In part one of this article, we discussed the components that made a startle scare successful in the instant it takes place. Now, it's time to take a step back and look at how we prepare guests for the biggest reaction possible using startle timing. This will be a shorter article that the first, but just as important.
Scare actors in haunted houses most frequently jump out at the front of the group; after all, it’s the most convenient place from them to leap out at. But is this really the most effective scare tactic? Most haunters agree, it is not.
Imagine yourself in a group about to enter into a haunted attraction. You’re reading about haunted house scare tactics (you little nerd), so we’ll assume you’re more familiar with haunted houses than most. As such, you’re the most courageous member of your group, so you get nominated to take the lead. Conversely, imagine that there’s also a blonde, teenage girl (not to stereotype) who’s more scared than anybody else in the group. Logically, the group suggests she hide in the middle of the bigger, tougher members. Let the monsters either leap out in front of you or trail behind the back of the group; either way she’ll be safe. This scenario happens with virtually every group who enters a haunted house; it is practically human nature to shelter the most scared group member within the fearless, experienced members. And this is where we get our first theory of scare timing.
Scare the middle is the tactic that emphasizes directing actors’ scare efforts more often at the middle of the group, where its most frightened members are often hidden. This tactic preys upon the contagious nature of fear; if a person in the middle of the group becomes terrified, everyone else will either scream too or laugh (and laughter is a good thing too), but if the tough, unwavering group leader doesn’t flinch to a scare, then nobody in the group will. Of course, this tactic has its limits; if every actor jumped at the middle of the group, things would get a little stale for those on its outskirts. However, until actors start showing the same natural initiative towards targeting those in the middle as they show to those on the periphery, it will be up to those who train them enforce that they do indeed scare the middle.
The second tactic of timing, developed by Leonard Pickel, is what he calls scare the gap. Its principle is simple: rather than targeting one patron or another, target the space in between them. According to Pickel, both patrons will react nearly identical to the way they would had only one of them been targeted. How Pickel discovered this tactic, I’m not sure we’ll ever know; yet it does prove itself surprisingly effective. Patrons, unsure who exactly the monster wants, feel almost the same fight-or-flight simulation as when the monsters jump at them and them alone.
Showing posts with label Haunt Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haunt Theory. Show all posts
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Thursday, October 24, 2013
The Flow of a Haunt
A few years back, I created my own model for what the flow of a haunt should look like, in other words, the ordering and purpose of certain scenes. Now, I've gone back to that model and beefed it out to include more specifics to better describe the process. As always, remember there is no right or wrong when it comes to haunted houses; haunting is an art first and a science second. So be sure to read what I'm writing with a skeptical attitude and form your own opinions on the subject.
To get us started, here are my 6 basic stages of a haunted adventure:
1) Detailed opening scene
2) Disorienting scene(s)
3) The meat (body) of the haunt
4) Climax
5) Relief
6) Final scare
Now let's zoom in and take a closer look at each of those.
1) Detailed opening scene
At the beginning of just about every successful haunt in the world is a high-detail entry scene, acting either as the first room of the haunt or as an interactive queue line. The purpose of this set is to establish setting and storyline before guests get into the meat of the haunt. But what does that even mean? Well, looking at a haunt as an adventure film instead of a horror movie (because haunts always have happy endings) in which guests overcome a great evil to get that huge endorphin rush, we need to take the time to establish their enemy before their heart rate gets racing to the point where they can't think these things through. So with this first big scene, our goal as designers is to tell guests as much of the story as we can to ensure that they go into the rest of the haunt knowing they'll be facing a grave danger.
2) Disorienting scene(s)
As soon as possible after the opening scene, our goal is to disorient our patrons and get them completely and utterly lost in the haunt's hostile environment. When I go through a haunt, I find myself considerably more lost in the settings when I can't figure out in what direction the haunt's entrance is. I think this comes from the primitive notion that if you know where safety is you can eventually reach it. But when you're disoriented to the point that you cannot name the direction you came from, you're completely immersed in the environment. So as haunters, we should strive to achieve this state of disorientation as early in the experience as possible. Some of the easiest ways to do this are to implement lots and lots of dark twists and turns and to make corners that aren't at 90 degree angles. This stage of your haunt is also an excellent time to use effects such as vortex tunnels, claustrophobia tunnels, and laser vortexes. Remember, the goal is to immerse guests in our world, so anything to take them out of their comfort zone aids in that purpose immensely.
