I did some time in a huge haunted house for three years. It was great fun. If you got someone to piss or shiat themselves, which happened quite a bit more than you'd expect, you'd get some great recognition from your peers. It got to be quite the competition.

We did wind up having to have security go with every group somewhere in the middle of the first season. There were too many times someone would get punched, kicked, injured, or if you were female, groped. It became less fun then.

I wonder what's more dangerous leaping out of the dark at people in a haunted house or walking around a park dressed as a cartoon character?

Demetrius: I did some time in a huge haunted house for three years. It was great fun. If you got someone to piss or shiat themselves, which happened quite a bit more than you'd expect, you'd get some great recognition from your peers. It got to be quite the competition.

We did wind up having to have security go with every group somewhere in the middle of the first season. There were too many times someone would get punched, kicked, injured, or if you were female, groped. It became less fun then.

When I was in the Jaycees, our annual Haunted House was like this. If you didn't hear some girl proclaim she wizzed on herself, you were not doing your job.

I have been beaten, punched, tackled, mowed over and loved every second of it. Nothing is funnier than a high school football team cowering on the floor while you and your ghouls encircle them, terrorizing them, and occasionally tapping their legs with the exhaust of a red-lined chain saw.

/the funniest thing I ever saw was some tall lanky basketball player come through on crutches. I was in the middle of the display and the first to come out with a chain saw (we had 3 that year). I was a full 2 feet shorter and he was. Because he was on crutches, he was lagging behind the group. At my cue, I came out with the saw a buzzing, chasing the group to the next scene. But this guy had not made it to the pack when I came out. So I was between him and where he needed to go. He turned around and hopped back to the last scene on one foot. Everytime he jumped, he would fly his crutches up into the air. He looked like Ralph Machio in the Karate Kid hopping about 25 feet back to where he came from.

I laughed so hard, I was about through for the night.

//good times.

///we would grab our guests, rustle them, squirt them with water.

Not Halloween-related, but Christmas: My father was a mall Santa for a few years (he looked the role). He quit after one of his friends (another mall Santa) was kicked in the stomach by a kid and nearly died. Ruptured his stomach or something, he was in the hospital for weeks.

How's THAT for a terrifying end of your career?

Starry Heavens: MayoSlather: I believe people that throw punches have a good idea that they might throw a punch walking into the haunted house. They feel scared and perhaps embarrassed of that fear and thus to show all those around how unafraid they are they punch a teenager dressed up like a zombie.

Not necessarily. I've always figured my flight instinct was much stronger than my fight one, but I was surprised to feel a great urge to kick a "ghoul" lunging out at my ankles from behind a curtain.

/remembered it was an actor before my foot started moving forward, thankfully


This. If you attack an employee at a haunted house, you deserve to have your ass thrown in jail for assault. You know exactly where you are, what entertainment (scaring) you paid for, and still proceeded to have a freak out and punch some person in the face/attack them. Grow the fark up or stay at home.

I worked at a haunted house our choir department had to raise money. I was the pop out of the casket girl (the haunted house ran for three days). On day two some guy got a little too freaked out and busted me in the nose with blood everywhere. After that I asked if I could change my schtick and they all said fine. Instead of popping out I banged on the casket and cried that I was still alive, running out of oxygen, and to let me out before I died. Apparently THAT freaked people out more then the original. Plus I didn't get pummeled, though one gentlemen did come to my rescue and I think he was both surprised at the fact the coffin opened easily and that my makeup made me look like a decomposing body. He slammed the coffin shut and ran out of the room.

This is absolutely no joke.

I worked as "Beef the Troll" at Six Flags Great America (between Milwaukee and Chicago) for 12 seasons worth of "Fright Fest." And getting nailed by idiot park guests was VERY common. In fact, we went through extensive training in order to figure out how to handle the 95/5 "Flight/Fight" response. It was pretty psychological. We definitely kept moving, operated on the buddy system, and picked our targets judiciously.

Even so, as the years wore on, my costume got thicker, heavier, spikier and more insulated. Reason being, we never went more than 5 minutes at a stretch without getting hit. No kidding. Despite the massive and quite attentive security force on-site, we got kicked, body-checked, shoulder-bumped, punched, spit on and crashed into CONSTANTLY. Got so bad, we had to let everything but the absolute most egregious and intentional examples go, and allow our costume to just soak up most of the abuse.

It's like anything else...People have this suspension of disbelief when it comes to spectacle. Yes, we were REQUIRED to go to GREAT lengths to make sure that there was nothing "human" showing while we were in costume, but it really is like people forgot we weren't just special effects, and that there were real human beings in the costumes. It's the same mindset that has people yelling, "No! Don't go in there! He has a gun!" at their televisions.

So, anyway...In this shot, I'm the one on the left:



I loved that character. I really got to ham it up. Growling, grunting, lumbering around after people and generally being rude and boorish. At least, during the DAY, anyway. Once night fell, we got to ramp it up quite a bit. I would jump out of shadows, snarl, stalk and really pour on the menace. The effect was pretty incredible.

