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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
