Sometimes you buy a Groupon and you don’t know what to expect. Sometimes you get exactly what you expect. Most of the time you forget about it until it expires and you buy another one that you will also forget about. When it came to Midsummer Scream we got a whole lot more than what we paid for.
Always on the lookout for a cool new Halloween/Horror experience, we bought tickets for this July “Halloween” event. Initially, we thought it was a convention for home haunt builders, and that we would be there maybe an hour. 20 minutes in and we were looking to upgrade to the VIP passes. The first year we went we walked right in, each year after that, there has been a line down the side of the convention hall, as the convention has gotten bigger and bigger each year.
Midsummer Scream is a convention/preview show unlike any we have ever been to. The event is an incredible collaboration of all things horror for fans and professionals alike taking place (almost – covid!!) every summer in Long Beach, Midsummer Scream combines exhibitor booths with previews of home, independent, and big-budget haunts, as well as shows and panels. The exhibition floor is a great place to see work from local artists, prop makers, SFX artists, and much more. Last year we attained this wonderful graphic art of Michael Myers trick or treating as Jason Voorhees by Rob Mounier (follow him @robmounier) that we love and is hanging on our living room wall!
There are also opportunities for autograph signings at different booths. This actually makes for a more intimate meeting. We had the pleasure of getting a signed production still, photo, and had a ten-minute conversation with John Dugan who played Grandpa Sawyer in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2019.
The Hall of Shadows is a big open space that has been turned into a preview of over a dozen home and independent haunts. Each one is a few rooms that give a feel of the haunt. This is where the VIP passes come in handy. There can be up to an hour wait for some of these quick walkthroughs. Previewing these walkthroughs is a great way to plan your Halloween haunt season. In many cases, several of these haunts will give discount codes, VIP passes, or give aways to come to their attractions. In October, we sat down with all the flyers and notes we had taken of the haunts we saw and made a schedule and map of where we want to visit.
In 2019, we also caught a great panel on Tales From the Crypt, with producers, crew members, and the Cryptkeeper himself, John Kassir. This inspired us to buy the whole series on DVD and revisit it. That is right, DVD. That was before you could watch everything in the world on your phone. Just be glad you don’t have to rewind the movie you just watched before returning it. Those late fees stack up! Sorry, back to the topic at hand. Seriously though, how can you enjoy a whole movie on your phone? That is no way to live. Sorry ok. Maybe a quick cat video, but a whole feature? Come on!
We took a chance on a new experience that definitely paid off. We went from skeptical observers to frequent patrons, as we have attended Midsummer Scream 5 years in a row. All-in-all MidSummer Scream is for the professional and the horror fan alike. Unfortunately, due to the Covid19 pandemic, MidSummer Scream didn’t happen this year but you can join their newsletter to get updates! They hope to come back in 2021. Keep haunting!
You can visit them online at https://midsummerscream.org/
