SCARELA and SCREAM TEAM PRODUCTIONS KICK OFF HALLOWEEN AUGUST 10TH & 11TH, 2013 IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!

When people hear “August” they think of beaches, late nights, back to school shopping … all of that changes this year.

Don’t run from the fear—embrace it at the ScareLA Halloween Convention! ScareLA and Creative Partner Scream Team Productions (Rob Dyrdek Scare Gram, Mind Terrors) bring the horror holiday to Los Angeles, California August 10^th – 11^th, 2013. Premiering at LAMart, it gives the City of Angels its first convention “…dedicated to celebrating Halloween.” Anyone wanting a preview of what’s to come this October needs to be here!

Attendees can expect some of the biggest names in the Halloween and Horror industries, such as John Murdy and Chris Williams (creators of Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights), Jason Blum (“The Blumhouse of Horrors” 2012, “Paranormal Activity” franchise, “Insidious”), and designers and veterans of Knott’s Scary Farm to showcase first looks of upcoming projects. Other appearances include Scott Michaels (Dearly Departed Tours), Mike Talarico (The Empty Grave Haunted House), and Garner Holt (Garner Holt Productions) to name a few.

   Scream Team Productions has stepped up to create and execute a most wicked and exciting Sliding Demonstration using sliders from their team of Elite Monsters, Knott’s Halloween Haunt, Empty Grave, Hollywood Sports, etc. The show will run twice both Saturday and Sunday. As is that wasn’t enough the terror consultants of the Inland Empire are producing an after party for Saturday, August 10^th! Details will be released soon.

For veterans and those new to the Haunt scene ScareLA provides classes, seminars, and workshops  to kick-off planning Halloween in August. Bone Yard FX has the know-how to transform the everyday person into an extraordinary creature from nightmares. Be sure to swing by the Bone Yard Effects Demo Stage throughout Saturday and Sunday for tips on applying prosthetics and coordinating colors to achieve the right look. Actors can brush up on their scare technique at “Movers and Shakers: Acting Technique” class while their supervisors take away budgeting advice and new tricks for treating set pieces. Those wanting to relive the magical, sweet days of youth can sign up for Pumpkin Gore: Carving the Ultimate Jack-O-Lantern or Skulls and Bones: Sugar Skeleton Making. Be sure to check the website for updated lists on the classes page.

The best part of any convention is the booth line up. This year’s is no exception. Read the latest in horror at the Fangoria booth, The World’s Favorite Horror Magazine. Set the trend—dress like its Halloween during the summer with Kreepsville 666’s unique dark style of fashion. Don’t forget to pick up some goodies for October from Grex Professional Airbrush, Immortal Masks Hollywood, CA , Froggy’s Fog, Spectral Illusions, and more.

What could be better than having this much Halloween packed into one room? Having Dread Central filming every second of it! The Dread Central crew will hold live interviews with attendees, vendors, and special guests while broadcasting highlights from both days. This year is merely the beginning of what will become a staple event in Los Angeles. So don’t miss an opportunity to be part of it!  The ScareLA Convention will be held at 1933 Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90007 from 11am to 7pm Saturday, August 10^th and Sunday August, 11th. Parking is available in LAMart’s automated gated lot.

To buy tickets or receive updates sign up for their newsletter at ScareLA’s official website or connect to their Facebookand Twitter pages. Also check out Scream Team Productions’ official website, Facebook, or Twitter pages for updates about the after party and sliding demonstration. To ask about the other services they provide, call 877.643.6132.

Themes that Generate Screams Haunted Attraction Trends for 2013

Scream Team Productions very own Bonix and Whipstitch
with Television star Tj Thyne from hit tv show 'Bones'