3) The meat
This is the body of your haunted adventure, where 70-80% of the action happens! This area is comprised of a series of buildup, payoff, and relief cycles, each cycle usually taking one scene to play out. Now, let's take a more in-depth look at these cycles:
4) Climax
When haunters take surveys of their patrons, time and time again they find that the most memorable scenes in their haunts are their first and their last. This is why, as you've seen, I devoted a section entirely to the opening scene, and is also why, as you'll see, I'm devoting three to the finale scene.
Just by glancing at the titles of these final three sections, you may be wondering why I chose to separate them. Isn't climax and relief just a bigger version of the buildup, payoff, and relief cycle? Well, to an extent, yes. But when that chainsaw final scare comes blaring out, you want your guests to have something big and memorable to back it up.
"How was the haunted house?"
"They had a chainsaw at the end."
"So nothing special?"
"Yup. Nothing special."
Don't get me wrong, a chainsaw is an amazing final scare for any haunted house, but what it isn't is a climax. Don't waste your chance; give people something to talk about!
"How was the haunted house?"
"Oh my God! They had this crazy chick come flying out over us on a zip line, I thought she was gonna land on us dude! There were zombies crawling out of everywhere! This wall started falling towards us and a semi truck charged out from behind a corner and stopped right in front of Corey's face!"
"Wow! So it sounds like you had a good time!"
"It was so awesome dude! You need to go some time."
Here's the point to remember: give them something big before the chainsaw, or you're losing a key opportunity for word of mouth. Every haunted house has a chainsaw at the end. Make your haunt into something special.
5) Relief
So now that you've got your climax, it's time to let guests think it's over. Bigger than any of your relief stages in the meat of your haunt, this is the time when guests are able to see the outside world and believe that they've reached safety. Remember, your final scare will only be as effective as your relief stage before it.
6) Final scare
So you've given guests a memorable finale, gotten their guard down, and now it's finally your chance to break out the chainsaw! The purpose of this scare is not to be memorable, it is merely to scare guests one last big time. I've been referring to this as the chainsaw scare, but in reality any scare, no matter how small, can be an effective way to take advantage of guests' perceived safety at the exit of the haunt. In 2009, back before I used saws in my haunt, I would often leave my post as the greeter actor, go stand beside the exit door, and bang a shovel on the wall as guests left the haunt, and this worked brilliantly for a quick and easy last scare.
To get us started, here are my 6 basic stages of a haunted adventure:
1) Detailed opening scene
2) Disorienting scene(s)
3) The meat (body) of the haunt
4) Climax
5) Relief
6) Final scare
Now let's zoom in and take a closer look at each of those.
1) Detailed opening scene
At the beginning of just about every successful haunt in the world is a high-detail entry scene, acting either as the first room of the haunt or as an interactive queue line. The purpose of this set is to establish setting and storyline before guests get into the meat of the haunt. But what does that even mean? Well, looking at a haunt as an adventure film instead of a horror movie (because haunts always have happy endings) in which guests overcome a great evil to get that huge endorphin rush, we need to take the time to establish their enemy before their heart rate gets racing to the point where they can't think these things through. So with this first big scene, our goal as designers is to tell guests as much of the story as we can to ensure that they go into the rest of the haunt knowing they'll be facing a grave danger.
