They keep coming back to haunt us this time each year - those menacing mansions, creepy cemeteries, (mis)guided tours and other macabre showpieces designed to scare us during the Halloween season. Here are just a few of the countless weird offerings between now and Friday:

Playland-Not-at-the-Beach: This oddity museum dedicated to the relics of the long-gone San Francisco amusement park at Ocean Beach will offer a "haunted mansion" at 7 p.m. today. Operator Richard Tuck promises Laughing Sal and her twin sisters, Sinister Sal and Psycho Sal, as well as a "seance, voodoo torture ritual, the Ghost of London Dungeon and the 200-pound man-eating chicken." For non-squeamish adults only. $10-$12. 10970 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org. ( . . more)