Scream Team Productions Whipstitch 

Gone are the days when darkly lit hallways with creaky floorboards were the key components to a successfully scary haunted attraction. Over-the-top shocks and gory horrors, with a mix of special effects, are now drawing large crowds looking for a scream with their Halloween. For terror created outside the box, Scream Team Productions, a Murrieta, Calif.-based haunt consultant, partnered with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions, producers of the movie “Paranormal Activity”, to create a theatrical experience called The Blumhouse of Horrors. Blumhouse of Horrors inhabits the downtown Los Angeles Variety Arts Center, a 1930s-era venue with its own haunted history involving a theater owner’s wife’s desperate attempt to become a magician’s assistant and her tragic disappearance in a magic box.
“The theater is a great location for a haunted attraction,” said Willie May, CEO and executive creative director at Scream Team. “Jason Blum said he wanted to produce a horror play in Los Angeles, similar to an interactive horror show he saw in New York. Blum created the detailed set designs and we provided the haunted house input. We brought the scare factor.” That scare factor was performed by 40 actors who carried out a hair-raising plotline that had them interacting with guests in a “close encounters” kind of way. “We implemented subtle physical interaction between characters and visitors to the theater,” he said. “This personal space invasion was intended to prey on people’s senses, making the experience more intense. We want to scare people, but also make them feel like they are a part of the story.”
May said that the haunted attraction industry is moving in the direction of this more realistic, interactive experience. “It’s not just about people jumping out at you anymore,” he said. This approach proved successful for May, landing Blumhouse of Horrors in the number three spot on Travel Channel’s “World’s Spookiest Ghost Tours” for 2012.
Other attempts at differentiating attractions involve the incorporation of multiple activities into one haunted destination. 

Scream Team Productions 'Dr. Trauma'

At the Festival of Souls in Hallendale Beach, Fla., for example, a haunted hayride takes a different turn as a Zombie Safari experience where riders shoot the living dead with paintball guns armed with UV paint. “In South Florida we have places like Disney World and Universal Studios setting the bar for entertainment,” said Brandon Kittendorf, president of The Monster Academy, producer of the Festival of Souls. “When developing this site, we felt we needed to be unique, so we added something more than just the haunted-aspect of the attraction.” Also part of the Festival of Souls, located in approximately 8,400 square feet of space at Gulfstream Park and Casino, is the Demon Mansion, a 17-room labyrinth of demons and monsters that prey on people’s fears of things like spiders, scary clowns and vicious dogs. While the public may not associate festivals with haunted attractions, Kittendorf believes creating an overall festive environment featuring a variety of activities serves a larger audience and results in more visitors. “We created an attraction where families could come, stick around and have fun,” he said. “For 2013 we’re thinking about adding a third activity to the festival, as well as having bands and vendors set up on the site.”

Huntsville, Ala., haunted attraction developer Shane Dabbs looks to his surroundings for his inspiration. Most recently, he took the blank canvass of a former mega-store location, applied popular phobias, such as fears of snakes and spiders, and created Disturbia Haunted House. During his 20 years in the business, he has learned not to overlook the features, or lack thereof, offered at each location “You need to look at what’s in your area when considering a theme for your attraction,” he said. “I once had a haunted attraction called Greystone Manor that was an old house with a graveyard and an old hospital on the site. I could market the local folklore about the house being haunted and capitalize on that.”
Planners at Kennywood Amusement Park in West Mifflin, Pa., have their own local notoriety to call on as they come up with characters for the park’s Phantom Fright Nights attraction. As Director of Ride Operations Marie Ruby explained, no haunted attraction in the Pittsburgh area would be complete if it didn’t have zombies. “The movie ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was filmed in the Pittsburgh area, so zombies are a signature of any haunted attraction in our area,” she said.
In addition to the standard zombies, Ruby said they also look to the media for character ideas, combing pop culture for news about “what kids are reading and watching.”

Scream Team Productions Hubert and Sketch

While zombies are at the forefront in some locations, they’re “on the way out” and “not as impactful” in places like Glendale, Ariz., according to Chambers of Fear owner Paul Boyd. For 2013, Boyd said they’re getting “back-to-basics” by bringing back the fright classics like Frankenstein’s monster and vampires.
“I just got back from visiting Universal and Disney and saw their haunted houses,” he said. “I liked what they did with the classic horror characters and would like to expand on that theme. Places like that can provide great inspiration.”
Turning to a more traditional classic, with a scary slant, Boyd plans to include some twisted fairytale attractions and Alice in Wonderland-themed characters. Boyd also said that adding technology to an attraction is a way of differentiating one haunt from another. “We’re always looking for new technology upgrades,” he said. “We’ve added scream cams and photo scares where visitors can go on our website and see themselves while they were in the attraction.”
The scare business takes a number of twists and turns from year to year. In the end, however, the attraction with the most creative production stays a step ahead of the latest trends in what makes people scream the loudest. -

Two Pioneers in the Horror Industry Teams Up!