2) Disorienting scene(s)
As soon as possible after the opening scene, our goal is to disorient our patrons and get them completely and utterly lost in the haunt's hostile environment. When I go through a haunt, I find myself considerably more lost in the settings when I can't figure out in what direction the haunt's entrance is. I think this comes from the primitive notion that if you know where safety is you can eventually reach it. But when you're disoriented to the point that you cannot name the direction you came from, you're completely immersed in the environment. So as haunters, we should strive to achieve this state of disorientation as early in the experience as possible. Some of the easiest ways to do this are to implement lots and lots of dark twists and turns and to make corners that aren't at 90 degree angles. This stage of your haunt is also an excellent time to use effects such as vortex tunnels, claustrophobia tunnels, and laser vortexes. Remember, the goal is to immerse guests in our world, so anything to take them out of their comfort zone aids in that purpose immensely.
3) The meat
This is the body of your haunted adventure, where 70-80% of the action happens! This area is comprised of a series of buildup, payoff, and relief cycles, each cycle usually taking one scene to play out. Now, let's take a more in-depth look at these cycles:
- Buildup is the increasing tension in a scene of your haunt. The music is pumping, the lights are dim, and it's about time for something to move in the shadows. During this stage, guests' adrenaline is pumping; they are primed for fight or flight and now their reaction to that actor in the corner isn't going to be a flinch, it'll be a full-blown scream.
- Payoff is the scare itself, in which the actor(s) pounce upon the guests! There is a ton of info to talk about with the startle, so rather than trying to cram it all into a small paragraph I'll just refer you to my post about startles.
- Relief is the state in which a patron is able to let their guard down, if only just for a minute before the next scare hits them. On a side note, this is where it comes in handy to incorporate empty hallways into your haunts rather than just room after room after room. Just as a movie has rising and falling action, this stage is absolutely essential to maintaining the cycle of a haunt; without it, patrons become numb to the screams of the monsters and never experience the true release that a haunted house offers.
4) Climax
When haunters take surveys of their patrons, time and time again they find that the most memorable scenes in their haunts are their first and their last. This is why, as you've seen, I devoted a section entirely to the opening scene, and is also why, as you'll see, I'm devoting three to the finale scene.
Just by glancing at the titles of these final three sections, you may be wondering why I chose to separate them. Isn't climax and relief just a bigger version of the buildup, payoff, and relief cycle? Well, to an extent, yes. But when that chainsaw final scare comes blaring out, you want your guests to have something big and memorable to back it up.
"How was the haunted house?"
"They had a chainsaw at the end."
"So nothing special?"
"Yup. Nothing special."
Don't get me wrong, a chainsaw is an amazing final scare for any haunted house, but what it isn't is a climax. Don't waste your chance; give people something to talk about!
"How was the haunted house?"
"Oh my God! They had this crazy chick come flying out over us on a zip line, I thought she was gonna land on us dude! There were zombies crawling out of everywhere! This wall started falling towards us and a semi truck charged out from behind a corner and stopped right in front of Corey's face!"
"Wow! So it sounds like you had a good time!"
"It was so awesome dude! You need to go some time."
Here's the point to remember: give them something big before the chainsaw, or you're losing a key opportunity for word of mouth. Every haunted house has a chainsaw at the end. Make your haunt into something special.
5) Relief
So now that you've got your climax, it's time to let guests think it's over. Bigger than any of your relief stages in the meat of your haunt, this is the time when guests are able to see the outside world and believe that they've reached safety. Remember, your final scare will only be as effective as your relief stage before it.
6) Final scare
So you've given guests a memorable finale, gotten their guard down, and now it's finally your chance to break out the chainsaw! The purpose of this scare is not to be memorable, it is merely to scare guests one last big time. I've been referring to this as the chainsaw scare, but in reality any scare, no matter how small, can be an effective way to take advantage of guests' perceived safety at the exit of the haunt. In 2009, back before I used saws in my haunt, I would often leave my post as the greeter actor, go stand beside the exit door, and bang a shovel on the wall as guests left the haunt, and this worked brilliantly for a quick and easy last scare.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Increasing Startle Effectivity (Part 1): Startle Execution
At the root of everything our industry is about, behind all the scenic dressings and theming that we haunters would like to believe are much more important, lies the startle. For all the energy we put into all the scenic garbage, we really should be paying much more attention to the scares themselves; after all, isn't that the main reason people come to haunted houses?
