Hey, it's Halloween already

Making funny horror movies isn't always an easy proposition.

In my days of renting nothing but horror flicks from the video stores, I fondly remember Rolfe Kanefsky's "There's Nothing Out There," which contained a lot of riffs on horror cliches that predated "Scream" by a good couple of years.

I thought it went a bit overboard near the end when a character uses a boom mike that he pulls from out of frame, but other than that, good times.

And back in the day (as the kids used to say back in the day), there was "Student Bodies," a full-blown horror spoof. Given how old I was when I saw it on video (or cable, I can't remember), just the scene where a dog farts for no reason was more than enough to keep me laughing.

On Nov. 7, Anchor Bay will offer up "Freak Out" from director Christian James. It's already won some awards, and it sounds like it will be fun:

Turning the great horror movie clichés on their severed ears, Freak Out opens like all great slasher films -- with a flashback of an incidental character. Young Cliff is being dropped off at school by his alcoholic mother, only to be tormented by his teacher and peers. Thirteen years later, Cliff escapes from a mental institution to find that the school that he vowed revenge on is no longer standing. Disappointed and with nowhere to go, Cliff wanders onto the doorstep of horror film addicts Merv and his best friend Onkey. With visions of slashers and maniacs and box-office grosses (oh my!) dancing in their heads, wannabe schlock kings Merv and Onkey fit Cliff with a potato sack on his head and cover his face with a hockey mask, transforming him into the ultimate homicidal filmaniac. Things soon take a turn for the worst after the killer “finds his groove,” dispatching shoppers and employees alike in a supermarket. With their Frankenstein officially out of control – killing everyone in sight -- Marv and Onkey start to have second thoughts. Can they stop their own creation or are they – and the town -- doomed?

The 2-disc set will also feature a host of extras and commentaries, so it looks like you get a lot of bang for your buck.