Favorite haunts of film fiends

DON’T let the palm trees, shopping malls and congested freeways fool you. Tucked away in the rocky canyons, the serene neighborhoods and the steep hillsides of Southern California are the creepy settings to some of Hollywood’s most frightening moments.

When the Frankenstein monster pitched that little girl into a lagoon, he sealed his fate on the shores of Malibou Lake in the Santa Monica Mountains. When Michael Myers escaped a mental hospital in “Halloween,” he went on a killing spree in a tree-shaded neighborhood in South Pasadena. When Boris Karloff was disinterred in “The Mummy,” he was freed from a tomb not in Egypt but in a local desert.

The sunny Southland holds a special place in the hearts of horror movie buffs as the spawning ground for some of Hollywood’s most memorable horror flicks.

Invasion hideaway

Enter Bronson Caves after a short hike from Bronson Park in the Hollywood Hills and you are enveloped in cold darkness. In the golden age of horror movies, this abandoned rock quarry was the go-to place for creepy cave scenes: It was dark, quiet and only a few miles from the studios.

“This area is hallowed grounds for sci-fi fans,” says Harry Medved, coauthor of “Hollywood Escapes,” a travel guide to film locations.

In the 1956 sci-fi classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the folks in the little town of Santa Mira were mysteriously replaced by emotionless replicates created by alien pods. Fall asleep and the pods replace you. A doctor who uncovers the truth tries to flee with his sweetheart to an old mineshaft, portrayed by the Bronson Caves, on the edge of town. But his sweetheart can’t stay awake and soon she too joins the ranks of the pod people.

Frankenstein’s fate

The morning sun shimmers off the water of a secluded mountain lake where an angelic girl picks daisies on the shore. It is a scene of sheer innocence until a hulking figure pushes through the bushes. It’s the pale-faced mutation raised from the dead in the 1931 classic “Frankenstein.” This scene along Malibou Lake sets the stage for the climactic clash between the monster and the villagers. Today, the crescent-shaped lake is bordered by expensive homes and encircled by gates. Much of the property is private, so trespassers get the same reception Frankenstein’s monster got from the film’s torch-wielding villagers.

A monster’s lair

The sun creeps toward the horizon at Leo Carrillo State Beach in Malibu. From the bluff next to the road, the scene is paradise. But follow the dirt path under lifeguard station No. 3 around a rocky outcropping and you come to the lair of the giant, brain-eating crustacean from the 1957 B-movie classic “Attack of the Crab Monsters.”

This cave was used so often by horror mogul Roger Corman that the area got the nickname “Corman Beach.” Inside, the air is damp and smells of seaweed. The sound of pounding waves echoes off the walls. It was the same when Pat Boone, James Mason and Arlene Dahl tried to flee the cave in the 1959 classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” only to be attacked by giant, bloodthirsty reptiles.

Mummy’s tomb

Twenty-five miles northeast of Mojave, along State Highway 14, tall blood-red sandstone cliffs announce the entrance to Red Rock Canyon State Park. The wind-whipped desert sand blows past yucca plants and Joshua trees. Hike in among the cliffs, where the walls block out all the light, and you can picture legendary ghoul actor Karloff -- his tattered burial wrappings dripping from his rotting frame -- climb out of his tomb in the 1932 film “The Mummy.”

Halloween haunt

It’s a patchy-sky afternoon in a quiet neighborhood of South Pasadena. Youngsters are walking home from school along tree-shaded streets. A black and brown cat sleeps on the windowsill of a two-story house on the corner of Oxley Street and Fairview Avenue. Except for the new beige coat of paint on the home, the scene looks just as it did in 1978 when a psychopathic killer stalked teenagers in the blockbuster “Halloween.” A few blocks away, the movie home of the masked monster, Michael Myers, has been renovated, turned into office space and moved to a busy commercial district on Mission Street. But close your eyes and you can almost hear Myers’ doctor warn the local sheriff: “Death has come to your little town.”

Nightmare for sale

The white paint is peeling. The chimney bricks are crumbling and the shades are drawn. A “For Sale” sign in front of this two-story home on North Genesee Avenue in Hollywood reads: “Do Not Disturb Occupants.” In the 1984 horror flick “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” a serial killer, wielding a blade-jutting leather glove, attacks teens in their dreams. Freddy Krueger, the flesh-charred specter, torments a girl living in this once-cozy home until she discovers how to keep him at bay: “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.”

Carrie’s prom night

It’s deadly quiet in the Hermosa Beach Community Center’s gymnasium. The slam of the heavy double doors echoes off the pale green walls. Thirty years ago, streamers and tinsel stars decorated these walls for a memorable prom. Look up at the metal rafters today and you can see where cruel teenagers hung a bucket of pig’s blood and dumped it on the head of a shy classmate. In the 1976 horror classic “Carrie,” that shy girl exacts revenge on her insensitive classmates, turning prom night into hell night.

Zoltan’s tomb

Someone has cut a hole in the chain-link fence behind the old zoo cages near a picnic spot in Griffith Park. Slip through the hole and you enter a series of concrete enclosures, littered with trash, dried leaves and graffiti. Who knows what creatures called this home before the old zoo closed in the 1960s? A long, narrow staircase leads down about 20 feet to a locked metal door. In the campy 1978 horror flick “Zoltan: Hound of Dracula,” Russian soldiers descend the stairs and enter a stone crypt where they unwittingly release, you guessed it, Dracula’s dog. The pooch sets out to find a new vampire master in Southern California. This movie reminds us that, despite access to some of the world’s creepiest movie locations, Hollywood occasionally spawns a dog.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Chilling spots

Southern California’s varied landscape has the range to play almost any scary movie scene. A selection of locations, their credits, and how to get there:

Bronson Caves

Seen in: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “It Conquered the World” and “Robot Monster.” From Hollywood Boulevard, take Bronson Avenue north, take a left at Canyon Drive and drive until the road ends. Park and take the fire road on the right side of the street.

Malibou Lake

Seen in: “Frankenstein” and briefly in “The Bad Seed” and “The Ring.” From Las Virgenes Road, turn west on Mulholland Highway and then south on Lake Vista Drive.

Leo Carrillo Cave

Seen in: “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “The Craft,” “The Beach Girls and the Monster,” “Attack of the Crab Monsters.” Take Pacific Coast Highway to Leo Carrillo State Beach, west of Malibu. Park and look for lifeguard station No. 3. Wait for low tide before hiking into the cave.

Red Rock Canyon

Seen in: “The Mummy” and “Jurassic Park.” From Interstate 5, take Highway 14 till you see signs for Red Rock Canyon State Park.

“The Myers’ House”

Seen in: “Halloween.” 1000 Mission St., South Pasadena.

Freddy Krueger’s haunt

Seen in: “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Near corner of North Genesee Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

Carrie’s prom hall

Seen in: “Carrie.” Hermosa Beach Community Center, 710 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach.

The Old Zoo

Seen in: “Zoltan: Hound of Dracula.” From Interstate 5, take the Los Feliz exit to Griffith Park Drive, look for the Old Zoo picnic area near the merry-go-round.

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Sources: Harry Medved and Bruce Akiyama, authors of the movie location guide “Hollywood Escapes,” and Leon Marcelo, author of “Creepy Crawls: A Horror Fiend’s Travel Guide.”