A year or so ago, I decided to sit down and map out exactly what was needed for a good startle, and came up with a three piece formula for startles. This is not a commonly explored subject in our industry, so as always, be sure to draw your own conclusions on startles rather than blindly following what works for me (because after all, I can only draw knowledge from my own experiences). With that said, I did put a lot of time and thought into this series, so I do think the content is really darn accurate and universally applicable to just about everybody who likes scaring people.
This will be a multi-part series, most likely coming in three sections (but it could be more if I decide to add more details in the end). So when other parts get posted, I'll try to remember to link to them at the end of this post.
As a basic introduction to the series, let me just quickly run through what these posts will be about. I think of startles as being achieved by 3 basic concepts; distraction, timing, and execution. Now you might think that I'd start this series with distractions, but you'd be wrong. I'm going to start off by talking about execution because I think it's at the root of how we approach distraction and timing, even though they happen first for the patrons.
“…transition…” In order for the bad thing we want to scare people to actually scare people, it has to grow into more of a threat than they previously perceived it as. People can get used to anything. This is why having a monster trail after a group for half of a haunt is not a good scare tactic; they get used to his presence. We can also use this logic to verify why tactics such as actor doors and drop panels work so well. Since guests do not perceive the actors presence in the scene at all, the transition is so much bigger and faster (2 key components of the startle) than the average monster that many guests will drop to the floor out of sheer terror.
These key components are at the base of every effective startle. Every one of the four components must be present, at least to some degree, or else the scare will be nonexistent. The goal, of course, is to turn up the "bigness," "fastness," and "negativity" of the transitions in our haunts. So with that in mind, here are a few suggestions for improving each of them.
Bigger Transitions:
As I mentioned above, we perceive how big anything (including startles) is through the use of our five senses. As haunt designers, we can't ever really affect taste, and while scent machines are highly effective for setting the scene, no scent can disperse fast enough to be effective for a startle (remember, startles have to be fast too). That leaves us with three senses left: sight, sound, and touch.
We can do two things with sight: move things (actors, props, walls, etc.) and change the brightness and color with which those things are lit. Obviously, movement is essential to a startling people, whether it's an actor sprinting out from around a corner or a prop lunging forward, but lighting is an easy (and often relatively inexpensive) way to rapidly change the tone of a scene during a startle. Simply shifting the color of the lights can signal a shift in mood, but for an even more intense effect strobe lighting or bright back lighting of the scare work to up the scare factor to 11.
Sound is another easy sense to prey upon during a startle. But before you even think about adding additional sound effects to a scare, focus your efforts into making your actors make a frightening sound when they pop out (because actors' voices are free, and speakers are not). An actor's ability and willingness to do this will come with experience, so don't expect that a shy new recruit will be willing to howl like a werewolf or growl like a cannibal hillbilly. So in these cases, as with animatronic props, a digital soundtrack may be necessary to prey upon the ears of your audience.
Most haunters will break out in a cold sweat with the mention of the word "touch," so let me be clear on what exactly I'm advising you to do to attack this sense. Fort most haunters, including me, the concept of actors making contact with patrons is off the table (if it is indeed on the table, the rest of this paragraph will be less applicable to you -- so my hat's off to you for pushing your haunt to the next level!). But even without actor-guest contact, there are some great opportunities to simulate contact with various objects. The biggest concern to think remember here is that anything that touches guests must be moving with a low enough momentum to not hurt them. But even with this in mind there are plenty of ways to "touch" patrons: air cannons, falling foam heads, and even water blasters to simulate patrons' favorite body fluid. The sense of touch is so powerful for haunted attractions; after all, it's the only sense that we can prey upon that hasn't been desensitized by horror movies and video games!
