Virginia Creepers: The Horror Host Tradition of the Old Dominion




Karlos Borloff, the host of Monster Madhouse, was born on a dark and stormy night in the dungeon of Count Gore De Vol. Initially, Jerry Moore, the alter ego of Karlos Borloff, was simply dying to make an appearance on Creature Feature, the Weekly Web Program. When Gore returned to the DC area, Moore took the opportunity to help out on the show by playing a contractor charging exorbitant amounts of money to renovate a basement into a proper dungeon. By the end of that show, said contractor was sealed in behind the new stone walls. Not long after that, Moore, who had grown up watching Count Gore, was inspired to create his own show, Monster Madhouse, which now airs not only on Fairfax Channel 12, but on cable access channels across the country and live nearly every weekend on streaming internet broadcasts.
This show follows the adventures of Karlos Borloff, professional monster hunter, as he enters into dark and strange worlds, traveling through time and space and directly into the films he shows to subdue, capture and occasionally stand up for the monsters that vex him. In this process, he has assembled a league of horror hosts and captive monsters, all of which are kept under control by the music played live by, "The Maestro." (You see, monsters respond directly to music . . . if it is maniacal, they go nuts, but for some reason, low fluid chords keep them under control.)	Contessa Vanessa (Caroline Zimmerman) and Karlos Borloff (Jerry Moore).

The characters are sometimes other hosts, like Dr. Sarcofiguy and Jebediah Buzzard, and sometimes merely a retinue of freaks, fiends and mad men . . . or women as the case may be. At any given time there may be more than fifteen people on stage with Borloff as he takes his audience through the movie. Since the list of regulars is long, we have borrowed it here from George Chastian's exceptional website, E-Gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts: Other gifted loonies who regularly help Borloff host the show include Dr. Elixir (Ken Hasty), Gizmo Doohickey (Russ Hasty), Dangerous Dan (Dan Prewitt), Countess Contessa Vanessa (Caroline Zimmerman), Beauregard J. Pettigrew (Bobby Madden), Ivan (Joe Haley), Spooky Dementia (Jane Bredesen), Pumpkin Punk (Dan Fowler), Anne-Tenna (Jennifer Gobel), and (in past episodes) Sally the Zombie Cheerleader (Nicole Brooks). This, quite honestly, is just a fraction of the people and characters involved and the whole shebang, which is wrangled together by producer C. W. Prather (of the Horror Host Underground / Dr. Sarcofiguy fame).

He does it all for the babes.

In addition to the films, which include a good number of Japanese rubber suited building smashers, Borloff entertains his viewers with interviews and various taped gags, as well as audio and visual inserts in the films. He also has on air give aways of monster makeup and model kits and the like each week, all while trying to maintain the chaos that is the show. And when there are not enough monsters in the film, the Madhouse crew can generally supply a new one. In his basement, Moore has his own latex monster shop, producing suits that are as least as good (and often better) than anything in a Gamera film.

The Borloff Monster Shop.

There is also a fair amount of monster themed music as Borloff and his band of monster hunters also have their own rock band, "The Monsterminantors," which feature Moore, both Hastys, Prewitt, and Haley. And if that was not enough, the show features there are movie trailers and convention reports, all to keep things moving at a frenetic pace. In fact, the movies are often the point you will take to catch your breath. Monster Madhouse has steadily increasing its profile each year. Fowler has created a Borloff comic books and Wolf Brothers (the Halloween make up company) is producing a Borloff make up kit. Monster Madhouse earned a Telly award in 2008, Borloff has appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and he was recently invited as a guest at the Texas Frightmare convention in 2009. All this in addition to his never ending quest to educate people that, properly speaking, monsters don't carry a wallet.

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Can You Identify This Show?

We know it came from Roanoke in the mid 1970s--email us with info!

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