The guy in the middle was a lot more of a badass, though. He was pretty frightening, so he got assaulted a lot. And that's largely why, by the time this photo was taken, he was 80% covered in pointy metal. Punk spikes, pyramid shielding, and about 100 roofing screws poking through his shoulder pads and shield pieces. Which was great. Because any time some asshole slammed into him thinking the costume was just for show, he immediately realized the folly of making high-velocity physical contact with a 6'3, 240-pound man covered in spiky body armor.

I'm still pretty sure that locating our area next to the First Aid building was entirely intentional. People did a lot of bleeding after crossing the Troll Bridge with a chip on their shoulder. And when they had the audacity to complain, the park personnel would always say, "Read the back of your ticket. The performers aren't allowed to touch you, and you're not allowed to touch them. So this is entirely YOUR fault. You have a nice day, now."

MAN, I miss Fright Fest. There's just nothing like being one of the star attractions at the biggest month-long Halloween party in the country with 35,000 of your closest friends every night. The cuts, bruises, abuse, and getting spit on and having rocks thrown at me kind of sucked, but it was worth it. Sort of ruined me for Halloween forever, though. Crappy bar costume contests just can't compare after that.

Plus, y'know...the chicks. I met my wife there. And this is actually the first picture we ever took together. We weren't even dating yet:



Good times, good times.

atomsmoosher: Quit trollin the thread, jerk.

Sorry, man. 12 years. Gets in the blood, and never leaves.

This place is full of trolls, but hell...For a long time, I was a PROFESSIONAL.

Doubleodoug: Starry Heavens: scottydoesntknow: have a freak out and punch some person in the face/attack them

That, at least, is different from MayoSlather's scenario of someone who purposefully attacks an employee to "show they aren't afraid." The end result might be the same, but it's way more dickish -- and, I hope, rare -- to add the step of purposefully causing harm.

I don't think it is all that different. Punching/attacking isn't a normal reaction, I don't care how tough guy you are. You know where you are, you know what you paid for, and you know that isn't a real monster.

A normal reaction in the case of physical contact initiated by the employee would be to try and get away. I have no doubt that could and probably has resulted in a lot of injuries. But when we're talking about face to face jump out and scare someone, attacking isn't normal.

At the end of the day you are still responsible for acting like a human, and if you can't do that you shouldn't step out of the house regardless of the day of the year.

/God, I sound like an douche
//sorry

When I was about 8 years old, I had to go to the doctor to get a physical. One of the things they needed to do was draw blood, so a nurse sat me down in a chair, put the rubber band on my left arm, congratulated me on how good I was being through all this, promised me a lollipop, and then stuck me. My right hand immediately shot up and delivered a pretty solid cross to her jaw.

I knew where I was, I had no intention of hitting her, and I don't recall anything approaching a conscious decision to do so. It was purely reactionary--she poked me with a needle, my body's reaction was to punch her in the face.

Harv72b: I knew where I was, I had no intention of hitting her, and I don't recall anything approaching a conscious decision to do so. It was purely reactionary--she poked me with a needle, my body's reaction was to punch her in the face

And if a haunted house employee tried to stick me with a needle, I'd probably do the same thing. The difference is the employees are not allowed to touch you and if you can't make that distinction, then you have no place being in one. Being scared (especially when YOU are paying for it) does not give you the right to punch/attack someone.

I worked in one when I was 17, had a guy punch me in the face. I had a mask and fatigues on, but it was pretty obvious I was small, female, and NOT a real zombie. He didn't punch me hard enough to really hurt me, so he obviously pulled the punch and it was for show, but he got escorted off the premises pretty quickly anyhow.

I was pretty farking weird and scary, though. I had a nice approach, took my job seriously. After that, they made me dress in street clothes and put me in a cage and I had to pretend I was one of the patrons that had been "kidnapped" by the zombies. I actually had dudes come up and try to get me to climb out of the cage and come with them. Suspension of reality?

scottydoesntknow: Harv72b: I knew where I was, I had no intention of hitting her, and I don't recall anything approaching a conscious decision to do so. It was purely reactionary--she poked me with a needle, my body's reaction was to punch her in the face

And if a haunted house employee tried to stick me with a needle, I'd probably do the same thing. The difference is the employees are not allowed to touch you and if you can't make that distinction, then you have no place being in one. Being scared (especially when YOU are paying for it) does not give you the right to punch/attack someone.

Point being, I knew exactly what was coming & still reacted without thinking. Agreed that there are clearly people who go into these exhibits planning to hit the actors, in which case they should not only be removed from the event but arrested for assault. Just saying that there are cases where a person's first instinct when scared or startled is to swing at the person scaring or startling them. And I'd wager that many of those people had no idea they might react that way when they walked in.

/Don't remember this one, but I'm also told that I punched a character at one of the amusement parks in the junk once. Apparently I grew out of "fight" and into "flight".

When I was younger I went to a haunted house sponsored by the Knights of Columbus hall on Highway 1 in Alexandria Va (the one on route 1 near Woodlawn plantation).

Anyway, I was climbing through their shiatty haunted house, and there was a part where you had to crawl, and some guy would grab your leg. Well, I kicked this poor guy in the face and gave him a bloody nose. He was way nicer about it than he should have been.