Faster Transitions:
In a perfect world, the goal would be to have an actor appear in a scene in no time at all. Unfortunately, until teleporters are invented, we'll have to use a little Hollywood magic to simulate that. There are lots of techniques that exist in mainstream haunting solely for this purpose, drop panels and actor doors being at the top of that list. I intend to at some point dedicate an entire post to exploring various innovative types of startles that allow monsters to rapidly appear next to guests, but for now, you should understand how you can create these types of scares on your own. Essentially, understand that the easier it is for your actor to enter the presence of your guests, the faster the transition will happen. Also, if guests fail to perceive the monster's existence at all before the startle, the resulting "big-ness" added to the speed of the monsters appearance into the scene will create an even more effective startle.
More Negative Transitions:
Again, this is an area that I intend to expand upon in the future because it's not possible to cover in short paragraph. Negativity is really all your scenic design and set dressings, the stuff you're probably already good at! How scary is that mask? How scary is that sound your actor makes? These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself when trying to make a scene more negative, and frankly, an article on scare theory isn't really the right place to discuss the artistic side of haunts.
Another Look at Fear:
For those of you who are more mathematically inclined, the following equation may help you greatly; it is based of the assumption that a startle is “a big, fast, negative transition,” but broadens the definition to apply to fear as a whole. (If the description is too dense and mathy, believe me when I say that this is merely a supplement to the rest of the article; I promise you aren't missing anything big!)
The capital letter "F" is used to represent fear in relation to a single threatening situation. The graveness of this negative situation is represented by a capital "B," essentially, the "bigness" of the scary situation. "ΔD" represents the change in distance, or the velocity, with which scary situation B is moving towards the person interpreting the fear. We understand fear in terms of the rate with which something bad approaches us, not by the graveness of our current situation - How do we know this? - because starving children in Africa often act less scared than a middle class American losing his job; the American's move towards demise is greater, even though his final position is farther from it! This velocity component proves the necessity of the "transition" in the startle definition, for without a change in the threat, there is no velocity and therefore no fear.
A year or so ago, I decided to sit down and map out exactly what was needed for a good startle, and came up with a three piece formula for startles. This is not a commonly explored subject in our industry, so as always, be sure to draw your own conclusions on startles rather than blindly following what works for me (because after all, I can only draw knowledge from my own experiences). With that said, I did put a lot of time and thought into this series, so I do think the content is really darn accurate and universally applicable to just about everybody who likes scaring people.
This will be a multi-part series, most likely coming in three sections (but it could be more if I decide to add more details in the end). So when other parts get posted, I'll try to remember to link to them at the end of this post.
As a basic introduction to the series, let me just quickly run through what these posts will be about. I think of startles as being achieved by 3 basic concepts; distraction, timing, and execution. Now you might think that I'd start this series with distractions, but you'd be wrong. I'm going to start off by talking about execution because I think it's at the root of how we approach distraction and timing, even though they happen first for the patrons.
Just to lay down a clear definition for everybody, execution is the payoff of the startle -- what happens when the monster jumps out. In other words, execution is the startle itself, whereas distraction and timing are really components of the setup. So with that in mind, my definition of a startle is
“a big, fast, negative transition.” Now let me break that down.
“A big…” Obviously,
the bigger the transition, the more fear is created, and the more time it takes
the brain to reason its way out of being scared. As humans, we perceive
“big-ness” through our five senses. Therefore, a startle that affects sight,
sound, touch, and possibly even smell is much more frightening than a ghoul
simply walking around a corner.
“…fast…” Like
“big-ness,” speed helps to confuse the brains of those being scared, and
accordingly, takes them longer to realize that the thing they fear isn't actually all that threatening.
“…negative…”
Obviously, the transition that takes place must be a bad one. Bringing a cake
closer to a fat kid through a big, fast
transition does not create fear as it is not negative transition; rather,
it creates excitement (because it is a positive transition). However, something good (such as a haunted house guide
or staged group member) leaving the group is negative and because of that, does
create fear.
