We fear the unknown. U.S. car companies, for example, are terrified that consumers will suddenly want something they know nothing about, like the Neverwas Haul, a steam-powered, three-story Victorian house on wheels that has been seen rumbling across the playa flanked by gobsmacked fans. It’s so big you can tour it — and tours run every half hour at "Creature Features: An Exploratorium Halloween," a daylong event that adds a dose of head-shaking science to the usual frights. Those with traditional fear can have it nourished with an assortment of leeches, bats, black cats, tarantulas, insects, and scorpions; the Ph.D. crowd may stand aghast at the "Cemetery of Dead Science." Live music includes the Goat Family, which plays along to scary short films using backwoods instruments; also playing is The Cameraman's Revenge by Ladislaw Starewicz, a Russian stop-motion wizard who cast his 1912 film entirely with insect skeletons. Though this is a decidedly child-friendly event, the full bar and things like the "Energy from Death" exhibit make even older kids feel like innocents.
Sat., Oct. 31, 3 p.m., 2009
