TERROR ON CHURCH STREET ORLANDO, The Last Night, Part 1, April 1999

TERROR ON CHURCH STREET of Orlando, FL was America's #1 Year - Round Haunted Attraction for 8 years. Unfortunately, at the end, Major Theme Parks sucked the life's blood (tourists) from downtown Orlando 's Church Street Exchange. Also, certain figures in local busine$$ & politic$ were not as fond of the Haunted House, on the increasingly deserted corner of Church St. & Orange Ave., as some of us. The New Millenium was Dawning and 'Terror' withered away and died in it's harsh & greedy light.

By the time this "bootleg" video was made by a few devoted staff, the Live Cast (known as "The Eternal Dwellers", which had always set 'Terror' apart from the rest) had been reduced to a bare bones skeleton crew, and some key animatronic and pneumatic effects no longer worked.

This video was filmed in 1999, probably on or about April 30th (the daemonic Walpurgis Night, as you Pagans know) as I recall it being on or near Beltane (May 1st, or perhaps 2nd), when Maestro Dave Clevinger & Director - Manager Jack N. asked us all to meet in the cemetery when the axe finally fell and the exquisite nightmare ended. This video is the Last Show, the Last Cast, the Finale, the end. Luckily, Alan Ostrander, resident Make up Wizard, brought a camera through the House to film the show (a forbidden, taboo thing, perhaps quietly sanctioned, by the Forces of Darkness as part of Their Unholy Crusade). He allowed the cyclopean eye of the camera's lens to linger wistfully over a spider here, a skull there.... Thank You!

Old Timers from 'Terror's Early Days' will lament the absence of certain characters or sets that surely live on within their darkest dreams. 'Terror' did morph over time. Valiant attempts were made to sustain its atmospheric Darkness. Many creative daemonic geniuses, actors, actresses, & weirdos looking for work trod the boards in that old building over the years. They came and went often, each adding their own special spice into the Witches Brew that was TERROR.
We scared people for a living.
We did this amazingly well and with a fanatic zeal that bordered on the ecstatic.
We slept all day and partied like every night was Halloween.
We were friends, lovers and family (and we had the drama to prove it!).
Simply stated, it really was The Best Job Ever!
I am proud to say I am an over 5 year veteran of Terror on Church Street, and nothing I've seen or experienced since has ever come close to matching it.
I did not make this video (but you might recognise in it a certain creature who seems to relish hissing words like "heretic" & "blasphemer"), I was gifted this dvd disc some years ago from a certain Make-up Wizard and finally made the effort to post it for all the Children of the Night to view and reminisce.
To all the Eternal Dwellers out there, this video is yours; I hope it stirs up fun & spooky Halloween memories.

From the bottom of my black little heart,

Sonny Gardner
Nov. 2, 2011
Osaka, Japan

and.... "Watch your back"!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Orlando
• Florida tourism

[eikaiwaartemis]

Mia's old Toshiba laptop worked the uploading magic. It seems extended length vids are granted if you supply a cell phone number (at least here in Japan Youtube).

[veganchicky]

Hey, how'd you get a 20 minute video on here? I had a bitch of a time trying to get mine under fifteen minutes....I guess they expanded the time allowance. nice to know:) I gotta redo mine...now with all the copyright issues that may take mine down....I hope they get it so you there is a way you can work out something with artists so we can use their music as long as it doesn't offend them, and helps them boost sales of their music.