So my night job is as a scare actor at a seasonal haunted house attraction: Hell Harvest in Potosi, Missouri. Compared to big-name haunted house attractions like Mortem Manor or Halloween Horror Nights at Universal theme parks, we’re pretty low-rent. But as regional attractions go, we’re a pretty big deal. People come from as far away as St. Louis, and that’s saying something, because a) The Lou is about 100 miles away, and b) Creepyworld is there, and Creepyworld is a much bigger attraction with considerably more name recognition. People who have been to both say ours is better!
Scaring people is every bit as simple as it sounds. I hide in my hiding place, and when the customers enter my scene, I scream menacingly at them and raise my prop weapon. I also add a bit more schtick to my performance. One thing I love to do is listen to the customers as they’re approaching and keep an ear out for names. So if I hear, for example, a dad say “It’s OK Megan,” I’ll scream “What’s up MEGAN?” when they pass through. Scares the fuck out of them. Or when someone says something like “not scary” I’ll surreptitiously flick a switch that turns out all of the lights and plunges the room into pitch darkness and scream “still want to help out?!?” or something like that.
I absolutely do not touch the customers: that’s the first thing they tell us when we sign our contracts. Similarly, the customers are warned to to touch the actors. Sometimes incidental contact will happen, like a customer will trip on the uneven terrain (we’re outdoors in a forest) and lose their balance, or whatever. I also don’t cuss or threaten (verbally) or anything like that.
Some questions that I think you may be asking:
What got you into this? I’ve always loved performance and schtick and getting a reaction out of people. I did theater in college for this reason, and I’m always doing jokes and bits because I love getting a laugh. Yes, a scream and a laugh are two different things, but 90% of our customers laugh after they scream, so same difference. As to how I got the job, the family that owns the attraction put up an ad on my town’s gossip & town happenings Facebok page, and I figured, what the hell (no pun intended).
It’s owned by a family? Yes, a very nice, very Catholic family from St. Louis. The owners and their daughters (and their husbands) run the show, as well as act as scare actors, etc. The owners’ cousins, nephews and nieces, etc. work as scare actors, too, and the wife’s mom runs the concession stand. Further, whole families (husbands and wives, their children) work as scare actors, too (Missouri’s child labor laws are rather … freewheeling). It truly is like one big family; they even provide supper each night before we start allowing in customers.
Children work there??? Young teens, yes. I think the youngest was probably c. 12-13 last season (see: Missouri’s freewheeling child labor laws). Having a bunch of teenage girls work there is a yuge benefit because when they’re in costume, and under the lighting effects, they look like terrifying little girls (think Annabelle or Megan). One teenager is a gymnast IRL and she works in the school bus scene, bending and contorting and jumping about. Scares the fuck out of the customers. Also, on the top of the school bus, the boss welded these bars so that customers can’t see due to the lighting, and she does her gymnast thing and it looks like she’s crawling on the roof. And of course she does her demon-child schtick and growls and gurgles. It’s a hoot.
How often to people nope right out? Several times per night. Last season I worked in literally the first scene and about five or six noped right out after my scene over the course of the season.
Anything else you’d like to tell us in your introduction, HeyHomie? A few drunks manage to hid their drunkenness and get into the attraction; once they’re found out they’re shown the (metaphorical) door. Smoking is not allowed but you’d be surprised how many people light up. My scene last season was a barn that’s been standing there for 150 years - so, you know, ancient wood and whatnot. I had to break character more than once and tell a customer to ditch the cigarette. Officially they’re not supposed to vape either but I just look the other way. A few have been vaping doobie and I’ve had to break character and tell them to knock it off, children work there. Last season a family got to the end and decided they liked it so much, they’d do it again only in reverse (walking against traffic AND doing the scenes out of order), and they raised all the hell when our security guy tried to escort them off the property. They were going to leave us a negative review on Yelp! Finally, some of our Bible-Belt neighbors can be kind of hostile and have trashed us online, but there weren’t any protestors last season, and I’m hoping there won’t be any this season.
A friend of mine has recounted on several occasions her time working at a haunted attraction. Mostly she just bitches about the song Hotel California because she was subjected to it on an endless loop for many hours a night for months. Is there a similar type thing you must endure that might be ruined for you for life now?
Yes actually. One night I was sent to the gas station scene and it had two songs on repeat, one after the other, and I’ve had my fill of both. They’re “Run Rabbit Run” by Flanagan and Allen, and “There is Someone” by The Vogues. Both were slowed down for effect. If I never hear either of those songs again it will be too soon.
At my regular scene, the barn, the sound effects consist of a loop that’s just screams, a tablesaw, and a growling demon. The volume is ear-splitting; this season (assuming there’s sound in my new scene) I’mma be smart and buy some ear plugs.
