Like a good scare? If the same old haunted houses and rehashed slasher movies have you rolling your eyes, PETA has 10 scary spots guaranteed to make you scream like Jamie Lee Curtis. Let's start our virtual fright fest:

1.      A factory-farm barn

Anyone who has ever seen a horror flick knows that you never go into the barn. Good things do not happen there, unless you consider being mutilated a good thing. Anyway, didn't we learn anything about eating meat from Contagion? 

 2.      Backstage at Ringling Bros.

I'd sooner spend a year trapped in Rihanna's warped "Disturbia" world than try to dodge the whips and chains in Ringling's house of horrors.

 3.      The University of Wisconsin–Madison 

The bizarre and deadly experiments on cats that are going on behind closed doors at this school are like something out of Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. But even Mary Shelley couldn't have dreamed up "science" this twisted.

 4.      A McDonald's chicken supplier's slaughterhouse 

Is there anything creepier than a clown? How about a clown with shackles, an electrified water bath, and a knife aimed at your throat?

 5.      The end of a chain in a backyard 

Remember the iconic opening sequence in Saw in which two men are chained up in a restroom? They didn't last any time at all before one of them sawed off his own leg to get free. Just sayin'.

 6.      An Australian sheep farm 

Jason Voorhees might be a knife-wielding maniac, but he's got nothing on Australian sheep farmers. Apparently, if they call it "mulesing," they can carve up their victims alive. (Shiver!)

© Patty Mark/alv.org.au

 7.      An ice floe in Newfoundland, Canada 

Even with Paramount's money, DreamWorks' special effects, and all the fake blood in Hollywood, Wes Craven couldn't create a gorier scene than the Canadian seal slaughter.

© Sea Shepherd Conservation Society 

 8.      Inside a battery cage 

Do you find that the worst part of haunted houses is the beginning, when your whole group is smashed into that dark, tiny room before you start the tour? If you get claustrophobic just thinking about it, imagine if that dark, tiny room lasted for two years. It's getting hard to breathe …

 9.      A cow slaughterhouse 

People who have seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre probably still shudder when they think about Leatherface. But even at his chainsaw-slinging worst, the skin-wearing psycho isn't as frightening as the slicing and dicing that goes on inside a slaughterhouse where cows are killed for their flesh and skin.

10.  The mean streets of New York City 

For horses made to pull carriages through New York's noisy, congested streets, every car seems like Christine—except Stephen King's horror flicks only last two hours, not nine hours a day, seven days a week.

© Barbara Grove

Getting chills yet?

umusic/Creative Commons

I mentioned a little while back that everybody’s favorite horror-movie director, Rob Zombie, is an ethical vegetarian. He’s also a hell of a good sport, since he took some time this month to sit down and record our Holiday Hotline—a compassionate alternative to the infamous Butterball Turkey Talk Line, which offers fans of Butterball’s work the gruesome experience of listening to someone talk about how to slice up and burn the dead bodies of tortured birds.

Which, well, everybody likes a good horror flick, but I prefer to keep my encounters with the macabre entirely fictional, thank you very much. Speaking of segues: Here, ladies and gentlemen, is horror movie legend Robert Zombie with PETA’s Holiday Message:

Click here to hear PETA's holiday hotline recorded by Rob Zombie!

Mr. Zombie was also kind enough to sign his PETA T-shirt for us to give away on this here blog. So if you’re a Rob Zombie superfan, e-mail me by November 23 to let me know what you like best about the man and his work, and I’ll pick someone to send it to. I'll let you know if you're the lucky winner the week after the Thanksgiving holiday.

You can also click here to read the terms and conditions of this contest, if you like. But don’t expect it to be a particularly exciting experience.