Saw "Zombieland." It's rather bloody, but pretty funny. Last weekend I was in Orlando. I was there for Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights and the Spooky Empire horror convention. I enjoyed both. The express pass for Universal was a life saver. The lines got really long very quickly. I got to visit all of the haunts over two visits. Actually, I could have gone through all six last Thursday but I got tired. The 106 degree heat index didn't help.

Favorite haunts: Silver Screams(the main haunt) and Chucky(a toy factory gone very wrong). Not-so-favorite haunts: The Spawning(Lots of rubbery strings hanging from the ceiling. Lots of actors in the same rubber lizard people masks) and The Wolfman(beautiful sets, but all of the monsters were supposed to be the same werewolf so no variety. To paraphrase Young Frankenstein: "Werewolf? There wolf and there wolf and there wolf."

Spooky Empire had a zombie march on Friday. It was led by John Landis. He was the director of "American Werewolf in London" and some music video called "Thriller." The march was kicked off by a performance of two Michael Jacksons and a troupe of little zombie princesses(a nod to "Zombieland"). I watched a couple of movies; "Scarezone"-a so-so slasher movie set in a haunted attraction and "Trick-or-Treat"- a very good Halloween horror anthology. Rent it if you get the chance.

Sunday morning I took a behind-the-scenes Halloween Horror Nights tour. Our guide was good, if a bit hammy. The Spooky Empire convention wrapped up with a costume contest. The winning entry was a group of people dressed as the Addams Family(snap snap). A Jason from Friday the 13th was a big crowd favorite for some reason. My favorite was a Sadako/Samara(long-haired ghost girl character) from the Ring. She even had an assistant who carried a "TV screen" for her to crawl through.

After the convention, I packed up most of my stuff, grabbed my "little" camera and re-visited Universal Studios. Caught the Dracula haunt(very effective, but it would have been more accurate to call it the Brides of Dracula) and the Bill & Ted Show(the dancing was good).