Black Gate

From all of us in the underground offices of Black Gate, wishing you a wonderful “holiday” season and thank you for continuing to follow us into the dark.

And now for your reading enjoyment, what would Halloween be without a little Edgar…?

Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness — for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.

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Crowdsourcing, microcrediting, and clickworking have all become buzz words in mainstream corporate America in recent years, but I honestly did not imagine I would use “kickstart” and “live horror show” in the same sentence.

Ever.

And yet here we are, in a place even Dr. Frankenstein couldn’t have anticipated.

After seventeen studio albums, including three horror movie scores and a motion picture of their own, Gothic Halloween Horror music composers and my personal fan girl crushes, Midnight Syndicate have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a multimedia concert extravaganza.

And what is a “Kickstarter campaign” you ask?

As has been mentioned here once or twice, Kickstarter is the world’s largest crowdfunding platform. The company’s mission is to help bring creative projects to life and since its launch, nearly 5 million people have funded more than 50,000 creative projects such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, and video games.

People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards and one-of-kind experiences in exchange for their pledges and Midnight Syndicate is offering some serious bootie in exchange for your bucks (want to be the show’s Executive Producer for instance?)

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Have you ever become a fan of something in its earliest days and watched as it got better and better over time, until you were congratulating yourself at seeing the early greatness before everyone else caught on?

Or maybe that’s just me.

Usually it’s authors or film makers I have the pleasure of meeting on their freshman outings, and you can just tell that if you keep an eye on some them, things are going to get even more amazing as they further hone their craft.

In this particular case, it’s a hybrid of all the pop culture creativity that has been so much fun to follow.

Creating a haunted attraction from the ground up takes all the effort you can imagine — doubled. There’s the space, the permits, the theme, the detailed sets – costumes, makeup, actors, and promotion. Basically, all the components (and expense) of a stage production or an indy film with the additional elements of crowd control and liability insurance.

Fear City just kicked off its third season with a “Bloody Red Carpet” event on October 4^th and its evolution has been a scream to watch.

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If you have a younger sibling, a twitchy girlfriend, or a pal susceptible to suggestion, then you’ve probably done it.

If you’ve ever been to camp, driven to some deserted location with a local legend attached to it, or offered to walk through first in a haunted house line up, then you’ve most definitely done it.

At some point in your life, you’ve gotten perverse pleasure from scaring the life out of another human being.

Admittedly, I think I’ve lost a few friends over it in my case. This is due to my complete lack of empathy with the victim ,which manifests in my laughing so hard I nearly have a seizure.

Totally unfair and coming in around the fourth-grade level of humor to be sure, but I just can’t help myself.

And neither can you – admit it.

My greatest joy this time of year comes from positioning myself in the standard group of six to walk through some haunted attraction, with at least two random pre-teen girls.

More is better.

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“You can do that one without me. No way.”

“Come on, it’s all just theater. You’re not really going to die.”

“Nope, not happening.”

“Think of what a great write up it will make.”

“Write it up then. I can’t bring my camera in there anyway.”

Black Gate photographer Chris Z and I are debating whether or not he will accompany me to the traveling version of the extreme haunted attraction, Blackout Elements when it rolls through Chicago later this year.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this experience, the annual version of Blackout that pops up in a different LA or NYC location every October has been compared to a voluntary prison assault that you actually pay fifty, non-refundable, dollars to have inflicted on you.

Let’s face it. An experience that requires you to sign a six-page disclaimer and memorize a safety word is not your neighborhood Jaycee’s “haunted house.” And for someone who has been through about a bazillion October attractions, this one sounded like something I really needed to do.

But apparently I was doing it without Chris Z.

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