“…transition…” In order for the bad thing we want to scare people to actually scare people, it has to grow into more of a threat than they previously perceived it as. People can get used to anything. This is why having a monster trail after a group for half of a haunt is not a good scare tactic; they get used to his presence. We can also use this logic to verify why tactics such as actor doors and drop panels work so well. Since guests do not perceive the actors presence in the scene at all, the transition is so much bigger and faster (2 key components of the startle) than the average monster that many guests will drop to the floor out of sheer terror.
These key components are at the base of every effective startle. Every one of the four components must be present, at least to some degree, or else the scare will be nonexistent. The goal, of course, is to turn up the "bigness," "fastness," and "negativity" of the transitions in our haunts. So with that in mind, here are a few suggestions for improving each of them.
Bigger Transitions:
As I mentioned above, we perceive how big anything (including startles) is through the use of our five senses. As haunt designers, we can't ever really affect taste, and while scent machines are highly effective for setting the scene, no scent can disperse fast enough to be effective for a startle (remember, startles have to be fast too). That leaves us with three senses left: sight, sound, and touch.
We can do two things with sight: move things (actors, props, walls, etc.) and change the brightness and color with which those things are lit. Obviously, movement is essential to a startling people, whether it's an actor sprinting out from around a corner or a prop lunging forward, but lighting is an easy (and often relatively inexpensive) way to rapidly change the tone of a scene during a startle. Simply shifting the color of the lights can signal a shift in mood, but for an even more intense effect strobe lighting or bright back lighting of the scare work to up the scare factor to 11.
Sound is another easy sense to prey upon during a startle. But before you even think about adding additional sound effects to a scare, focus your efforts into making your actors make a frightening sound when they pop out (because actors' voices are free, and speakers are not). An actor's ability and willingness to do this will come with experience, so don't expect that a shy new recruit will be willing to howl like a werewolf or growl like a cannibal hillbilly. So in these cases, as with animatronic props, a digital soundtrack may be necessary to prey upon the ears of your audience.
Most haunters will break out in a cold sweat with the mention of the word "touch," so let me be clear on what exactly I'm advising you to do to attack this sense. Fort most haunters, including me, the concept of actors making contact with patrons is off the table (if it is indeed on the table, the rest of this paragraph will be less applicable to you -- so my hat's off to you for pushing your haunt to the next level!). But even without actor-guest contact, there are some great opportunities to simulate contact with various objects. The biggest concern to think remember here is that anything that touches guests must be moving with a low enough momentum to not hurt them. But even with this in mind there are plenty of ways to "touch" patrons: air cannons, falling foam heads, and even water blasters to simulate patrons' favorite body fluid. The sense of touch is so powerful for haunted attractions; after all, it's the only sense that we can prey upon that hasn't been desensitized by horror movies and video games!
Faster Transitions:
In a perfect world, the goal would be to have an actor appear in a scene in no time at all. Unfortunately, until teleporters are invented, we'll have to use a little Hollywood magic to simulate that. There are lots of techniques that exist in mainstream haunting solely for this purpose, drop panels and actor doors being at the top of that list. I intend to at some point dedicate an entire post to exploring various innovative types of startles that allow monsters to rapidly appear next to guests, but for now, you should understand how you can create these types of scares on your own. Essentially, understand that the easier it is for your actor to enter the presence of your guests, the faster the transition will happen. Also, if guests fail to perceive the monster's existence at all before the startle, the resulting "big-ness" added to the speed of the monsters appearance into the scene will create an even more effective startle.
More Negative Transitions:
Again, this is an area that I intend to expand upon in the future because it's not possible to cover in short paragraph. Negativity is really all your scenic design and set dressings, the stuff you're probably already good at! How scary is that mask? How scary is that sound your actor makes? These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself when trying to make a scene more negative, and frankly, an article on scare theory isn't really the right place to discuss the artistic side of haunts.
