by CHRIS BARRY

Be scared rockers, be very scared. Because the ghouls who will be rockin' l'Alizé this Saturday night are not just your garden variety spooks, like that lame-o wannabe monster Jerry Only or that stupid-looking kid with the fucked-up contact lenses who used to be in Limp Bizkit. Nope, these monsters are way more than just ghouls - they're Ghoulunatics! And if there's anything scarier than a ghoul, it's a ghoul whose gone mad and no longer possesses a social conscience or a sense of right and wrong. A ghoulunatic is capable of anything.

And what our local, rockin', MiMi-winning Ghoulunatics are capable of this Halloween is throwing the most interesting party of the weekend. Well, okay, interesting is a subjective concept, but good luck finding another Halloween bash where the top door prize is an honest-to-God coffin, and a used one to boot. "Well, it was only used once," apologizes Ghoul lead singer Patrick Mireault, who, when not belting out Ghoulunatic hits like "Howling Season" and "Creepy Crawly," spends his days working as a gravedigger out in that most evil of suburbs, Laval.

"I got this coffin out of the garbage, actually. Somebody who had died in another country was sent back in it, but the family didn't like it because it's in the Dracula style and they thought it was creepy. So they bought another coffin and threw this one out."

But lest you think these local deathcore legends are just giving away crap they've rescued from cemetery dumpsters, think again. "No way," says Mireault. "Our guitarist sanded it down and everything, put new varnish on it, it's got a Ghoulunatics logo and shit on it. Fuck, it looks so good we don't even feel like giving it away anymore."

Halloween gimmicks aside, Saturday's gig is worth checking out in that it's the first local Ghoulunatics gig in awhile, and will be the last one they do for at least another six months while they busy themselves writing material for their next CD, due out sometime next spring.

And should you decide to attend, remember to dress appropriately, because if your ticket is called, rules are you'll need to be in costume to claim your coffin.

With Blinded By Faith and Burn Unit
at l'AlizÉ on Saturday, Nov. 1, 8pm, $10

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