SIOUX CITY | A decidedly morbid Mr. Fix-It, Vince Conway noticed one of his band's mic stands was in desperate need of repair.
Specifically, the skull on the mic stand had shaken lose from its impaled body.
"Guess the mic's been tossed around a lot," Conway, 36, explained while repositioning the severed head in the basement of his Leeds home. "I'm sure I'll be able to get the skull back on the corpse."
A guitarist and singer for Devour Once Dead, a Sioux City-based "horror metal" band, Conway said his macabre music was greatly influenced by the cheaply-made B movies he watched as a kid on cable television.
"I grew up watching (hosts) Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear on (the USA network's) 'Up All Night,'" said Conway, the mind behind such songs as "Blood Party," "Feticide" and "Tenderize your Tender Eyes."
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"The movies they'd show were so cheesy, you couldn't help but laugh at them."
Similarly, Lamb Arts Regional Theatre's Russ Wooley had a childhood affection for things that went bump in the night.
"I'm old enough to remember seeing movies like 'It Came From Outer Space' playing in the theaters," Wooley recalled before directing a scene from the spine-tingling new play "Feather and Teeth." "Heck, I even remember a time when a movie's scariest special effect involved a guy wearing a rubber suit.
"Now, that was the height of scariness when you were a kid," he said with a smile.
It's this sudden burst of the unexpected that still appeals to Wooley.
"Humans are the only species to consider fright as a form of entertainment," he said. "I think it's because it takes us out of our comfort zones."
Conway admitted that horror flicks and laugh-out-loud comedies are his favorite forms of enjoyment.
"Both demand an immediate reaction," he said. ."Whether you're laughing or screaming, you're still reacting."
And it's the reaction of a live audience that keeps Devour Once Dead going, Conway said.
In other words, there's a certain amount of showmanship that goes into being spooky.
Creating a horrific illusion
Growing up listening to 1980s-era heavy metal bands like Metallica, Slayer and Pantera, Conway was also enamored by seminal movies like "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street."
Although he had been involved in other bands, Conway said Devour Once Dead (which also features lead guitarist Chris Dolphin, bassist Cody Shipp and drummer Jason O'Tool), is his favorite.
"People respond to us because of our theatricality," he said, noting falling corpses and nooses are common in their shows.
And where does Conway dig up such props? He makes many of them himself. Sometimes, his kids, Davien, 8, and Claire, 10, help out.
"My daughter, especially, has a good eye for scary detail," Conway said, proudly.
Conway's fiancee Mallory, on the hand, merely tolerates his eccentricities.
"Mallory is very different than me," Conway admitted. "I like cooking and horror while she likes football."
This is a similar story for Russ Wooley, who said his wife Diana Wooley never had the patience for horror. Well, that is until she saw "Feathers and Teeth" -- a campy thriller written by Charise Castro Smith (TV's "Devious Minds") -- which opens Lamb Arts Regional Theatre's 37th season.
Stage-bound screams
"I think Diana liked this play because it wasn't in-your-face horror," Wooley said. "There are some chills, some comedy and something that's not real."
The four-character play makes use of a set of a 1970s house on one part of the stage and a detached set which represents the kitchen's crawl space.
"The set design is really ingenious," Wooley said. "It shows that scares can be done simply with lights, shadows and a few sound effects."
The ultimate adrenaline rush
Don't tell that to Conway, who has become jaded with horror.
"I'm not a fan of spooky stuff with a sense of humor," he said. "Just give me the blood and the guts and I'll be good."
Chatting in his living room, Conway shows off movie posters for Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" and George Romero's "Land of the Dead," which double as wall art.
"Being scared is an adrenaline rush," Conway said. "You cover your eyes and your heart skips a beat. It's cool."
Yet for Wooley, the scariest things are the ones we try to rationalize.
"There are things that may be completely imaginary and also scary," he said. "In theater, we realize the illusion of terror can be as scary as the real thing."