Makeup - and by that I mean, high-quality, professional stagecraft makeup that the owners order from a supplier of related products*. About half the actors do their own makeup, the other half get it done by people who know what they’re doing (I’m in the latter category). I created my own character (he wears a blue jumpsuit like a workman would wear, it’s ripped and got stains all over it). My makeup is to make me look like I was burned - which fit in with the scene perfectly. I stood behind this wire-mesh screen and, where the customers couldn’t see it, was a battery charger. I’d hold a jumper-cable clamp in my hand and rub it up against the screen, and it would throw sparks. One dumbass kid touched the mesh screen while I was throwing sparks - I had to break character and tell him not to do that.
*Every ophthalmologist in this country will tell you NOT to buy novelty contact lenses (colors, skulls, eight-balls, what have you) lest you get some serious eye injury. Well, my bosses order theirs from a supplier of professional stagecraft supplies, and they’re safe. I don’t use them because my eyes aren’t really a part of the scene, I let the teenage girls use them. Let me tell you, these actresses look freaky AF when their eyes are solid red
Have you ever heard of or experienced someone flipping out and thinking the Haunted House situation was real and acting accordingly?
What about the reverse situation with one or more of the scare actors getting a little too deeply into their fiendish or frightful character? (Sounds like a premise for a lame horror movie, doesn’t it?)
Or, bringing it back to a more mundane level of jerkish behavior, have you had to deal with audience members who due to drunken-ness, inflamed skepticism or just being assholes, want to fight the scare actors and/or bust up the attraction?
How would the staff react in those scenarios? Do you have something like a “Hey, Rube!” shout-out that signals “All hands on deck and ready to fight!” like carnies do in case of violent townies attacking en masse?
I used to help out in the haunted barn sponsored by my local historical society. The first scene was pretty good at getting people to flee. They turned a corner, and behind them a standing sheet of plywood was slammed to the ground by two helpers. This creates an amazing amount of wind and simultaneously a ship’s klaxon went off as the dim lights went out.
I usually worked the line and young ladies asking if the actors were allowed to touch was a common question. I told them that, no, they were not supposed to touch but since many of them were on work release from jail it was hard to control…
With a name like Hellharvest, do you often encounter people who think it’s one of those christian Hell Houses and want to take their nonbelieving friends/relatives through it to scare them into converting, or who want to book your show for religious reasons under that misconception?
I have always thought highly of you as a person and a poster. You just went up several levels in my estimation. You rock!
When I lived in Missouri I never got to the OP’s event. But I know where it is. I knew some folks in Potosi.
There was another rural outfit out west of St. Louis that did zombie shoots. Basically a Fall hayride on farm wagons, through the pumpkins and corn stubble, but the patrons / riders all had paintball guns and the shambling zombies / event actors “attacked” the farm wagons at various points. Sometimes the tractor would halt and the customers would dismount and chase zombies through the fields and sets.
I learned all about that from a zombie actor, but I can’t now remember whether that was an IRL acquaintance in St. Louis, an article in the local alternative paper back when it was paper, or a post here. Fun in any case. But getting shot with paintballs all nighg every night for a month got old; real old.
All actors either have a walkie-talkie, or are within feet of someone who does. Should there be violence, drunkenness, or other jerkish behavior, all we have to do is break character and radio Security (or ask a colleague to radio Security) and they’re on it like white on rice. Added bonus: our security guys are cops in their day jobs.
I’m not aware of any actors stepping out of line, but I’ve only been there one season.
That was my thought when I first heard about the attraction, actually, and I had to email the owner to ask if this was a Christian scare-you-out-of-Hell thing or a “real” haunted house. I don’t know if anyone has shown up expecting this type of thing, and we’re nowhere near any churches and/or religious institutions, so there shouldn’t be any ambiguity.
I think this is an add-on at Creepyworld (St. Louis suburbs). Or at least, it was when I was there, c. 2014. Yeah, I want no part of that, either as a customer or as an actor.
Do the actors and managers get together and figure out what’s scary this year? For example, you mentioned the movie Megan. Did they do the “creepy little girl” bit before that movie came out?
Does anyone get to be characters from movies, like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and such?
What kind of people tend to go? Is it mostly high school and college aged guys going with their girlfriends, or do people of all ages in various groupings show up?
This was waay out west on I-70 past Warrenton, but not as far as Kingdom City. And would have been c.2005 when I learned of it. It was on a farm that was right next to one of the I-70 offramps, so convenient that way.
No, I only mention those as examples of the whole trope of little children being creepy (see: Damien in The Omen or Regan in The Exorcist). All of the scenes are “classic” and kind of non-specific. Like there’s one scene done up to resemble a children’s camp at which some unspecified horror has taken place. Another scene takes place in a house that’s filled with terrifying little dolls and other props, devoid of any context. There’s no story being told in our attraction, it’s just a series of unrelated scenes.
ETA: scenes involving creepy children have been part of the attraction since it began, I want say 2016???
No. I wish, though. I’d love to do a scene based around David S. Pumpkins.
People of all ages. We have families, groups of friends, the high school soccer team, etc. There’s also an area radio station that sells these party trips where you get a limo van ride from [whatever city the radio station is based in] and back, BYOB or maybe drinks included, plus tickets to the attraction. We get about six party vans per season.