Another Look at Fear:
For those of you who are more mathematically inclined, the following equation may help you greatly; it is based of the assumption that a startle is “a big, fast, negative transition,” but broadens the definition to apply to fear as a whole. (If the description is too dense and mathy, believe me when I say that this is merely a supplement to the rest of the article; I promise you aren't missing anything big!)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Haunting With a Purpose
No human does anything without a reason. We eat because we are hungry, we work when we need money, and we exercise when we want to become more fit. It's easy to asses why we do simple tasks like these, but few tasks are as hard to assign a motive to as building haunted houses. Certainly it seems simple at a glance; after all, scaring people is fun! But never in this industry have I heard a conversation about why fear is fun. For a while I've been pondering this concept with myself, thinking that there must be something more to haunted attractions than simply fear, because let's face it guys, if all we're good for is terrifying and intimidating people, why do people come?
So I decided to do a little research. Obviously, as haunters, we provide a service. For one reason or another (I'll get to why in a moment), people like being scared. But we can't forget about the pleasure that we, the owners and actors, experience by creating this fear. And I think this joy is doubtlessly the most significant reason why we make haunted houses. Yet without an understanding of why our patrons like being on the other side of the fear transfer, however, it's hard to see ourselves as anything more than the satanic freaks that certain Christian groups want us portrayed as.
Thankfully though, there's more to haunted houses than, say, the demonic love of all things evil. Haunted attractions present a special kind of fear, specifically, the fake kind. If one really wished to be scared, he could take a pleasant stroll through East Saint Louis. Or do trapeze off the side of the Empire State Building. Or drive a pink Volvo with bumper stickers reading "I'm Gay," "I'm a Vegetarian," and "I've Come to Take Your Guns" through the hills of West Virginia. That, my friends, would be real fear. That kind of fear is not available at your local haunted house.
Haunted Houses are not the practical equivalent to horror movies because horror movies never have happy endings. Assigning this horror movie comparison creates an inherent paradox, after all, our patrons always seem to exit our events in one piece; furthermore, they do so laughing, not in tears (excluding, or course, the case of the easily-traumatized child dragged through by her over-eager parents). Haunted Houses are like action movies; the heroes (patrons) overcome the villains (actors) to escape with their lives. We are not simply presenting images of death and fear, we are creating an adventure!
On a side note, when we examine the purposes of Christian "Hell Houses," it's easy to see how their goals are not to create an adventure, but rather to simply terrify children and adults alike. Rather than telling a story and creating a hero's journey (to entertain their patrons), they use highly frightening emotional appeals to persuade their patrons into conversion. We entertain, they merely frighten. Damn hypocrites.
Now for a brief science lesson to explain why exactly we like being scared in Haunted Houses. When we are scared, in any situation, the brain releases certain chemicals, most importantly, adrenaline. Adrenaline is a key component in triggering the fight-or-flight response, which, among other things, accelerates the heart and lungs, causes tunnel vision, and relaxes the bladder (which is why people wet their pants). Of course, this response causes a great deal of stress. Thankfully, however, most people who go through haunted houses are mature enough to differentiate fantasy from reality, and therefore subconsciously interpret the stress as eustress (good stress) rather than distress (bad stress). This positive interpretation leads to a response with a sense of hope and vigor rather than one with a sense of despair. With this outlook, haunted houses are challenges that, when defeated, boost confidence among patrons. (Of course, if someone interprets the stress of a haunted house as distress, the experience can be traumatic, so this is why we have warnings for small children and those with mental illnesses not to enter). But thankfully for us, the body itself cannot discern between distress and eustress, so the instantaneous reaction to a startle will likely be the same for all people until their brain has time to process the scare.
Again, to my "Hell House" reference. Since their purpose is to form an argument in favor of Christianity, and the tools they use to create that argument are emotional appeals about the horrible nature of Hell, they inherently strive to create long-lasting distress in their audience. Their goal is to keep their patrons terrified of Hell long after the experience itself is over. Contrastingly, our haunts have the goal of momentarily frightening and then relieving patrons to create an overall confidence-booster for the audience. Hell Houses make distress, Haunted Houses make eustress. Damn hypocrites.
