Halloween Parade

UCB mines dark horror-comedy classics and covers them in gore for holiday hilarity

Killgore, the UCB Theatre’s annual Halloween show (seen October 29), is a Rocky Horror-inspired production with a tone that is like a more perverted set of Edward Gorey drawings or version of Little Shop of Horrors.

Zach Woods is near perfect as the dour ringmaster of the gory proceedings, as “Thornbrush,” a strange man with a lust for blood who wreaks punishment on the wicked but unsuspecting, in a succession of gruesome vignettes. The tales of what happens to these victims when they enter Thornbrush’s house are framed by the torment he is also inflicting on the equally perverted “Merrick” (played by Chris Gethard), who is paying Thornbrush to eat him alive.

Several of the UCB Theatre’s regulars play Thornbrush’s unwitting victims. They don’t always get the chance to stand out, but a few get just enough lines to do so, like Kate Spencer’s “Food Addict” and Matt Fisher’s porn star, “Dusty Taintwood.”

The production also has other dimensions to it, both subtle and unsubtle. Woods and Gethard exchange asides between the gory scenes as the stage is cleared or cleaned somewhat (at least of the expired actors), filling you in about their disappointment as actors having to play in such a grotesque piece.

The unsubtle aspect of course, is the torrents of stage blood that the actors let fly in explosive fashion with each death, to the delight of the audience, primed to anticipate this by being handed cheap ponchos to wear as they enter, which brings the audience right into the fun the performers get to have with this stuff.

By the end, Killgore gives you the feeling of attending the UCB’s own Halloween party with this take on dark horror-comedy built on the foundations of similar predecessors from stage and screen.

Killgore runs 8 and 10 p.m. Oct. 30 and 8 and 10 p.m. and midnight on Oct. 31.