Scary Stories to Tell at Your Haunt

I am an educator in real life. For nearly a decade I've taught young people the fine art of finding their passion through career assessments and goal setting. Then I've taught them how to make it happen through job searching skills, networking and interviewing strategies.

It is literally my job to help kids figure out their dream jobs.

In every single class, though, someone will inevitably ask me The Big Question:

"Hey, Ms. J!"

(They all call me Ms. J.)

"Is this YOUR dream job?"

And the truth is, no. Teaching is not my dream job.

Don't get me wrong; I like being a teacher. I mean, I didn't love it so much during a global pandemic, but overall I have a good job that I'm content with and get a lot of fulfillment from. The pay could be higher, but I'm still able to provide for my family, and I have pretty okay medical benefits. I get to be home at 5:00 with my family and spend time with my writing on the weekends.

Being a teacher is cool.

However, for as far as I can remember, I have wanted to create a haunted attraction.

"Oh, like, you want to live in a haunted house?"

Not exactly. I mean, yes, of course, I'd like to live in a real haunted house (but only if the ghost was cool with my cats and did the dishes once in a while), but that's not quite what I mean.

I'm sure you've seen them. If you're currently reading this article, you've probably been to lots of them. They start to pop up in mid-September, and by Halloween, they're everywhere. Houses, hayrides, barns, cornfields and forests crawling with chainsaw-wielding clowns and murderous pig-men screaming nonsense at you while the Halloween theme song blares through hidden speakers. At first, you're terrified; you cling to your friends and nervously giggle your way through fake cobwebs and air cannons until you realize that dude dressed as Freddy Krueger is actually Dan the IT guy from work.

The modern haunted attraction started as a fundraising event for the American Jaycees organizations in the early 1970s and has grown into the multi-billion dollar industry that it is today. Each Halloween, over 2,500 professional haunts open for business. The good ones- the ones that employ Hollywood-level special effects, set-designs and stunt performers-are extremely well-received and can bring in a sizeable profit each year.Erebus, Pennhurst Asylum, and Dent Schoolhouse are prime examples; these haunt owners understand that haunting is a business.

However, for the majority of haunters, creating a scare attraction is a passion project that sucks in much more money than it can spit out. More often than not, these are the haunts that feature handmade, practical effects, volunteer performers, borrowed lighting and hours of sweat and tears (and blood, of course). These haunts are home to freaks, geeks and weirdos like me who feel out-of-place in the real world. These are the haunters that have created some amazing non-profit charities such as Haunters Against Hate and Don't Be a Monster to protect and defend their own so that everyone feels safe and included.

Each year, haunted attraction owners and operators of both large and small haunts are forced to be more innovative in order to be competitive. With the introduction of full-contact, extreme attractions and immersive experiences like Blackout NYC and Haunted Hoochie, patrons and haunt aficionados expect an adrenaline-fueled, pants-peeing, hoarse-from-screaming bang for their buck.

In the pursuit of this, many haunts concentrate on the big scares and flashy effects while overlooking some of the most important elements of fear: character, suspense, and story.

Years ago, I attended a somewhat well-known haunted attraction with some friends. This particular haunt had great marketing materials that year, and we were very excited to get terrified over their "Wizard of Oz Gone Wrong" theme.

It was terrible. They had such an amazing concept and terrific artwork, but they did not follow through with the story at all. We met the Wicked Witch of the West among an alien abduction scene, and I think that the Cowardly Lion showed up with the demented hillbillies at some point. None of it made any sense, but the actors sure did scream in our faces a lot. My friends and I left disappointed and unfulfilled.

Later over coffee and pie at Denny's, I made the sweeping declaration that someday, my haunted attraction wouldn't be flashy or reliant on theatrics. MY haunted attraction would be downright terrifying because it would follow an actual storyline and feature characters so well-developed that the customers would feel like they were living inside a Stephen King novel.

In 2016 I finally got the opportunity to attempt my dream; the school where I teach put me in charge of the annual haunted house for the students.

...and I failed.

Not miserably, but I failed. Turns out, I am extremely great with ideas, but I'm very bad at execution. I'm not crafty, and I can't build things. Really the only tactile haunt thing I'm somewhat decent at is making bloody guts:

However, I'm very good at telling a story, and this is the contribution that I would make to the haunt industry if given the opportunity and resources: full story packages complete with character dossiers, property histories and "scare zone" layouts to help move the story along and create the best experience for the audience.

Backgrounds

A dark and sordid history of the haunt property is an essential first step in creating a truly spooky experience. The audience needs to feel a sense of foreboding and unease. In the above background, we establish right away that bad things happened in the very spot which they are about to explore.

Scare Zones

A good scary story follows an ebb and flow of plot devices; the establishment of "scare zones" within the haunt is the physical equivalent of this.

Character Dossiers

It's always important to allow actors to explore and develop their own characters, but in order to keep the audience immersed and invested in the haunt, those characters must coexist and interact within the same storyline. Character dossiers are an excellent way to give the actors jumping-off points while still allowing creativity and exploration in the haunt world.

Membership websites like Memberful would allow these scary story packages to be accessible to even the smallest of haunted attractions across the country. It would also allow me to positively contribute to a unique and misunderstood industry full of wonderfully weird and welcoming folks.