In conclusion, let me sum up the purpose, or at least my purpose, for creating a haunted house. Think of this as the thesis in an argument for why someone should build a haunted house:
Haunted Houses do not simply scare people, they create an adventure. Fear is simply one of the tools used to build that adventure, along with relief to grant a sense of accomplishment to the patrons. The artificial struggle presented by haunted houses allows for satisfaction when, time and time again, patrons overcome the monsters, in essence, defeating them.
So I decided to do a little research. Obviously, as haunters, we provide a service. For one reason or another (I'll get to why in a moment), people like being scared. But we can't forget about the pleasure that we, the owners and actors, experience by creating this fear. And I think this joy is doubtlessly the most significant reason why we make haunted houses. Yet without an understanding of why our patrons like being on the other side of the fear transfer, however, it's hard to see ourselves as anything more than the satanic freaks that certain Christian groups want us portrayed as.
Thankfully though, there's more to haunted houses than, say, the demonic love of all things evil. Haunted attractions present a special kind of fear, specifically, the fake kind. If one really wished to be scared, he could take a pleasant stroll through East Saint Louis. Or do trapeze off the side of the Empire State Building. Or drive a pink Volvo with bumper stickers reading "I'm Gay," "I'm a Vegetarian," and "I've Come to Take Your Guns" through the hills of West Virginia. That, my friends, would be real fear. That kind of fear is not available at your local haunted house.
Haunted Houses are not the practical equivalent to horror movies because horror movies never have happy endings. Assigning this horror movie comparison creates an inherent paradox, after all, our patrons always seem to exit our events in one piece; furthermore, they do so laughing, not in tears (excluding, or course, the case of the easily-traumatized child dragged through by her over-eager parents). Haunted Houses are like action movies; the heroes (patrons) overcome the villains (actors) to escape with their lives. We are not simply presenting images of death and fear, we are creating an adventure!
On a side note, when we examine the purposes of Christian "Hell Houses," it's easy to see how their goals are not to create an adventure, but rather to simply terrify children and adults alike. Rather than telling a story and creating a hero's journey (to entertain their patrons), they use highly frightening emotional appeals to persuade their patrons into conversion. We entertain, they merely frighten. Damn hypocrites.
Now for a brief science lesson to explain why exactly we like being scared in Haunted Houses. When we are scared, in any situation, the brain releases certain chemicals, most importantly, adrenaline. Adrenaline is a key component in triggering the fight-or-flight response, which, among other things, accelerates the heart and lungs, causes tunnel vision, and relaxes the bladder (which is why people wet their pants). Of course, this response causes a great deal of stress. Thankfully, however, most people who go through haunted houses are mature enough to differentiate fantasy from reality, and therefore subconsciously interpret the stress as eustress (good stress) rather than distress (bad stress). This positive interpretation leads to a response with a sense of hope and vigor rather than one with a sense of despair. With this outlook, haunted houses are challenges that, when defeated, boost confidence among patrons. (Of course, if someone interprets the stress of a haunted house as distress, the experience can be traumatic, so this is why we have warnings for small children and those with mental illnesses not to enter). But thankfully for us, the body itself cannot discern between distress and eustress, so the instantaneous reaction to a startle will likely be the same for all people until their brain has time to process the scare.
Again, to my "Hell House" reference. Since their purpose is to form an argument in favor of Christianity, and the tools they use to create that argument are emotional appeals about the horrible nature of Hell, they inherently strive to create long-lasting distress in their audience. Their goal is to keep their patrons terrified of Hell long after the experience itself is over. Contrastingly, our haunts have the goal of momentarily frightening and then relieving patrons to create an overall confidence-booster for the audience. Hell Houses make distress, Haunted Houses make eustress. Damn hypocrites.
In conclusion, let me sum up the purpose, or at least my purpose, for creating a haunted house. Think of this as the thesis in an argument for why someone should build a haunted house:
Haunted Houses do not simply scare people, they create an adventure. Fear is simply one of the tools used to build that adventure, along with relief to grant a sense of accomplishment to the patrons. The artificial struggle presented by haunted houses allows for satisfaction when, time and time again, patrons overcome the monsters, in essence, defeating them.
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