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San Diego's McKamey Manor Takes Haunting To Extremes

 August 9, 2015 at 7:26 AM PDT

KPBS Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando attended ScareLA's Extreme Haunt Panel featuring McKamey Manor, Blackout, and Gates of Hell's Victim Experience. Each Haunt brought along a "victim" to discuss the experience. Here's the audio from the panel. I'm Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie here at the third annual ScareLA Convention. The convention moved to the Pasadena Convention Center because it has grown exponentially over the past three years. It is dedicated to Halloween and home haunts and you can find everything from costumes and masks to fog effects and fog scents so your haunt can smell just right. It is the Comic-Con of home haunting and it also offers panels and seminars. So you can learn how to do scary clown make up or carve a tombstone from styrofoam. I attended the extreme haunt panel on Saturday, August 8 to hears from McKamey Manor, Blackout, and Gates of Hell's Victim Experience. This is the audio from the one hour panel.

ScareLA's Extreme Haunt Panel featuring McKamey Manor, Blackout, and Gates of Hell's Victim Experience. Each haunt brought along a "victim" to discuss the experience. Here's the audio from the panel.
Exclusive Behind the Scenes Look at McKamey Manor's Extreme Haunt

If the term haunted house makes you think of something like Disney’s Haunted Mansion, think again. A new trend in extreme haunts offers people the chance to have the “victim experience” and be made a participant in your own horror movie for up to eight hours. San Diego is home to McKamey Manor, one of the top-rated extreme haunts in the nation.

Behind the Scenes at McKamey Manor's Extreme Haunt
Listen to this story by reporter Beth Accomando

ANCHOR INTRO: If the term haunted house makes you think of something like Disney’s Haunted Mansion, think again. A new trend in extreme haunts offers people the chance to have the “victim experience” and be made a participant in you own horror movie for up to eight hours. KPBS arts and culture reporter Beth Accomando takes us behind the scenes of one of the top rated extreme haunts in the nation, McKamey Manor – which is located somewhere in San Diego County.   Russ McKamey knows how to market his product. RUSS McKAMEY: You don’t want to come here, don’t do this, it’s not fun, it hurts, I’m not going to let you out, you are going to regret ever coming here. Don’t come to McKamey Manor, it’s not worth it. Watch the exit videos. So I did, including this one posted by Nick Baldwin. NICK BALDWIN: I just got out of McKamey Manor and let me tell you it’s no joke. I knew it was going to be rough and I don’t know why I still went but not that rough um I got beat. I watched more online videos and saw people broken and crying. BABYGABSS: I want to quit I just don’t want to be locked in the dark any more. McKamey Manor describes itself as “The world’s only true interactive 4 to 7 hour extreme haunt experience.” As a fan of horror I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who creates these extreme haunts and who’s crazy enough to go. I decided to ask Russ McKamey but first I had to sign a waiver and read some rules. BETH: Hello welcome to McKamey Manor I have been selected from a list of thousands to participate in my own personalized horror movie. Once I accept this challenge there is no turning back, no quitting, I will not be removed under any circumstances. I accept this challenge freely and without being under any type of distress. RUSS McKAMEY: And you are going to first put on these goggles… BETH ACCOMANDO: I am doing my first interview blindfolded… I’m in the car with you heading to one of your McKamey Manor locations but this is not the typical experience someone would get. RUSS McKAMEY: It would be a lot rougher than what is happening right now, normally we give people a destination to meet like we did with you or we actually go to them and kidnap them sometime during that day. ON WALKIE TALKIE: Package has arrived. The package is me. I knew I’d be blindfolded to get to the location but then I thought I was going to sit down and do an interview. That’s when the duct tape came out. BETH: (SFX Duct tape) What about the audio gear? During the course of the next four hours I would be locked in a coffin… WOMAN (muffled voice inside coffin): Do you understand how long they will keep you here? Forever. Force fed unidentifiable food… MAN: Open wide… don’t you throw up… Repeatedly hosed down… (SFX) And introduced to some interesting devices… BETH This does not bode well for me. (saw SFX) And that was the sissy tour. BETH: Which seems fairly extreme for me… So who are the people willing to take the full 8 hour, no safe word tour? RUSS McKAMEY: Folks who want to come here and the folks who I can’t talk out of going are the hard core extreme fan the ones that want that adrenaline rush, the ones who can’t get scared at other boo haunts, over here they are not going to be bored. That’s because McKamey, with a theater arts background, enjoys putting on a killer show. RUSS McKAMEY: I love scaring folks… once you scare someone for the first time, your first boo, that’s addicting. Then ramp it up about a thousand times and now put people in genuine panic mode, sounds mean but to be that close and see what you created and you know they’re okay in reality you know they are ok but in their mind they are not ok and to see that come together, something that you created, is very satisfying for sure. McCamey Manor is like going through horror boot camp. Many of the actors are Marines and McKamey spent 23 years in the Navy. They do everything to break you down mentally and physically but once you emerge you’re part of an elite group. RUSS McKAMEY: People that come here really feel like they’re family, they just feel like it’s a badge of honor to go through McKamey Manor. If you’re still interested the cost is just a few cans of dog food donated to Operation Greyhound. Unlike for profit haunts, McKamey Manor is a volunteer operated home haunt run strictly… for fun. Beth Accomando, KPBS News. TAG: For a more in depth look at extreme haunts, check out Beth’s Cinema Junkie Blog at KPBS.org and watch for her video tomorrow on Evening Edition.

