As you go about the holiday season with the usual routine of frantic shopping, sitting in holiday traffic and listening to a lot of songs with jingling, the folks at Horrific Homes and Gardens are doing something a little different – and with a lot more black. It’s called A Dreadpunk Holiday and if that doesn’t get you all tingly, you’re on the wrong website.
The Los Angeles event is meant to bring together those of us who’d pick Edward Scissorhands over A Christmas Story as a holiday tradition without thinking twice.
“I think a lot of people are just bored about the traditional holiday,” says Sierra Hunter, co-owner of Horrific Homes and Gardens. “I think Krampus kind of proved that… I think people want different, they want new. I don’t think they want to pull the same old Christmas out of the box.”
Indeed, with a lineup, including vendors like Drakenstein Art, Dreadful Little Things and Voodoo Kitty Handmade Oddities, and panels like The Rise of Spiritualism and Victorian Mysticism and Victorian Death Culture: Fashion & Practices, the day will be way out of the traditional Christmas box. In addition to a gallery of artists, other special guests will include Huston Huddleston, founder of The Hollywood Sci-fi Museum and The Hollywood Horror Museum, and popular cosplayer Infamous Duane. Expect plenty of dreadpunk cosplay, too, “all prettied up and having fun … [with] a very spooky Santa and very spooky Mrs. Claus,” says Hunter. Oh, and a Krampus to help keep everyone in line.
For those of you who haven’t heard of dreadpunk (no worries, we Googled), it’s a term coined by Derek Tatum. He says on his site, dreadpunk.com, that it’s something he came up with to describe “contemporary Gothic horror works set in an often stylized past.”
If you’re drawn to this era or just the darker side of things, it’s an event you’ll want to check out.
“It’s the pull of the fear of the unknown,” Steve Wingert, co-owner of Horrific Homes and Gardens, says of why people are attracted to this event and type of horror. “That pending evil that we just can’t quite see yet… We have our own inner demons that we’re dealing with… It’s against all the glitter and the mundane of the holiday.”
Tickets and Information
Saturday, Dec. 19, 2015
10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Iron Room
5080 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
$12 at the door
*Visit the artists’ pages on Facebook or Instagram for a $2 coupon and you’ll also receive a one-hour early entry into the event. :: www.dreadpunkholiday.com