Haunted house actor shares what it's really like making people pee their pants

Oct 26 2022, 5:41 pm

As Halloween approaches, you’re probably getting your scares in one way or another.

Whether it’s horror movies or haunted houses, it’s easy to forget that what you’re seeing isn’t real, especially when actors are giving you a good fright.

One haunted house actor gave people an inside look at what it’s really like making people pee their pants during the Halloween season.

Reddit user rhog says he’s been acting, building, and promoting a haunted house for the past 11 years, and even had the creepy photos to prove it.

 

He did an Ask Me Anything on the online forum, letting people pick his brain about what it’s like behind the scenes at a haunted house, his most fatal scare, and what happens if someone is unfazed by the terror.

Q: How do you get over the urge to laugh? I feel like I would be immediately fired from a job like that because one good scare sends me into absolute fits of laughter.

“It’s hard to explain but when you’re in the haunt mode you’re not you, you’re a different person. Regular me would find that sh*t hilarious, but my haunt me would not. It’s like getting into character before we start, you’re a totally different person,” said the actor.

Q: What do you do when people are just completely unfazed?

“There’s a rule in the haunted house industry ā€” if you can’t scare them, make them laugh,” he answered.

Q: Have you or anyone you work with scared someone so bad [that you] gave them a heart attack or sent them to the hospital?

“My second year doing this we gave an older gentleman a heart attack. Felt really bad for him, not sure if he died or not, but we do know he had a pre-existing heart condition. I still think about that from time to time.”

 

Q: Do you ever get scared going through haunted houses? If so, what gets you?

“I would say I don’t get scared going through other haunted houses because I’ve been doing it long enough to know what’s going to happen. I know what’s going to be around the corner, I know what’s going to come from behind, that’s why I really can’t enjoy horror movies anymore [because] I know how it’s done.”

Q: How much time goes into planning and building a decent-sized local haunted house?

“We have to start building in January and we barely get finished in September if that tells you anything.”

Q: What’s the pay, I mean, can you really make it your full-time job and earn enough money?

“I really don’t do it for the money. I do it because it’s a great stress reliever and you can get all your anger out in one season just yelling at customers and scaring them. A new person will make about $500 a season.”

Hopefully knowing that there is a living, breathing, normal human being behind the terrifying makeup will make those haunted houses a little easier to walk through.

Isabelle DoctoIsabelle Docto

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