Horrifying Hollywood

When it comes to the entertainment industry, I’m not too proud to say that I am a total dork. I don’t actually have any desire to be a part of “the industry”, and I really couldn’t care less about celebrity gossip, but when it comes to the actual process of choosing locations, filming, camera tricks, props…I get all kinds of nerdy. I can honestly say that given the choice between going to Universal Studios Hollywood a thousand times vs. visiting Disnelyland once, I’d go with the former. I can’t help it. The biz just fascinates me.

It’s because of this that I often enjoy setting up little excursions for my husband and I to go visit the film locations from our favorite TV shows and movies (see my post on our Buffy the Vampire Slayer mecca). Although some people don’t “get” it, I just enjoy seeing the places that I’ve viewed on screen in real life. It’s a fun and free way for me to get my jollies here in LA.

Not too long ago, my husband and I set out to Hollywood and take a look at the houses used in the filming of horror classics “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street”. Of course, being the dorks that we are, simply visiting the houses wasn’t enough. We decided that while we were there, we may as well dress up like the characters and photograph ourselves.

Don’t be too harsh on our “costumes”, though. I think I’ve emphasized enough in the past that we’re not made of money, so I had to work off of stuff that we already had laying around the house. As luck would have it, though, my husband’s best friend had recently (and very randomly, I might add) picked up a replica of Freddy Krueger’s glove, so at least we had that in our favor!

We stopped at the “Halloween” house first. What I am referring to here, is not where Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis’s character) lived or the Myers house – those are both located in Pasadena. I’m talking about the house where she was babysitting, which is used throughout the bulk of the movie. This house is located at 1530 N. Orange Grove in Hollywood, and the house where her friend Annie was babysitting is right across the street at 1537 N. Orange Grove.

The house where Laurie babysits in “Halloween”.

Sadly, I don’t own a mechanic’s outfit so the hubby and I just took turns posing with a white Michael Myer’s-esque mask. Here’s my husband’s attempt at re-creating the scene where Michael steps out from behind the hedges (sadly, there were no longer any hedges to be found so we had to settle for a bush):

Original scene from “Halloween”.

My husband’s version.

Next, we drove a few blocks over to the house where Nancy from “Nightmare on Elm Street” lived and was tormented by Freddy Krueger (1428 N. Genesee in Hollywood). Didn’t have a red and green striped sweater, but I did have a red and purple striped cardigan that we just flipped around backwards and declared, “good enough!”