When it comes to ominous cruiser chaos, there's only one street that can compete with Sunset: Hollywood Boulevard, of course. Last week, Nightranger battled a bevy of Beemers at Ivar and Hollywood waiting for the valet in front of Eva Longoria's Beso and Cinespace, but we weren't there for either. Nope, we were going to Hell, Club Hell, that is, a mad monthly goth/industrial night at the adjacent Club Ivar. Forget about the open-to-all, live S&M and bondage presentations that go on continuously (in the areas usually reserved for VIPs and bottle-service bozos) or the vendors selling fanciful hats and corsets, nudes and mummy photography, coffin jewelry boxes and the like, or the ghoulishly great bands (Digital Betty, Experiment Perilous last Wednesday) who play in a separate soundproof room overlooking the dance floor. What really makes this bizarre psycho circus go off are the patrons themselves. Upon our visit we were accosted by pirates and vampires, shot at by a scary puppet roller-skating around the dance floor with a toy gun, and chatted up by two guyliner-wearing comedians — one sans a hand ("he lost it while fisting someone," he joked) and the other, who actually calls himself the Goth Comedian ("I make you laugh and depressed at the same time" was one of his many creepy one-liners). Goth culture is rife for parody, of course, but the vibe at this dance purgatory is anything but woeful or dark. It's definitely freaky, though. Think we're exaggerating? Check our eye-popping slide show on laweekly.com this week to see Hell's debauched demons and half-naked dames for yourself.

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