Halloween isn't until the middle of next week, but if you can't wait that long (who can?), Friday night's Zombiefest! should help hold you over.

The Asylum-organized concert will feature, in addition to a lineup of five bands, horror movies projected onto a screen in the back of the stage and, as Asylum treasurer Lauren Graham (junior-media studies) explained, "tons of tacky decorations."

"I'm going all out," she said. "Fog machine and everything."

Graham also said Halloween attire is required for the show, and though she hasn't decided definitively yet, she herself is leaning toward dressing as Vampira.

"People will look terribly out of place if they don't come in zombie/horror attire," Graham said.

Fittingly, one of the show's performers is A Grave Reminder, a Misfits tribute band from Selinsgrove.

"If I could have just had a band play for three hours straight," Graham said, "it definitely would be a Mistfits cover band, but I feel like maybe two other people would enjoy that."

Instead, A Grave Reminder will be one of the openers for the show's headliner, Giving Chase.

Four of Giving Chase's members are former Penn State students and the band itself was based in State College until 2005, when the quintet relocated to Philadelphia.

"We actually played a bunch of Asylum shows back in the day," vocalist Mike Woliansky said. "Me and Ryan [Wilcox, guitarist] used to do sound for them back in the day."

The band even befriended the Deuces, a State College-based band that will also play Zombiefest.

Though he enjoyed his time in the 814, Woliansky said the move to Philadelphia has been a positive one.

"We're now tenfold of what we were doing when we were in State College," he said.

Woliansky said the band usually classifies itself as hardcore, but because the term often turns people off, he is a little wary to use it.

"It's loud and passionate, but it's diverse," he said. "We try to throw out 150 percent of everything when we play."

Drummer Carlin Brown said Giving Chase's music was "very intense and very energetic."

"It's definitely not easy listening," he said. "I try to play my drums as hard and as fast as I can until I pass out."

But, Woliansky said, the band is about more than just playing music.

"The goal has always been to reach people," he said. "A lot of it is about getting people to think in new ways or to open up. But just being able to talk to someone who says they like our band or bought our CD or anything is great."