Have you ever worked in a haunted house?

[deathbydinn]

I was wondering if anyone has worked in a haunted house and had any interesting stories. Tonight I went and worked in one called Doom of Durham. I hid a corner and just screamed. I don't do the "aarrgh" stuff, I do a really high-pitched shriek, and I would pin people in the corner and just scream in their faces. I also worked in the kitchen room, pinned against a wall and was crying because I was going to get "eaten"

 

I did find that the people who looked like they were like 20 got the most scared. They were hunched over and looking at the ground while the 5 year old had no problem with it. There was also a group of people who got so scared they ran into a wall and fell down. The wall needed to be fixed after. Anyone got any funny stories?

[csikoth]

Last night in Urgent Scare, I scared a lady so bad she nailed me with a big purse which nailed me on the top of the head. Oh and we won the sacred "midget" for a 3rd time.

[deathbydinn]

What's a sacred midget?

[csikoth]

It is an award at Kings Island that a maze gets for best performance for that night.

[paintballer]

I was a guy with a chainsaw for 2 years. It was fun, You'd get people in a corner and flail your chainsaw in the air wildly

[socalMAN123]

I work at The Empty Grave haunted attraction at the Anaheim Gardenwalk (less than a block away from Disneyland). If you're in Socal this Halloween weekend, come check us out! We open on Thursday and run through Sunday.

---Brent

[Spideyfreak]

I'm working for a house at the county fairgrounds. Tonight I was in the Morgue/Autopsy room. Got to scare the crap out of people with the saw that I use to "cut the victim open" with. It's a great attraction. PM me for more info if you are interested.

[cooksta77]

I've actually gone to The Empty Grave this year (Thanks for telling me Brent) and it's very good in my opinion. I think if you are in the So Cal area check it out.

Andrew " Always like a good scare" Iorio

[trcg721]

[dammie16@vt.edu]

I've changed three times and have a ton of great stories from Fear Faire at Cedar Point but I'll share the best one which is me and this girl in my section who do a great tag team scare.

 

I Say "Knock Knock who's there" and she jumps out of a box and screams "Chick in a box!" (SNL anyone?)

 

Here is the three pics of my different make ups, the full mask is my new permanent character, The Inquisitor.

First Weekend

And this is the much more insulting, loud mouthed final version!

Second Weekend, these first two were quiet stalkers.

[supertrooper]

I worked at The Trail of Terror in Lexington, KY for four years. It used to be run by the Parks and Recreation department and was really good, but I think that a private company bought them out after I moved and it went downhill after that.

 

I was a "chainsaw dude" for 2 years and a zombie in the graveyard for 2 years. I much preferred being a zombie because it allowed me to be a bit more interactive. Since it was outside, we actually had coffins buried in the ground with the lids covered with leaves that we hid in. As guests walked through the graveyard (complete with actual headstones) we would emerge from the ground and hunt them down.

 

As a chainsaw dude, when guests heard the chainsaw, most took off running. We experienced several fainting spells, people running into trees, people wetting themselves. I did find that the people most easily scared were the black guys. They tended to either push their girlfriends in front of them and scream or take off running. It was hilarious.

[metrock]

I have been running my own haunt (Higgins Manor) for some time now. It's a lot of work, and quite stressful at times, but to see the final product makes it all worth my while.

 

If I wasn't doing my own thing, I'm sure I'd be working a haunt elsewhere.

[haiderodes]

I worked in the Vampire maze at Fright Dome last year. It was good fun

[Vffreak07]

I work in CarnEvil at Valleyscare. I've won scaractor of the night 2-3 times & I've perfected the art of scaring people to the floor. I love my job thoroughly.

[ntweisen]

I'd love to work at a haunted house someday, or better yet to help design one. I think the key is a whole lot of nothing. A lot of suspense and big spaces of just walking down dark hallways between scares with subtle things like hidden fans blowing in cold air and soft creepy music. Less is more!

[deathbydinn]

I'd love to work at a haunted house someday, or better yet to help design one. I think the key is a whole lot of nothing. A lot of suspense and big spaces of just walking down dark hallways between scares with subtle things like hidden fans blowing in cold air and soft creepy music. Less is more!

 

Very true. The one that I worked in, I also went through first as a guest and it had lots of dark hallways and a few non-scary things that would make people put their guard down then, BAM, I jump out and scream in their face. That really freaked them out. IMO walking down a dark hallway is a lot scarier then walking down a lit hallway with lots of props. You do need atleast one nicely themed area and the rest of it can seem like crap, but you have to know how it make it scary crap.

[downunder]

This is a really interesting topic, I wonder what kind of retribution people have experienced for scaring peeps. This is an extreme example:

 

http://www.smh.com.au/world/cop-gives-haunted-house-employee-fright-of-a-lifetime-20091027-hhy2.html

[the ghost]

And thats why we have gun control! Remember, if your drunk with a gun and are going through a haunted house then your really fricken supid. If your a drunk police officer with a gun at a hauntedhouse who gets the police called on them, your nothing short of mentally challenged.

 

A few years ago my friends and I put up a garage haunt, I got some good scares and all of my friends sucked at scaring. These people were looking at my friends to see if they were pretending or if they were actually trying to scare. I was a mental patient and would sit on a stool with a hammer and talk to myself and use this huge wide smile. People would then walk by me and I would scream at them to "make the pain stop" or to get the voices out of my head." We had a giant spider from costco on a strring that we were dropping on people and a lady got freaked out really bad. She walked to my section and I was scratching my bodu(it hurt a little) and was yelling spiders. Then I used my hammer and was hitting the floor, like I was killing spiders everywhere. Damn, I was good, and I scared a lot of people, and actually managed to make a girl scream at the top of her lungs, it was awesome. Cant wait to try to work scary farm next year, then they will see ADHD and insomnia transform itself into a massive amount of energy all night long.

[ebl]

Actually, one year I did work in one. Back in the '70s, our church youth group put on one that went all through the church buildings. My job was to "join" each tour group that left and stay to the rear. At one point, a closet door opened and I was "grabbed" by a monster, never to be seen again by anyone in that group.

 

Of course, once that group was out of sight, I ran back downstairs to join the next unsuspecting group.

 

Eric

[socalMAN123]

^ Ah the joys of placed victims. Always works so well, I wish more haunts did it nowadays!

A lot of suspense and big spaces of just walking down dark hallways between scares with subtle things like hidden fans blowing in cold air and soft creepy music. Less is more!

The place that I work at, The Empty Grave, truly focuses on this factor. We're located in an almost warehouse type enviornment and a majority of our maze is huge wide open pathways. We pump that place up with fog, so much fog that the temperature raises a good ten degrees and you can barely see people ten feet in front of you. The vulnerability that people experience in those wide open spaces provides for some of the best scares. If you're in the Socal area this weekend, come drop by The Empty Grave! We're open Thursday through Sunday! And if you come on Halloween, go check out Higgins Manor, I've never personally been, but it looks like a great haunt and it's hosted by one of our own TPR members!

---Brnet