Camp Blood

the legend lives on

Camp Blood Celebrates 30 Years of Haunted Fun

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH Does the story or themes change from Halloween Even my mother is a fortune-teller here. We sell T EN MINUTES FROM THE CAMPUS of West Georgia College in picturesque Carrolton, is a clever and literally offthe-beaten-path Halloween attraction. The quirky haunt blends elements of classic modern horror films and lore with rural rednecks and haunted hillbillies. Conceived by Mark “Atch” Atcheson as a Halloween party destination, the half-acre attraction has grown a bit during every year since 1990. The storyline tells a murky tale of the patients of an asylum, the legend of Jason Voorhees from slasher-film fame and Friday The 13th shenanigans. It’s devilishly spooky fun for a good cause with proceeds going to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to purchase toys for Christmas and the THS Homeless Shelter in Carrollton. INsite phoned co-founder Michelle Atcheson for all the scary details. to Halloween? No, we really just add to it. Camp Blood is from the Jason movies and that’s where the mask and all that imagery come in. The Legend of Camp Blood is basically part of the story, because people talk about it somehow being part of the “original” Crystal Lake camp. But that’s where the fun comes in. There’s not really a lake here but if they want to believe Crystal Lake is near here, then we aren’t gonna stop ‘em. As part of the attraction, we’ve added carnival games, concessions and even a redneck movie theater. We repurpose stuff and add to it every year and always looking for new things for parts of the trail. Walk us through the attraction. When you get here, you’re walking through an outside trail. You follow it down to the ticket window and then you walk in as you’re going through a casket to enter. souvenirs and merchandise like t-shirts, decals, keychains, just a lot of little odds and ends. The website says you occasionally have some special guests. We’ve had a number of special guests over the year but this year, because of Covid, it’s a little different. We do have Savanna Jade Wehunt from The Walking Dead scheduled for an appearance on October 19. But be sure to check the website for the dates and times in advance on the guests. You mentioned Covid and that’s a very real horror and a constant challenge for distancing and all the standard CDC protocol. It’s a little different for outdoor attractions but to be cautious we only do groups of ten at any one time. Masks are welcome but we don’t require them. It’s optional. How many people are in the Camp Blood cast Thirty years is a long time to commit to a haunted attraction. It is and it’s been a lot of work but it’s a labor of love for us. It all started right here in 1990 as just a few friends getting together to party. Over the years it got bigger and pretty soon we realized we couldn’t have 300 people in his house! So Mark changed it up so it would be a trail that you could follow and then you could get to the house. Now it’s a little over a half-mile haunted trail with a storyline and some surprises along the way. So the casket is the portal to the horror scenes? Yeah, when you go through, you start to see the different scenes. It’s a little bit of everything from the classic modern horror lore. There’s Jason, Michael Meyers, the butcher, a dentist, different scenes of scary moments. It’s all outdoors, but it seems to be inside the house because it’s all covered and dark. It sounds labor-intensive to set up. Is Camp Blood up all year around? It’s always up and in the summer it’s paint-ball. of characters? We hold auditions every year and we have a core cast who return pretty much every year. So we’ll have between fifty and sixty people every year. We call them all part of the Camp Blood family. Some of them help us all year around because everything is hand-made on site. We’re open Thursday through Saturday every week from the middle of September until Halloween night. Does the show start at dusk? Ticket sales usually begin at 8 and stop at It’s just a good, family-owned place to have fun. midnight so sometimes we’re here pretty late. We’ve actually been here until four in the morning a few times.

That’s late! Have you ever seen anything strange or spooky? Well someone gave Atch the wood from an old house if he’d tear down the house to get it. It was a little strange. They’d keep hearing windows breaking but no one was breaking any windows. He found a TV in there and it actually worked! He brought it back here and something kept turning the channel to the Food Channel. One day he saw a lady in town who asked if he’d seen Miss Mary. She said the house was haunted by a lady who used to live there. One day the channel changed again when he was watching a football game. He said, ‘Come on now Miss Mary, cut it out.’ And we haven’t heard from her since!

Camp Blood is open for Halloween fun every Thursday through Saturday night through October 31. Ticket prices are $25 per person and includes entrance to Camp Blood trail and Cajun Carnage. Kids under 8 are free. For more details, visit campblood.com.

Celebrating 30 Years of Terror! Home of Haunted Hillbillies and Dead Rednecks! Open every Thursday, Friday Saturday thru Oct. 31

Legendary Camp Blood Trail (Nearly a 1/2 mile of redneck terror) Redneck Theatre, Hillbilly Fortune Teller, Campfire, Carnival Games, Concession Stand & Gift Shop 2277 Whooping Creek Road • Carrollton • (770) 854-2267 • campblood.com Proud supporter of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

EVERY FACE TELLS A STORY

Percussionist Daniel de los Reyes of the Zac Brown Band Communicates with Rhythm - & Safety

