The October winds canvas Yonge Street like a pack of effervescent politicos on the campaign trail: toothy, insistent, and all togetherintrusive. The dawn is nigh, and the streets are void of any benignstrain of humanity. Just the drug dealers and the homeless, with a few hookers thrown in for good measure.

A dull blue hatchback pulls up to me, gives me a start. A woman — perhaps? — sits in a darkness only tempered by the glow of herspeedometer.

“Do you know where Bloor Street is?”
“Up there,” I say, and point north.
“Are you feeling horny?”
Christ. How did I get here?
“No,” I mutter.

She throws the car into gear and pulls a surprisingly controlled U-turn into the southbound lane. I shiver in her wake. And not because I'm cold.

I'm making my way to my sister's, making my way to her hardwood floor and the cups of coffee I know will help me convalesce come late afternoon.

The woman — if indeed — seems a fitting end to this Toronto soiree, the bulk of which was spent reeling around the labyrinthine corridors and the vast main hall of the Church at Berkley. The inexcusably twisted editors of Rue Morgue magazine outdid themselves with a Halloween party the likes of which could only be thrown in some dark and extremely decadent circle of Hell.

In retrospect, I should have been prepared. Rue Morgue, like Fangoria, is one of North America's most cherished horror culture journals. It's a bi-monthly thrown together in the east end, right at the corner of Queen and Broadview, next to a strip club. The editors, Rod Gudino and Jen Vuckovic, also organize monthly screenings of some of the most out-there horror films from all corners of the globe. READ MORE