Hollywood Gothique

Hollywood Gothique’s annual Halloween podcast features an interview with Melissa Carbone, creator of the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, which is currently celebrating its tenth season in the Griffith Park Old Zoo.

Watch a video version of the Halloween podcast above, or listen to the audio version below.

The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride was an immediate hit when it made its debut in 2009, partly because of the novelty of a Halloween hayride in Los Angeles, but mostly because it was so good. Since then, the event has grown and improved, adding mazes and other attractions, while becoming ever more elaborate and emphasizing an aesthetic sensibility not seen in other Halloween Haunts.

Carbone, who conceived of the L.A. Haunted Hayride while working at Clear Channel Entertainment, achieved such success with the attraction that she was able to start her own company Ten Thirty One Productions, which also produces the off-season event The Great Horror Camp Out and occasionally screens films at the Great Horror Movie Night. Carbone recently sold the Haunted Hayride to THIRTEENTH FLOOR ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, which owns several large-scale haunts around the country.

Hollywood Gothique asked Carbone about staying competitive in the Los Angeles Halloween market, keeping the attraction fresh from year to year, and resurrecting some of the haunts greatest hits for Halloween 2018. We even dared raise the question of Halloween 2011’s Ghost Ship, which sank after a single season. But we started off with the obvious question: Did she ever expect the Haunted Hayride would last ten years?

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Join us for  Hollywood Gothique’s Halloween 2017 podcast, featuring new, reviews, and interviews regarding the best seasonal attractions in and around Los Angeles.

This episode focuses on two theatrical productions, the Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival and Fallen Saints: Dia De Los Muertos. A perennial Halloween favorite, Wicked Lit is currently playing on the grounds of the Mountain View mausoleum and Cemetery in Altadena. This year’s trio of short plays are based on “The Damned Thing,” “The Open Door,” and Egyptian legends; the wrap-around story linking them together is “Liliom.” Fallen Saints, now in its second year, is at Generation DCD theatre in Burbank, where it offers an interactive experience that casts the audience as family members paying respect to loved ones on the Day of the Dead.

Guests are three member of Wicked Lit‘s creative team Darin Anthony (director Thoth’s Labyrinth), Kerry Kazmierowicztrimm (playwright, Liliom), and Sebastian Muñoz (director, The Damned Thing). Collectively, the explore the difficulties of staging three horror dramas in a graveyard, all performed simultaneously, with the audience following the actors from setting to setting – and hopefully not running into the other productions!

Muñoz is also the co-creator, co-writer, and co-director (With Andy Shultz) of Fallen Saints. After the Wicked Lit portion of the conversation, Muñoz he relates developing an idea for a theatrical Halloween presentation into what will hopefully become an annual anthology.

Image at top: Jena Hunt in “The Open Door” at Wicked Lit. Photo by Daniel Kitayama.

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Creators Pete Metzger and Wes Oakley discuss the premier of Gorlesque, their new immersive Halloween attraction, which takes visitors on an adults-only journey into a cult society’s strange ideal of perfection.  Gorlesque takes place downtown at 224 E. 11th Street, Suite 501 Los Angeles, CA 90015. Learn more at: www.gorlesque.com.

Note: Unfortunately, we need to load the video twice in order to make it show up in our iTunes podcast feed. Sorry for the redundancy.

The post Gorlesque Video Interview appeared first on Hollywood Gothique.

The October 2, 2016 edition of the Hollywood Gothique podcast features an interview with Bruce Stanton, discussing the Reign of Terror Haunted House in Thousand Oaks. What’s new this Halloween? Zombies!

Also on the menu: capsule reviews of the Paramount After Dark Tour: Tales from the Other Side and the Queen Mary Dark Harbor, along with a list of Halloween events opening this week.

The post Podcast 10-01-16: Reign of Terror interview appeared first on Hollywood Gothique.

The September 23, 2016 installment of Hollywood Gothique’s podcast is filled with news, reviews, and interviews.

We begin with capsule comments on Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, Six Flags Magic Mountain Fright Fest, and the Knotts Berry Farm Halloween Haunt; then preview other Halloween events opening this week; and wind up with an extended interview featuring three members of the creative team behind the 2016 incarnation of the Wicked Lit Halloween Theatre Festival: Jaime Robledo, Trey Nichols, and Bruce Gray. Enjoy!

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