As a kid, nothing was scarier than the concept of being scared, especially around Halloween. Walking the aisles of a video store was a gauntlet of horrors, with Tim Curry’s Pennywise leering at me from a VHS box cover, and being left alone in the back hallway of a Party City alongside the rows and rows of ghoulish, bloody masks was the stuff of nightmares. But the most petrifying place I could ever imagine, the pit of Hell and damnation itself, would be if I ever allowed myself to set foot inside a haunted house. To visit a haunt seemed a masochistic exercise in self-immolation via knife-wielding maniac (or “scare-actor” if you’re feeling technical). The chainsaw-wielding neighbors at my local trick-or-treat trail were terrorizing enough, thank you very much. But as kids are, even when they’re terrified of something, I was always curious about what, but more specifically, WHO lurked behind the looming walls of my local haunted house. Who were these grease-painted psychos who enjoyed scaring people? What perverse joy might be derived from it? The first time I wandered through a true haunt, “The 13th Gate” in Baton Rouge to be precise, I was a quivering puddle of nerves, but I made it out alive and felt compelled to go back, bewitched not just by the artistry of the sets and scenic design but even more so the sheer, cackling delight of the scare-actors. I couldn’t believe they were laughing while I was petrified. Even through the strobe lights and the screeching sounds of industrially mechanized murder and madness, they couldn’t have been having more fun. I had to know why, and thus was compelled to finally become that which tormented me. I would step through the frightful facade and learn what it takes to be a scare-actor, to taste the forbidden fruit of fright, and see what monstrosities I might find on the other side.
A haunting I would go.
In 2022, I made that childhood fascination a reality as I began spending many of my October nights amid the fog stenched halls of “New Orleans Nightmare,” the premier New Orleans area haunt that was once home to the infamous “House of Shock Haunted House.” I was trepidacious about the process, yet it was a surprisingly pleasant one. After answering an open call for actors, I visited the haunt and was put through my “monster paces” by veteran Performance Manager, and now Co-General Manager, Spencer Constant, who had been with “Nightmare” since the “Shock” days. My small group of neo-nightmares quickly learned that scare-acting is largely an impressionistic art, one that focuses on maximizing the impact of the lighting, set design, sound, and the shape of your body to get the most fang for your buck. Spencer taught us a simple trick of pretending that a single part of your body was held up by a string, like a broken marionette, if you will. Whether it’s your shoulder, your ear, or even your whole arm, this creates a silhouette in the dim lighting of a haunt that immediately puts guests on edge, forcing them to consider, if even for a split second, what unholy creation might be rapidly descending upon them. Under the house lights of the haunt, my group was comical, but committed, getting the feel for how to move our bodies in a way that best befit the art of the scare. With the basics under our belts, it was time for the real deal: to spray on our grease paint, slip into our costumes, usher the guests inside, and let the monsters out to play.
There are many ways to go about scaring a person, especially in a haunted house. For myself, the key is to focus on utilizing your location to its most frightening potential. During my now four seasons at “New Orleans Nightmare,” I have been placed in wide open spaces, with many lurking ghouls on the prowl, into intimate “pop out” spaces, and even a scene where I am largely alone, the main attraction as guests transition from one sequence to another. Each variance has its pros and cons. A wide open space allows for running, sliding, slashing, and snarling, a small “pop out” allows for a concentrated scare, often eliciting a succinct shriek, and being the main focal point of a scene feels like you’ve got the spotlight, forcing you to be crafty in how to take the guests by surprise. Yet the holy grail, no matter where you are stationed amidst the labyrinthine maze, is the double scare. There are many ways to achieve this; you can leap out as the guests enter your space and duck behind a barrier to leer or follow them around the corner. Often, a loud wail is enough to pull their attention, setting up your fellow actor to screech from an unseen corner. Teamwork makes the scream work after all. The possibilities are nearly endless, and while the best scare-actors find their character to play to fit whatever abandoned hospital or ancient cathedral they may happen to be lurking within, my own best practice is to fit the character to the best scare, not the other way around. The haunted house knows what best stalks its hallways, my job as a scare-actor is to find out what that is and embody it as effectively as I can for the two to five thousand guests that shuffle past night after night. Perhaps it is a compulsion, even a self-destructive impulse, to leap and bellow at strangers in the dark; but let me tell you friends, when you hit the sweet spot, when the double scare times out just right, when you hear a stampede of frightened figures barreling away from you in fear, there’s no sound sweeter.
To be a haunter or scare-actor is a demanding occupation; your bones ache the morning after, your muscles are wrenched and pulled, your voice sounds like it’s been run over by a cement truck. But the same way that a stage actor may be intoxicated by the applause rising from the dark auditorium, the scare-actor’s symphony is the screams, and the laughter, of guests. That is what I never understood as a child, something that it took me pulling back the shrouded hood of the haunted houses that tormented me to understand. Laughter is just as much a part of the fun as the scares; the chuckle after being startled, the specific brand of fitful giggles a group of friends can only find when deciding which of them should be first to step into a darkened tomb. Over the years, I’ve scared thousands of people, from fascinated kids to grown men who instinctively throw a punch to mask their anxiety, and the best feeling in the whole world is to get that good scare only to hear the appreciative laughter echoing back from the next scene, laughter most often followed by more shrieks and more laughter and so forth. When I was a kid, nothing was scarier than being scared. But now I know that there’s nothing more fun than scaring. Go figure.
This Halloween season, do yourself a favor and pay a visit to your local haunt. Rest assured, your friendly neighborhood legion of devoted haunters and scare-actors is eager to ply their trade and tread the creaking boards to the delight and fright of the masses. Or even better, consider joining the merry band of madness come Halloween next year. You haven’t lived until you’ve scared someone to death.
See y’all in the moonlight!
NEW ORLEANS NIGHTMARE is open select nights through Nov. 1. Learn more and get your tickets now at neworleansnightmare.com.
