A HALLOWEEN STORY

Autumn leaves are flowing, the wind is blowing, and it’s time for a Halloween Story!
 This one is called ‘what makes a Halloween Person, and one subspecies in particular-The Halloween Haunted House Person. It happens to be my story, and if you're a Halloween fanatic, part of it is your story too.


The need to create Haunted Houses does not start when you’ve settled into your first home or bought your first power tools, ask any of the Halloween Eccentric, and they’ll tell you- it starts young.
It starts with certain life-changing experiences that are common in all Halloweeners I’ve ever met.

HALLOWEEN PERSON POTION

Ingredient 1. The Awe of Nature
A Halloweener has a solemn connection with and joy of nature, and one season in particular. Those who know that if their souls were laid bare, the forest that held their essence would be an Autumn forest. 
For me it started as a boy growing up in southern NJ, the woods behind my home were part of a vast stretch of marshlands and scrub-pine forests called The Pine Barrens (think Soprano’s meets Tom Sawyer). It’s where I built my forts and rafts, caught snakes and turtles, and laughed hysterically when my little brother was chased by a goose. It’s where every boy learned the oldest folktale in the U.S.,- the story of the Jersey Devil. I’d tell it to you here, but Jersey state law says I’m only allowed to do it over a campfire. Sorry. But the connection to nature, the folklore, the colors of Autumn, all those things were a part of me.

Ingredient 2. Visiting a Haunted House at a young age.
A short drive away was ‘The Shore’, of Springsteen fame, the beaches and sand of Wild Wood and Point Pleasant. And where there are beaches there are boardwalks, rides, and 'haunted attractions’. I remember very vividly the colors, mystery and intensity of my first visit to a Haunted Attraction. My boardwalk haunted house experiences touched in me the same way as those campfire stories.


There were year-round Haunted House Amusement parks in those days, Brigantine Castle and The Haunted Mansion in Long Branch. It’s where I would go for every birthday and A-grade, (okay, B grade, they had to lower expectations with me) and where I met my first horror legend, Vincent Price, cementing my love for classic, gothic horror stories.

THE TERROR AND THE PLEASURE

I have been in many Haunted Houses since, but the first is one I’ll always remember. A kids first experience of a Haunted House is an interesting thing. On a neurological level it is no different at that young age than visiting a church. Both connect to our psyche through our feelings of the sublime. The sublime refers to our experience of wonder and awe, mixed with fear and a sense of transcendence. The environment of both is one of sensory over-load, and in church or haunted house, we’re confronted with something vast, powerful, and seemingly infinite.

A church is constructed with ornate decorations and architecture to dwarf a human observer, a haunted house employs exaggerated set designs, intense colors. Both employ dramatic lighting and both seek to control the experience. As a church uses rituals, music, sermons, to guide the viewer through a journey, the haunted house has a walk-through experience designed to maximize impact. They both build anticipation that something significant, divine or wonderfully terrifying is about to occur.

There’s also a sense of ‘perceived danger’ in both, something philosopher Edmund Burke says produces a feeling of ‘delight’ in us, that the ‘sublime’ often involves experiencing fear from a position of safety. The ‘perceived danger’ of a church is the power and judgement of the divine experienced from the safety of our family or congregation. The Haunted House experience is a perceived danger of monsters, ghosts and ghouls, knowing that the threats are not real.

Both Church and Haunted House also suspend the familiar, where a child is transported into a new reality, something beyond their normal understanding.

And lastly, both can be life-changing experiences, or at the very least, one that is etched in our minds, our neurological pathways. Who knows what paths of our lives experiences had their start in a sense of the sublime.

I’ve seen first-hand that the Haunted House can also be a ritual or trial of adolescence. We don’t have many of these in modern society and I think it does our youth a disservice. But here, a fear-instinct can safely be faced, then overcome, and then eventually enjoyed! And in 25 years, I’ve witnessed the whole process many times.

THE MOVIE MONSTERS

All these feelings of primal mystery were enforced by watching the old classic ‘Universal Monsters’ movies. They had went from being terrifying in their time to campy and theatrical, but now were making a bit of a funky 70’s revival. Local TV stations had afternoon horror movie shows, and hosts, who would don make-up, fangs or fur. I loved the sense of theater to it all and that sublime mystery. My favorite was the 'Cool Ghoul', Dr. Shock, who hosted a show out of Philadelphia. Those Saturday afternoon 'Chiller Theater' shows left their creative mark. Years later when I got my first computer as an adult, 'Dr. Shock' was the very first thing I looked up.

MY FIRST HAUNTED HOUSE

At 18 I built my first Haunted House, at my first art-job, working for a parade float-building company. I had to help transform a Ginger-bread House parade float into a Halloween-theme. I remember that walking into their warehouse was like stepping into Alice's wonderland. It made me realize that if you can make a shape, you can make anything.

As an adult, I had kept a passion for Autumn and Halloween, where one could create elaborate costumes, to be whoever or whatever you wanted to be. My wife Maria had a similar passion for the holiday, and by the time we moved to Texas, we had already 'Halloweened' in Salem, New Orleans, at several horror conventions, Haunted Houses, and horror theater and masquerade balls. I had even been on a horror cooking show! I made 'Alien Slime Soup'!
For us, it was a chance to create as a couple, to have fun with friends and strangers alike. In Salem we bought about 1000 plastic pumpkin whistles and just handed them out in the crowds.

And then as an illustrator, I began making art prints of the classic horror stars, selling at horror conferences, and even working with the families of horror legends Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as well as George Romero (look them up:).

MY SECOND HAUNTED HOUSE
My second Haunted House was in Boston, in my late 20’s where we created a 'Haunted Hallway' in a 3-story Victorian house we rented with two other couples. We pooled together about $200, and it was enough. Oddly, each long stairway had an apartment with several doors to pop out of or just leave closed (equally terrifying, apparently) with dry-ice and blacklights topping off the effect. It was a raving success and kids talked about it all year. Honestly, it took me by surprise how much of an impact it had. I could see myself at age 5 in real time, because there I was in these kids. I could see the wheels of wonder turning in their minds exactly as it did in my younger self. They were experiencing the gift of the sublime. 

That’s when I realized that I could do this thing I love, that I wanted to do since I was a kid, and share it with others that really got something from it. That’s when I was hooked.

MY LAST HAUNTED HOUSE

When we moved to our first home in Austin, I knew what I wanted to do for our first Texas Halloween.
I created a sketch and two months later, we brought it to life. It'll be the last I create, but I'm not done making it look cooler. If you'd like to learn about the 25 year history of Austin's longest running Haunted Attraction, visit us during October, or read the blog "Skyview Haunted House. 25th Anniversary!