This just in! Two pioneers in the horror industry, Scream Team Productions™ and Blumhouse Productions™, are coming together to bring you the biggest scares of October 2012 with Blumhouse of Horrors™!

“Blumhouse is passionate about telling scary stories in entirely new ways and we are taking everything we have learned from our film production experience to create a one-of-a-kind Haunted House in downtown L.A. We are excited to kick-off October with The Blumhouse of Horrors,” stated Jason Blum, Blumhouse Founder and CEO. To ensure his haunt was headed in the right direction he called in Willie May, Scream Team Productions CEO, and his team for an initial consultation that has resulted in this a month long partnership and this horrifyingly immersive walkthrough.

Using their knowledge in storytelling, set design, and film production with the innovative mind set and years of haunt experience provided, they have changed the Variety Art Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles into the latest and creepiest hotspot for ghouls and ghosts alike. More than 40 actors will frighten and entertain patrons overwhelmed by ghastly smells and sounds. Scream Team’s Elite Monsters will be making nightly appearances on the street in front of the theatre.

“Visitors will tour the twisting corridors of an eerily haunted theater whose stage was home to one of the world’s most deranged, dark art magicians during the heyday of 1920s vaudeville. That is, until one tragic performance when his assistant climbed into a magical box and vanished forever. The theater was shut down instantly and permanently closed to the public … until now.

Filled with terrifying sights, sounds and smells, The Blumhouse of Horrors (www.BlumhouseofHorrors.com) will bring visitors face-to-face with the ghostly spirits of the magician and his disciples -all of whom continue to hone their craft, on the lookout for volunteers for tricks that could end in disappearance or death.”

Giveaways, special promotions, and contests will be held on the Official Blumhouse Facebook and Twitter pages: Facebook.com/blumhouse and Twitter.com/blumhouse.

The Blumhouse of Horrors will be open from 6 p.m. to midnight, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from October 4th through October 28th; and then Monday, October 29th, through Saturday, November 3rd. Tickets start at $29 and can be purchased at www.BlumhouseOfHorrors.com.
This event is recommended for children ages 12 and up. On certain weekends there will be daytime “lights on” experiences for younger children.
The Variety Arts Theatre is located at 940 South Figueroa Street, between 9th and 10th Streets in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, California.

ABOUT SCREAM TEAM PRODUCTIONS AND BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS

Scream Team Productions™ has a firm grasp on the Haunted Attraction Industry in Southern California and continues to expand. Willie May, the CEO and Co-Founder, turned what started as a fundraiser to help those affected by September 11th into a small business in 2006 and made it into the trend setting company it is today. Their most recognized creations recently include Minds Terrors the Haunted Attraction in 2007 and Toxic Terrors at Storm Stadium in Lake Elsinore in 2008. Being a ground-breaking corporation Scream Team Productions has their hand in many other areas from giving consultations for other haunted attractions to graphic and web design. In 2010 clients were given access to a new shock service: The Scare Gram. People could now select one or more ghouls from the Elite Team to crash an event or terrify a specific person. The Elite Monsters have also loaned their scaring abilities to other haunts and events such as Coffin Creek in Corona, Balboa Haunted Trail in San Diego, currently Blumhouse of Horrors, and Halloween at the Hard Rock in San Diego with October 27th, 2012 going to be their third annual event.

Blumhouse Productions™ is the production firm best known for delivering blockbuster horror films such as the Paranormal Activity™ franchise and Insidious™. Founded by Jason Blum back in 2000, the multi-media company has at least 30 titles under its belt and in the works. Their most profitable film, Paranormal Activity™ (2007), made almost $200 million worldwide while being filmed for a mere $15,000. Paranormal Activity 2™ followed making $170 million. James Wan’s Insidious™ had a budget of $1.5 million and pulled in close to $100 million. Paranormal Activity 3™ was as popular as the first one making almost $200 million, but was made with $5 million. Later this year will be the premieres of Scott Derrickson’s Sinister™ and Paranormal Activity 4™.