“Unmasking the Scares: 50 Haunt Workers Reveal the Shocking Moments That Made Them Lose It!”
Not an employee, but the source of a broken character.
I was going through one of the Halloween haunted houses at Busch Gardens with my girlfriend, and the girl being devoured by the vampire near the end was an old friend from high school.
Me: Hey Kate, how have you been?
Her being devoured by vampire: Oh, hi Mike. I’ve been better.
Me: Well, good luck with that.
Her: OK, bye.
I was the customer. Local pumpkin patch had a haunted forest that you go through. I hate hate scary things and refused to go. Well the people I was with (church group; ironic) kinda coerced me to go “it’s not that scary” “how do you know you’ve never tried” etc. Cue the first jump scare and I was so scared I kinda had a panic attack. Like paralyzed with fear, can’t walk, and bawling my eyes out. Two of the adults literally had to hold me up to get me to move. But it concerned the monsters enough to break character and ask if I was ok. Then they all backed away so I could get taken back out (we weren’t far in so they just had us turn around and go back the way we came).
When I helped with a elementary field trip to a pumpkin patch recently I happily volunteered to stay with anyone who didn’t want to go through the haunted house. Definitely stood up for the kids who were getting teased for being “scaredy cats”.
Not a worker, but I got to witness it. The worker was dressed as a crazy doctor. We enter the room, and the worker says “Are you ready for you autopsy?” in a really creepy voice. My friend responds “…Yes?” The worker’s face just changed from menacing to complete confusion, then she dropped the act and asked “Do you know what an autopsy is?” My friend did not know, so we had to explain it to her.
I worked in haunted house for many years. Lot’s of examples when someone made me and other actors break character. Some were people’s ridiculous reactions, like giant guys crying to people pushing their children down to run away, or because of their behavior like people trying to hit us or having medical issues like people throwing up, or because of trashy parents bringing toddlers inside (please don’t do that!). However, the one the sticks out the most is when a woman came through alone, walking really slowly with her down while dragging her nails really hard along the walls. And I mean HARD. I could her scraping before I saw her. I should mention, these walls were made from cheap particle board full of splinters and decorations. The weird thing is that as she approached, I realized I didn’t hear any of the actors before me, which were my que to get ready. Just creepy music and nails on the ragged walls. When she finally got to my scene, as I was about to do my jump scare she came straight to me and touched my costume and mumble something. Her eyes were glazed over and she was just not there. She just turned and started scraping the walls again on the way out. I didn’t even get a chance to perform. I just stood there utterly speechless. Since I was the last actor in the haunt, as soon as she left, a bunch of the actors ran to me and said the same thing: WTF was that?!?! Somehow, she managed to scare/creep out over a dozen veteran haunted house actors. Looking back, I am pretty sure she was on d***s, but I can’t help to think that she must have absolutely destroyed her fingers, gotten a bunch of splinters or even ripped her nails off.
TL;DR: Woman legitimately freaked out a whole cast of seasoned haunted house actors.
