Don't be too perplexed - or alarmed - if you notice that the new Halloween-themed horror comedy Stan Helsing is filled with references to the Jersey Shore.

"I'm a local boy. I grew up in Margate," says the film's writer-director, Bo Zenga. "Philly was my backyard! And I've always been a huge Eagles fan."

Zenga, 49, who studied literature and business at Penn, worked as a producer on the original Scary Movie (2000) and the gruesome 2006 slasher Turistas. He makes his directorial debut with Stan Helsing, which was released Tuesday by Anchor Bay (www.anchorbayentertainment.com/; $29.97 DVD; $34.98 Blu-ray; R).

Stan, which has received mixed reviews, is a likable absurdist fairy tale with some very funny gags - and, unfortunately, a few misses.

It's Halloween night and our hero, stoner-slacker dude Stan (Steve Howey), a clerk in a cheesy chain video store, takes a drive with three buddies.

Before long, the four end up in a town infested by six of the biggest horror-flick monsters Hollywood has dreamed up in the last three decades - Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Chucky, Michael Myers, and that beloved cenobite, Pinhead. (Zenga has renamed them Fweddy, Mason, Pleatherface, Lucky, Michael Criers, and Needlehead.)

"I know the domain of spoofing box-office hits belongs to the Scary Movie" franchise, Zenga said on the phone from Los Angeles. "But it occurred to me that no one had done a spoof of the six biggest movie monsters."

While other satires refrain from referencing any film or pop-cult phenom that's more than a couple of years old, Stan Helsing draws on three decades of horror flicks.

Zenga said he wasn't afraid the audience would miss the references.

"I know tons of people who know about Pinhead but who have never seen Hellraiser," he explained.

Zenga, a lifelong horror fan, said he used Stan Helsing to address one of the horror conventions that always has bugged him. "Every one of those monsters has a glaring Achilles' heel that the heroes in straight movies never exploit," he said.

"Take Pinhead: His face and head are covered with pins! Why hasn't anyone pushed them in?"

Zenga said Stan Helsing was his farewell to satires. He said he would turn to straight horror with his next film, the teen slasher Mischief Night.

Contact staff writer Tirdad Derakhshani at 215-854-2736 or tirdad@phillynews.com.