Surfacing
What does it take to scare the sweet corn out of somebody? Performers at two of New York’s hallowed haunted sights clarify the secrets and techniques behind the shocks.
Angie Hansen is aware of what she desires: power, professionalism, a present for ad-lib. “After which someone that basically likes to scare folks,” she mentioned cheerfully.
Because the artistic director of Blood Manor, a ten,000-square-foot haunted home nestled inside a TriBeCa skyscraper, Hansen assembles 60 performers yearly, lots of them Blood Manor veterans. She types the newcomers into applicable roles — clowns, killers, corpse brides, victims weeping silicone wounds. In simply three or 4 days of rehearsal, she teaches them to terrify the thousand or so visitors who enter Blood Manor, a Halloween staple since 2005, every weekend night.
About two hours north, at Headless Horseman in Ulster Park, N.Y., David Berman leads appearing workshops for seasonal scare actors. As a result of it takes greater than ghoulish make-up and vibrating vocal cords to make ticket holders scream.
“To simply soar out of a closet and simply yell, it doesn’t do something,” Berman mentioned.
Such haunts — the trade time period for a wide range of haunted sights — grew to become widespread within the Nineteen Eighties. Spencer Terry, the president of the Haunted Sights Affiliation, a commerce group, estimates that there are about 1,800 skilled haunts in america this yr. Whereas horror now thrives in sundry varieties, these locations supply one thing completely immersive, a 360-degree expertise wherein audiences can star of their worst nightmares.
At the same time as skilled sights transfer towards extra excessive results — animatronic monsters, plummeting elevators, rippling partitions — most nonetheless depend upon the potential of the human physique alone. (Properly, the human physique and a few terrifying face portray.) “Sure, you’ll be able to scare people with soar scares, and even puffs of air,” mentioned Beth Kattelman, a professor of efficiency at Ohio State College. “However what folks actually bear in mind are the characters, the particular issues that folk do.”
Earlier than Michael Jubie opened Headless Horseman practically 30 years in the past, he labored as a commander of a mounted police unit in Kingston, N.Y. He nonetheless initiatives excessive stoicism, and but, his actors repeatedly frighten him. “Oh, I’ve been scared,” he mentioned. “Oh, sure.”
Within the weeks main as much as Halloween, we spoke to a few of the actors of Blood Manor, amid the hustle of New York Metropolis, and Headless Horseman — which operates escape rooms, haunted homes and a really scary corn maze on 65 acres a half-hour drive from the closest prepare station — about how they make these scares occur.
Whereas some haunted homes use educated actors, most fill their ranks with enthusiastic amateurs. Earlier than the pandemic, candidates got here in for interviews and auditions. Now they sometimes audition remotely, scaring the digital camera. What makes a fantastic hang-out actor? “There needs to be not less than a bit one thing off about you,” mentioned Will Szigethy, a longtime Headless Horseman actor. However not too off. Most haunts run background checks.
Scott Taylor, a packaging engineer for Avon by day, has labored at Headless Horseman for 10 years, with 9 of them spent taking part in a really unsettling clown. “You’ll be able to inform the folks whose coronary heart is in it,” he mentioned. “And you may inform the folks which might be right here only for a paycheck. These folks don’t often final very lengthy.”
Veterans take first-timers underneath their wings, serving to them enhance their personae and educating them to scream with out shredding their throats. (The trick: Howl from the diaphragm.) Over the course of a season, newcomers will refine characters based mostly on their surroundings — a morgue, a cemetery, a sideshow — discovering distinctive methods to maneuver, to scream, to wield a series noticed or an ax. They may even discover their rhythms: a horror variant on comedian timing, with a shriek rather than a punchline.
Shamia Diaz, a Blood Manor common, performs the Bride, an asylum escapee. In her blood-smeared fingers, the position entails loads of shaking, loads of screaming, loads of encouraging attendees to learn scripture from the guide of Devil. “It’s important to discover your personal mojo, your personal vibe,” she mentioned. “As a result of as soon as you discover what works for you, you’re unstoppable.”
For Dominique Peres, who joined Headless Horseman 5 years in the past as a painfully shy teenager, mojo meant creating a personality referred to as Jacket, an exuberant tackle a psycho killer. “Jacket is loopy, has an ax, runs rampant, likes sweet, likes to make associates,” she mentioned.
Some performers focus on soar scares, coming out from surprising corners. Others favor extra psychological scares, sidling as much as ticket holders, whispering of their ears. (Earlier than Covid-19, some haunts allowed performers to do extra than simply whisper, however Blood Manor and Headless Horseman have at all times maintained strict no-contact insurance policies.) Others are extra versatile. Newbie psychologists, they fluctuate the scare relying on the temper within the room.
Jose Torres, who performs Jack, Blood Manor’s masked serial killer, adjusts his perspective for every new group. “It’s only a linked power that comes between you and the folks strolling via,” Torres mentioned.
That power, nevertheless linked, might be troublesome to take care of. Whereas a stage actor will carry out a few times per day, a hang-out actor could replay the identical scene 10 occasions an hour, for six to eight hours at a stretch. “It’s bodily strenuous,” mentioned Meagan Donovan, who oversees a haunted home on the Headless Horseman property. “You’re swinging an ax round all evening or simply hiding in a small area, being loud.”
However the adrenaline rush of eliciting scream after scream retains performers swinging. “It’s higher than a curler coaster,” mentioned Hansen, who spent years taking part in a Blood Manor sufferer. “It’s higher than intercourse. It’s higher than then the most effective meal you’ve ever had. The sensation of scaring someone is what makes you need to do it many times and once more.”
This model of appearing rewards performers in different methods, too. Placing on the make-up and selecting up a pretend weapon permits them a way of freedom and disinhibition they might not really feel in any other case. “For me, the expertise has been very empowering,” Diaz mentioned.
Many additionally deal with hang-out appearing as a type of stress reduction. “They use it as a form of remedy,” mentioned Berman, who performs a gross-out character named Dewey Tewey at Headless Horseman. “You’ll be able to’t, in your common day job, inform someone you’re going to tear their legs and arms off and toss them into the woods.”
Sometimes an actor goes too far, persevering with to scare a ticket holder who is clearly already petrified. However most know when to stop and even the way to lend a serving to, blood-covered hand, scooting folks out of a room with out breaking character. Moreover, the most effective scares, many performers mentioned, are those they actually should work for.
Nicole Borbone and William Burton, current school graduates, carry out a scene set in Blood Manor’s sinew-stained morgue. They start with a soar scare, then transfer right into a sequence wherein Borbone’s corpse all of the sudden rises from the desk and begs attendees to assist her. Burton likes to lock eyes with the shoppers who seem like they’d be powerful to scare; Borbone tends to lunge for them. Normally she will get the response she desires.
“After I make a grown man scream and fall on his knees,” she mentioned, “I’ve carried out my job.”
Surfacing is a column that explores the intersection of artwork and life, produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jolie Ruben, Tala Safie and Josephine Sedgwick.