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

SINCE 2012, HE’S BEEN KNOWN as the joyously effusive percussionist in the Zac Brown Band, but veteran musician Daniel de los Reyes is also a crafty inventor. His latest creation is a series of distinctive face shields that ingeniously combine safe social distancing with natural human expression. Conceived from the necessity of playing live music during the pandemic, Reyes designed a new line of personal protective equipment with a message. Playing music at a safe distance with a sturdy mask, the artist noticed a lack of interaction from player to listener. From used drumheads, he designed shields to be used by first-responders, fellow musicians and for everyday use. The globe-trotting Reyes, currently based near the Brown headquarters in Fayetteville has added the MiniShieldUSA company to ever-expending list of accomplishments, in the One Shot Shaker series, the Daniel de los Reyes Signature Pro Pad by DW as well as DayGlow Music, a music-centric development and training center. INsite recently spoke with the affable inventor - who has logged miles with Chicago, Whitney Houston, Don Henley and Earth, Wind & Fire - as he prepared to launch the new company. How have you been dealing with the pandemic? Some people have welcomed it originally straight from my used drumheads that I had here. as a time to finally have the luxury to create or to finish a project. Well, we can’t go out and play much and I really miss it. As an artist, I really miss being out there and performing for people. But I actually find myself busier now than I was before it all started. I’m actually enjoying So you took your collection of used drumheads and basically repurposed them? That’s right. I actually used around 500 heads that I had here and more that I couldn’t use for whatever reason and I began making these face shields for first responders. being home and finally having time to do all the things I’ve needed to do. I think, for a lot of people, and I must say, myself included. It’s been a time to get things together. Whether it’s getting in shape or cooking or anything really. It can be a moment to really shine because when we do come out of this, we’ll all come out of it so much better. For me, it’s been non-stop. You always have a lot of projects to juggle. I do. And not just in music, it’s for where I’m at as a human being. I’m always looking for ways to be creative and ways to give back. For the past ten years, I’ve been running a music Tell us about the process. Like the best ideas, it was a natural evolution. As I was sitting here and practicing and playing music, I was thinking of ways that I could be of service. I’m itching to be back doing concerts but for now I’ve started a company to hopefully help people and maybe if I can, then we’ll get back to making music for everyone even faster. I’ve trained all my life to do music and I can’t wait to get back to it. I want the industry to get back up as soon as possible. I’m crossing my fingers that what we’re working on and the products we are about to introduce will help people and that will, in turn, help the industry. AS AN ARTIST, I REALLY MISS BEING OUT THERE AND PERFORMING FOR PEOPLE. BUT I ACTUALLY FIND MYSELF BUSIER NOW THAN I WAS BEFORE IT ALL STARTED. education charity called DayGlow Music. My whole thing is finding a way to give back, so I can use music as the incredible entity that it is. To learn art is to grow as a person so we work with a number of young adults. We use music as a way to share. For example, you can’t play in a band or in a symphony or even as a duo unless you learn to really listen to other people. Simple things like that are crucial to not only music but human evolution. So since I can’t coach and reach people through the music education, I started working on a new project during the pandemic. Walk us through the evolution of MiniShieldsUSA. How did you start the process? Well first of all, I enjoy the process of just making things. As much as I love to play music, I also love to invent things. And if I can make something from scratch, well that’s even more satisfying for me. For the music industry I have a few things I’ve created. I made a shaker. I developed the One Shot Shaker series that provides a downbeat shake without that back-shake. LP started making them and it really took off. Then I did a utility beater that basically attaches to The protective gear? Exactly. I started making protective gear, pedals for playing cowbells, woodblocks or even tambourines. DW makes a pad that I created to combine timbales, cowbells, and congas in a portable practice rig. It’s like a travelling guitar in that it actually can fit into your backpack. I’d done sessions where the producer would throw some crazy rhythm pattern at me and I found ways to fix that. I’m always thinking of new ways to do things a little bit out of the box. So this was the same thing. There was a need and then one day during the pandemic, I started thinking about the face shields. Anxiety was sitting in during the pandemic, when even going to the supermarket was a problem. Of course, our tours got cancelled. And as for protective gear, nobody had anything. I saw some of the protective gear that emergency responders were using, I thought, ‘That looks like the material in a drumhead.’ I ordered some shields and sure enough it was pretty much the same material. It was mylar! Then I got right on it. I exhausted my own supply of drumheads and I wanted to order more, but due to Covid, some were closed and there was every type of delay. I just started cold-calling the companies that were open and ordering different thicknesses of plastic. I created them as fast as possible and disinfected them and then we’d go hand them out.

Who were the first to get them? The emergency care responders here in Fayette because they do so much to help people. I got a good response so I knew I should just keep going! I got them to workers who were in close proximity to each other such as cashiers and stockers and wait staff. Then the nail salons opened and I got some to them. One thing led to another.

That ‘ah-ha’ moment led to a company. It did. From that moment of going, ‘That looks just like what my drum heads are made of,’ to now, it’s been almost like a movement, I tell you. We have investors and lawyers and it’s grown so fast. It’ll help the industry but really it’s for everybody. It’s like what I always try to do, move forward and succeed without compromising anything as you go along. I saw a lot of musicians who basically had to work. They didn’t have unemployment or anything. They had to keep playing. But they need to be safe, too. That’s why we are sending some proceeds from this to Musicares because they help out a lot of artists who may not be as fortunate as others. I ended up talking to a friend of mine who basically had to work to survive. I went to an event at a distillery when the CDC guidelines were changing all the time. It helped me realize some things. The music was playing and people were wearing masks and distancing but I noticed people weren’t really paying attention.

Because they couldn’t connect with the players? That’s right. I’ve always been so happy and expressive when I play, you can see it on my face. But you can’t see that through a regular mask. It’s like you are playing behind a wall. That’s a real ‘ah-ha’ moment, too. I knew we’d have to stay protected. But to be protected and to be seen? That’s what I knew the clear shields could do. So the shields offer protection but they also, and this is the most important thing as far as I’m concerned, you can still have the human expression. We communicate with our music, but we can convey how we feel with our faces. I’d hate to see what it would do to our communication if we just had to look at people’s eyes all the time. They’re expressive, but you need the whole face to tell the story. With these shields, we can really communicate!

For more information on the shields, visit mini-shieldusa.com.

Reyes joins Lady A guitarist Slim Gambill and friends for a rare live show billed as “LSD - an evening of improvisation, collaboration and inspiration” on Friday, October 16 at the Velvet Room.