The YouTube channel of Housecore Records, the record label launched in 2001 by PANTERA frontman Philip Anselmo, has uploaded video of Housecore artists in NEST, SCOUR and SPIRIT IN THE ROOM as they bravely venture through the Housecore Home Haunt of 2025 Halloween night. Check out the video, which was shot and edited by Metal Dave Media, below.
A smaller scale haunt was created this year due to Anselmo’s extensive touring and the breaking ground of what will become the official Housecore Home Haunt.
According to Housecore, Anselmo has created a haunted house for family and friends for the past five years.
A huge fan of all things horror, Anselmo in 2013 joined forces with internationally renowned, best-selling true crime author Corey Mitchell (“Hollywood Death Scenes”, “Dead And Buried”) to create Housecore Horror Film & Music Festival, an underground, three-day horror and heavy metal fan event that combined live concerts from some of the biggest bands in metal and hard rock with screenings of horror, true crime, and heavy metal films, music videos, and more — and special guest appearances from some of the world’s most revered underground directors of horror.
In a 2010 interview with ARTISTdirect.com, Anselmo talked about when he first became a horror aficionado. “[When I was growing up] we had a black and white TV, and there was the ‘Saturday Matinee’, which was a horror fest,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was home alone and I saw Mario Bava’s ‘Black Sabbath’, but that’s a later memory. There was the afternoon show, and then the Saturday night show had a horror host, ‘The Guru.’ Honestly, the most impactful one was the ‘Sunday Morning Movie’ — films like ‘Fiend Without A Face’ and ‘How Awful About Allan’. Believe it or not, those were on TV! Shit like that flipped me out. I would sneak up and beg my mother every night, ‘Can I stay up and watch ‘Night Gallery’?’ [Laughs] I was sneaking out of bed, too, though.”
Asked in a 2014 interview with Austin American-Statesman what horror flick first scared the bejesus out of young Anselmo, he said: “I won’t say it scared me, because it actually made me cry my eyes out, but ‘King Kong’ was the first movie that really touched me as a kid. As far as scaring me and giving me the fear when I was a youngster, there was a movie called ‘How Awful About Allan’ starring Anthony Perkins of ‘Psycho’ fame. That movie scared me. And of course, there’s no denying the power of ‘The Exorcist’. In grade school I saw ‘Don’t Go In The House’ at the theater. I saw ‘The Changeling’ at the theater — which scared the living, flying [crap] out of me! I saw ‘Silent Scream’ with Barbara Steele and that was insane.”
A few years later, a friend invited Anselmo over to watch “The Evil Dead”, which had a lasting impact on the musician.
“Man, I will just say it was a long walk home on these empty, desolate streets,” Anselmo said. “Oh my God, I was pretty much awake all night. It outdid ‘The Exorcist’, because at that age you go through this gore phase where the gorier the better. That one hit a nerve, man.”
Asked in a 2013 interview with Full Metal Jackie to name some of his favorite horror films, Anselmo said: “Oh my God. Now you’re really opening up this vast box; you better send someone else for some extra beer. It’s funny you ask because yesterday ‘The Exorcist’ came on and I watched that sucker from the beginning to the end because I had not watched it in so long because there’s so many copycat films that came after that film all throughout, but it’s shot so beautifully and so well and it leaves an impact especially as a young boy — it left an incredible impact. I guess later on when you’re going through your teens, I call it the ‘gore phase,’ where all you want to see it blood and guts but I also love the movie with an edge even a supernatural edge and at the time I guess ‘Evil Dead’ the first one really got me. I saw it in perfect timing with growing up. This isn’t fair. There’s so many movies. I can really reach in here and think about Mario Bava films and Lucio Fulci films and, of course, I’m talking Italian horror, but Bava crossed over a whole lot before Fulci, but movies like ‘Black Sabbath’, which is incredible, great atmosphere and then some lesser known films like ‘House With The Laughing Windows’. Later on in life, I guess the films got more intense. In the ’90s, they were the necromantic films which I think are super effective. Gosh, my favorite horror films of all time that’s like asking me what my favorite cigarette I smoke is — there’s so many of ’em. [Laughs]”