PONTIAC, Mich. (August AP) — Grotesque makeup, intimidating props and intimidating outfits are just part of a 25-year-old formula for Michigan’s haunted house to scare guests.
It starts by educating the actors who are trying to provide the most frightening experiences to their visitors. At scare schools, they learn all the tricks.
The lesson begins weeks before the four-storey walkthrough screaming factory is revealed to visitors, and introduces fresh talent to rising, face paint and unnatural body movements that have proven to have surprised thousands of customers since the start of this century.
Something like the actor’s report card is a “Whimpers Scoreboard” in the first floor lobby of the Erebus Haunted Attraction, which tallies the total number of visitors who escaped before passing all four levels, or “wet, spitting, fainting.”
And yes, they’re actually tallying it.
The once abandoned parking lot in Pontiac has always been listed on the list of America’s most terrifying haunted houses. Management managers and brothers Zach and Brad Telebus said the coaching and training the performers receive is not just about what they wear or how loud they can scream.
“Scare schools ultimately focus on the psychology of fear,” Zach Telebus said. “Fear is no coincidence. Fear is art.”
A few weeks before Erebus opened in September 19th to November, Halloween During the season, managers auditioned and recruited dozens of terrifying actors, teaching them to be as scared as possible, humanly or rather supernaturally.
In early September, in a room on the second floor, Erebus veterans taught the newcomers details such as zombie shuffling, demonic shrieks, walking on stilts, and handling spiked (plastic) clubs. New employees also learned how to wear makeup, costumes, roles and how to get into persona, and rules for how to interact with guests.
Brad Telebus said this was all part of an effort to bring out their inner demons.
“Let’s say they’re lawyers during the day,” he said. “They can come here, break out of their shells and release the monsters within them.”
Alan Tucker, who played the bloodthirsty clown, said the scaring performance was “therapeutic.”
“I’ve never thought I could be something different for just a few hours and scare people, but when I can actually do that, it’s so much fun. It’s so fulfilling,” said Tucker, who is in his second year as a scaring actor.
Renee Peel is in her third year, this time playing Nix, based on the Greek Goddess of Night, scaring guests waiting in line to enter the ghost mansion.
“They come here to be scared. Today is Halloween. It’s fun,” she said. “We must be ugly, terrifying, bloody.”
Plus, the more frightening the actor, the larger the numbers on the Wimp Out scoreboard.
The message board currently lists the cumulative total of 10,711 “wets, vomiting, and fainting” since the opening of the attraction by the Telebus couple’s father and uncle.
“What’s in the entire haunted house is what we call the “chicken exit.” They are actually emergency exits,” Zach Telebus said. “But at any point on the show, if you say, ‘I want to go outside,’ we can take you out, escort you down, and you can finally go to the exit lobby here and wait until the group comes out.
“This is a race between monsters about who can really scare someone else out of pee.”
