Friday, October 17, 2014

L.A. Haunted Hayride...



Halloween Event #2 was the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride!



This year’s group – Julie and her man Gabe and my co-worker/friend and fellow Halloween Junkie – Taylor.

The foursome
I left work a bit early and Taylor and I headed up to LA nice and early so we’ have time to grab a bite to eat.  He led us to San Antonio Winery.  Yay wine!  The area was a bit dodgy but nestled amongst the industrial area was the winery.  You picked out a dinner from a select set of choices buffet style, chose a glass of wine and off you went.  The place was really beautiful!  I was trying to get the pretty barrel lights in the back of our selfie.



Food was yummy.  We split calamari, I had an Ahi salad and Taylor had spaghetti.  The Pinot Noir I chose was decent.  Off to the hayride!

We arrived, parked for free (love that!) and were there just as it opened.  Gabe/Julie arrived not far behind us and we got in line for the Hayride right away.  A really cool giant clown fellow was walking around and Julie snapped a photo with him.  (Most pics are taken with Julie's iPhone.  My phone hates the dark.)


The line moved right along and we were smashed in the back of the trailer in no time.  I got a little sneezy due to the hay and wanted to break the woman’s foot who kept kicking me (after I pointed out she was) but other than that I was nestled comfortably between Taylor and Julie.

We 1st passed a giant eyeball, very cool, then people crawled out of it.  Very physical actors somewhat Cirque de Solei like.  After that we came upon a giant skeleton that opened up as we got closer and inside was a giant monkey bar body that these folks were climbing all over.  Very cool.

(Of course I may be out of order…my memory never serves hence the blog).

Next up was a church like thing where hooded actors were sacrificing babies.  Very theatrical.

Now I want to point out – after every setting the folks will chase after you and run around the trailer startling people and messing with people.  No one really got me good this year, but always fun to watch.

The of course a clown one.  One of the gal clowns had an adorable laugh.  Loved her!  Another clown rode our trailer quite a ways with us making some of the folks very uncomfortable.  Tee hee!

There was a long snake like thing that people were doing some shadow play in that was super cool.  I’m not sure if they were trying to look like they were fighting with the snakes or dancing but it was certainly cool to watch.  At the end though was this rad mechanical dragon thing!  Loved him!

My favorite of the night was as we came upon some corn stalks there were 3 actors attached to these giant poles.  They were dressed as scary bird creatures and the poles bent forward and backwards like a pole vaulter would use.  The one in the middle was incredible – spinning and flipping as the poles bent forward.  Absolutely stunning and so fucking cool!!!  They defiantly got a round of applause from our group. 

Then we came upon the awesome mechanical three headed dog monster thing.  So very awesome!!!  I wish we could take pictures dammit!

I was super excited when we rolled up and recognized my friend Micah.  He was a ring leader of sorts and introduced all these different monsters that were going to attack us.  He had someone spin the wheel and let them all loose.  He did such a great job and I hollered his name as we pulled away hoping he knew I was in there.  Here’s his costume:



Next up was an army one.  I didn’t care for this one too much.  I think they were trying to be more serious, but there were only 4 of them and they didn’t do anything.  Weird.

Next up was a psycho version of Trick or Treaters.  I loved these.  The “kids” were holding human heads as bags and one of them was even stirring something in one.  The actors giggled so maniacally it was awesome!  Another great effect was this huge giant pumpkin monster thing fell from the ceiling and scared the hell out of most of our trailer.  Very cool!

The finale was a very loud heavy metal music filled room with this ginormous pink fucked up bunny head.  Rad.  There were also some very disturbing monsters that ran around and tried to scare you.

As we rolled toward the end it seemed to go by so fast!  I wanted to do it again but of course you can’t. 

We made our way out and Julie and Taylor wanted to ride the neat backwards scary carousel. 




We found the photo section they had last year, but they didn’t have nearly as much stuff as before.  I’m not sure if they had an issue with people stealing stuff or what, but we still took a couple.



I think this is my favorite shot of the night


After that I really wanted to catch the performance of Blood Drums.  There were 3 guys and a gal, all done up in fun makeup.  I’ve seen the perform before and this was a much tamer performance but they still kicked ass.  I grabbed this photo of the net to give you an idea:



A couple of them came into the crowd at one point and handed the stick off to an audience member to bang away at a giant pot.  They chose me at one point and after a few hits I fell into it just like old times.  I picked up a bit of a funky beat and when I handed the stick back the gal gave me a thumbs up and showed her appreciate that I actually knew what I was doing.  Lord did I miss playing after that!  They kicked ass!

Our last stop was the Theatre Macabre.  It was 4 actors all dressed the same in black with ghouly makeup on.  Their bit was they would play a clip from a well-known horror flick and pull volunteers from the audience to act it out along with the movie onstage.  It was very cute.  They had two gals come up and do the Psycho shower scene.  One gal (I think she was drunk) portray the girl from the Ring.  An unwilling volunteer did the Alien scene.  Then an adorable little kid came up and nailed the Danny on the bike scene from Shining.  When they asked for volunteers for the Birds I was in.  One gal was to portray the birds attacking the phone booth and I was Tippi Hedren screaming in the booth.  When I got up there the guy asked “So, do you have a good B movie horror scream?”  I smiled and wished some of my theatre friends who know my scream were there to appreciate this question.  I opened my mouth and let em have it.  The crowd applauded and the guy was super impressed.  That’s right friends who aren’t aware – I have a weird gift – I have an amazing B movie horror scream.  As I shrieked and shrieked in the faux phone booth and laughed a few times, Julie was video recording it.  You’ll see below.  The gal who was the bird was hilarious and at one point sounded like a dog.  You can hear the MC call her out on it at one point I think.  It was super fun and super silly and as I handed my costume back to the gal she said “Wow!  You are seriously the best one we’ve had up here this entire run so far!  Like forever!”  I was flattered and beamed but didn’t have the heart to tell her I was actually an actress.  


The next Tippi Hedren

The video is a bit dark but you get the idea!  Ha ha!



Julie and Gabe had paid extra for a couple of other things so we said our goodbyes and parted ways.  I was home before 10pm. 

All and all a very fun night with a very fun foursome!  Yay Halloween!

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