These links miss out the Necropolis in Glasgow, but it’s definitely worth the trip.

From National Geographic: Top 10 Cemeteries (in the world)

Merry Cemetery, Romania

Xoxocotlan, Oaxaca, Mexico: Where Day of the Dead celebrations are held October 31.

Old Jewish Cemetery , Prague. There are so many headstones because people are buried several deep and has been in use since the 15th century. Here’s a wallpaper-sized photo for you:

Several of these appear on the following list, as well.

From Weather.com: 15 Must-See Historic Cemeteries Across the U.S.

An excellent article on the whole (there are some technical difficulties, and you may have to manually change the page number in your address bar, but it’s worth it), it includes Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is very Victorian in design and would therefore delight Goths. Surrounded by gardens and ornamentation, it’s the sort of place one could go for a peaceful picnic or a bit of reading.

Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia has what you’d expect in a world-class cemetery–above-ground vaults and impressive sculpture, but what really makes it stand out is that at Halloween, they hold candle-lit night-time tours for three nights.

If you’re closer to New York than Atlanta, another cemetery that has late-night tours you may stop by Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Graceland Cemetery , Chicago, Illinois. Victorian-esque again, but this one is home to one of my favourite sculptures, ‘Eternal Silence’

The tomb of Dexter Graves, also known as ‘Statue of Death’, though heavens knows why.

Green-Wood Cemetery , Brooklyn, NY Holy Gothic-Architecture, Batman! If I lived anywhere near this place, I’d dress as an Edward Gorey character and drape myself along a wall or five and have photos taken.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery , Concord, Massachusetts. It’s in Sleepy Hollow.

Screams and moans and bats and bones
Teenage monsters in haunted homes
The ghosts on the stair
The vampires bite
Better beware, there’s a full moon tonight

Fantômas. Spider Baby. The directors cut. 2001.

This one didn’t fit with the other films, so it gets its own. The full length video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller is an excellent spooky.

And my favourite thing to watch every Halloween (or whenever) was the Making Of special for Thriller.

This series is most of the ‘Making of’ video. It’s chopped up because YouTube wouldn’t allow the poster to put up the music videos shown before and after the interview bits.

Photos from the Making of Thriller

Bonus: This isn’t scary, just awesome:

If gore and abject terror aren’t to your taste–if you only need a murky atmosphere and a castle to get you in the spooky mood, then here are a few films perfect for October.

Haunted Honeymoon is a classic. Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom Deluise and several others are members of a radio show called Manhattan Mystery Theatre. Since Wilder and Radner became engaged, Wilder has developed a stutter brought on by fear of matrimony after his mother’s death at her second marriage. A stutter and uncontrollable laughing or crying is a career killer for a radio actor who has finally caught a break.

But! A psychiatrist has a plan–to scare the bejeezus out of Wilder. Overloading the circuits, as it were. The couple is going to Wilder’s family home to meet everyone at the weekend and the psychiatrist plans to use the scary-ass atmosphere to ‘fix’ his problem.

Simultaneously, Aunt Kate–the matriarch of the family–has changed her will to benefit Wilder. This is supposed to be a secret, but of course someone finds out. Both of Wilder’s brothers need money desperately and have excellent motif for killing him and the women in their lives do, as well… how much of the creepiness is the psychiatrist trying to help and how much is someone trying to off the poor schlub in order to get his money?

Though the entire movie is great fun, this is my favourite part:

This was my first exposure to the concept of sound effects–you get to see how radio technicians work–and it holds up remarkably well for something I found enormously entertaining when I was eight. This one is good for the entire family.

Fun Facts: The woman who plays the wife of the magician, Jo Ross, played Camilla in a TV mini-series about Charles and Diana that was made in 1982.

Haunted Honeymoon was filmed at Knebworth House. Knebworth? Really? Look at this place:

‘Knebworth’ is the name of the spotty kid who got wedgied every day until he went to university, not the physical manifestation of ‘I have money and I’m staying right here’.

Halloween been my favourite time of year since I was small. One of my earliest film obsessions (meaning I watched it at least a dozen times each October) was The Worst Witch. Diana Rigg, Charlotte Rae (Mrs. Garrett from Facts of Life) and Tim Curry, along with a very young Fairuza Balk are brilliant in this campy tale of a hopeless young witch.

J.K. Rowling must have seen this movie at least once before writing Harry Potter, as the similarities are obvious.

And of course, one can’t talk about The Worst Witch without mentioning the best scene:

Apparently, all she needed was a little confidence because Fairuza grew out of her awkward witch phase into a quite competent, if terrifying, witch as seen in The Craft, another fun film for October.

Besides her smashing Goth sense of fashion, Miss Balk owns this role as the leader of a trio of girls at a Catholic High School dabbling in witchcraft who bring into the group a new girl with a dark past. Sort of Mean Girls with pentagrams.

Since it’s the beginning of October, I thought I’d tell you about Dahlia Jane.

Dahlia Jane is a warped young woman who likes creepy things, black and white stripes and keeping a blog.
For Dahlia Jane every day is Halloween.

Her site is Upon a Midnight Dreary . It is a blog devoted to all things gothic and macabre.

She posts about gothy clothes , decor and clothing the Addams family would love, goes to art shows , special effects exhibits and other great places like Alcatraz . Then she writes about it and shares it with us lucky people.

I’ve purchased several things she’s posted (my wallet does not thank you, Madam) and love being able to virtually visit places I’d never be able to on my own. It was her post about Dearly Departed Hollywood Tragical History Tour that led me to Six Degrees of Helter Skelter. I have no strong feelings about Charles Manson one way or another, but the documentary was still excellent.

And she has a countdown to Halloween on her blog. Year round.

So you should go there and be delighted.