Rish was popping up alongside the ghost hunter group's member page in a Google search. The group's founder, Bob Hunnicutt, told Galloway that Rish was consulted as a technical expert but is not a member of GGS. To quote Galloway's blog, "If some web designer included Rish’s name on a page that is drawing Google’s attention, it was a mistake, Hunnicutt said."

An hour after speaking with the paranormal investigator, Galloway "coincidentally" received a press release from Rish's people titled "Georgia Congressman Jim Marshall publicly attacks ghost hunting and those who participate."  Excellent timing, eh?

Something smells fishy here since paranormal investigative groups rarely recruit "some web designer" to create their Web site, and instead produce it in-house.  Also, based on this cached MySpace profile for GGS, Rish is listed again as a member and there's no designer to blame for that one.

We'll continue to follow this, but in the meantime, let me encourage Paul Rish to come out of the paranormal closet.  How cool would it be if Georgia elected its first openly-ghost hunting Representative?