Haunted houses and scary mazes are a worldwide tradition during the Halloween season. You go with your peers to a haunted maze and let actors scare you. Amusement parks and others work for months to make these types of attractions as scarily fun as possible. The real stars of the show, though, are the scare actors. With their different scare tactics and the way they get people’s adrenaline pumping, they are by far the ghouls of the show.
“I work at a haunted house, and it is honestly a lot of fun,” Aubrie Hodgkins said.
Haunted houses have existed for years, and they always have actors designed to scare you and make you guess what is around every corner.
When I was little, I remember going to haunted houses or corn mazes with my parents and family. It was some of the most terrifying and funniest times of my life.
Scare tactics are the art of evoking fear and eliciting reactions in a safe environment. Psychological manipulation and unsettling actions release dopamine that makes people happy even though they are scared.
While not everyone is a big fan of haunted attractions or getting scared, most people actually find it fun.
“In California, I always went to Hobs Grove and Raising Chruch Hill; they were super fun to go to, and I got scared,” Abigail Kooiman said.
Haunted attractions always create the sensation of danger without any actual threat. Instead of real fear, which is usually where survival instincts kick in, the type of fear in these places is known as artificial. Artificial fear is more like a controlled type of fear, where you are not running to save your life or in any actual immediate danger.
It is like a rollercoaster with a steep drop and many turns. This type of fear allows people to feel the intensity of the situation but know they are not in immediate danger. It is more exhilarating instead of traumatizing, although in some cases, it can be pretty traumatizing.
“ A lot of people like to bring their toddlers to the haunted house, and they tend to leave with some lasting trauma,” Hodgkins said.
Scare tactics are used to trigger things that creep us out, such as weird voices, scary masks, silent creeping, etc.
Everything that is only used to scare a person for a second is a scare tactic. These tactics range from jumping out at a person to playing a deeper mind game on psychological fears.
Some fears like claustrophobia and arachnophobia are even used in these situations.
Some of the most effective are jumpscares, sensory overload, darkness and isolation, threat of the unseen, and psychological manipulation.
Jumping out at people is one of the most common. Jump scares are so effective because they release a startle reflex, an involuntary response to unexpected stimuli. Even though people know something is coming, the timing of these surprises is always key, for the suddenness is what gets the heart racing.
Another common one is sensory overload. Haunted attractions always use things like strobe lights, fog, and disorienting sounds to confuse and overwhelm their visitors. When your brain is trying to process a chaotic environment, it makes it harder to distinguish what is real and what is fake, which enhances fear.
Darkness and Isolation are among the best-known tactics. People worldwide are known for their fear of the unknown, and that is exactly what darkness symbolizes. Making it dark makes people more vulnerable to whatever may lurk behind the corner, especially when they are isolated from a group. This is also essentially the same as the threat of the unseen.
“I hate when they use skin-like masks or follow behind your group,” Kooiman said.
Psychological manipulation is by far one of the last that many people realize. Some attractions and actors take steps further to get into guests’ heads and play on more complex fears. Things like following behind the group or pretending to be in it, confining guests in tight spaces, whispering unsettling things, and much more goes into this tactic. These tactics love to delve into more long-lasting fears.
“I love silent following or insulting people, although I have been slapped with burlap,” Hodgkins said.
These haunted attractions are so much more than what lies on the surface, and it is fun to learn what exactly goes into all of these scares.
I am personally in between. I like going to these places and being scared because I will just laugh about it later, but it can seem a little freakish at the moment. I am a pretty jumpy person, so the actors usually catch on to that and use it against me in a way.
One of the worst tactics that gets me every time is the chainsaw. I hate it. It is really funny and a good tactic, but I hate being chased by someone with a chainsaw. I know that it will not hurt me, obviously, but every time they come out from behind the car, I become a track star.
In the end, what makes up these haunted attractions is that all that the actors do is memorize, which is fun to learn.
If you have never been to a haunted house or attraction like Scarywood, I highly recommend going at least once to experience the art of being scared.