Russ McKamey knows how to market his product.

“You don’t want to come here, don’t do this, it’s not fun, it hurts,” he tells me. “I’m not going to let you out, you are going to regret ever coming here. Don’t come to McKamey Manor, it’s not worth it. Watch the exit videos.”

So I did, including a iPhone video posted on Facebook by Nick Baldwin just after his McKamey Manor tour on Sept. 26.

“I just got out of McKamey Manor and let me tell you that was no joke,” Baldwin said shivering. “I knew it was going to be rough and I don’t know why I still went, but I knew it was going to be rough, but not that rough… I will post one tomorrow more in depth to explain it and warn you why to not go… McKamey Manor, sh-t no joke, it kicked my ass…

"What Russ has done with McKamey manor is unreal, you can’t even begin to scratch the surface of how intense this is… They find what you are scared of and they take that and they will expand on it and try to make it feel as real as possible. You know they are not going to kill you or do anything that will severely hurt you but there are times when you, it gets out of hand, and it definitely beat me… This is my review, McKamey Manor it’s the real deal.”

I watched more online videos and saw people — young women, career Marines, adrenaline junkies, big tattooed guys — broken and crying. McKamey Manor’s website describes it as “The world’s only true interactive four to seven hour extreme haunt experience.” As a fan of horror I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who creates these extreme haunts and who’s crazy enough to go. I decided to ask Russ McKamey.

I wait for him at a designated location where I was told to stand at a barrier and keep my eyes looking forward into the canyon. When he arrives, he’s in a jovial mood and seems genuinely nice – not what you might expect from the man who runs one of the most extreme haunts in the country. He gives me a waiver to sign and then has me read some haunt rules about having to follow instructions and not fight back.

The document also says: “Welcome to McKamey Manor I have been selected from a list of thousands to participate in my own personalized horror movie. Once I accept this challenge there is no turning back, no quitting, I will not be removed under any circumstances. I accept this challenge freely and without being under any type of distress.”

On Beth Accomando's tour of McKamey Manor she spent a good portion of her time blindfolded, Oct. 3, 2014.
Russ McKamey
On Beth Accomando's tour of McKamey Manor she spent a good portion of her time blindfolded, Oct. 3, 2014.

Blindfolded

Then Russ has me put on blackened goggles as he leads me to a car where I conduct my first interview blindfolded. The ride I am experiencing, though, is not typical for someone heading to McKamey Manor.

“It would be a lot rougher than what is happening right now,” Russ explains. “Normally we give people a destination to meet like we did with you or we actually go to them and kidnap them sometime during that day. When they reserve a spot for McKamey Manor, they have to reserve the whole day because on a short tour, it’s four and a half hours, and on a normal tour seven to eight hours. We never know exactly what is happening, every tour we do is new and unique to the 28 actors we have as well. We don’t know what’s happening because we are guided along the way by a live audience that is watching this stream. So it’s different for us too.”

What McKamey Manor does is so specialized and customized that only two people get to go on a tour. Friday tours are four hours and Saturday ones are about eight hours.

“It’s audience participation to the max,” Russ said. “And if you don’t believe that four to eight hours will break somebody down, it does. I don’t care how tough you are, if we want to break the individual down to where they want to quit, they will quit, and normally speaking, they quit. Just because either the mind gives out or the body gives out.”

As we drive, Russ tells me, “It’s very fascinating on a psychological level to be that close to a husband and wife, or best friends, people that you think would always stand up for one another and protect one another and just to watch them throw each other under the bus left and right. I can only imagine the car ride home, how fun that must be when the husband’s been like, ‘I’m not doing that, it’s all you.’ Because we’ll give the hubby a chance to protect and save and jump in there and do the stunt instead of the wife and they don’t. They are like 'that’s okay, she’s got it.' It is very interesting to see how people will respond. Fascinating.”

At this point I start to feel bad that I am taking up a Friday night and depriving two of the 17,000 people on the waiting list of an opportunity to take the tour.

“You should feel bad,” Russ tells me. “You’ll probably pay for that tonight at some point.”

As I ponder what that might mean, I hear a man on the walkie talkie say: “The package has arrived.”

Hey, I’m that package! I knew I’d be blindfolded to get to the location but then I thought I was going to sit down and do an interview. Wow, was I wrong. The car stops and Russ takes away my gear. Then I am hooded and hustled into the haunt where I then get tied up and with duct tape wrapped around my head. During the course of the next four hours I will be locked in a coffin, force fed unidentifiable food, repeatedly soaked in cold water, and introduced to some interesting devices and creatures. And that was the sissy tour.

Although I did not expect any kind of a tour and probably would have declined the interview if I had suspected I would be put through any kind of tour, I have to say I was glad I did it. Even though it was a severely watered down version of McKamey Manor, I felt good about surviving some things that made other people crack. (My one truly proud moment I cannot reveal because it involves a secret member of McKamey Manor, damn!) I could easily see how he could break people down through physical and mental stress. And even though I exited McKamey Manor feeling feeling like a wimp, Russ still gave me a big bear hug at the end and welcomed me into the McKamey family.

I had been picked up at 5:30 p.m. and was driving home at 10:30 p.m. shivering, covered in blood and axle grease, and smelling like a combination of mildew, raw sewage and slaughterhouse. It took two showers to get clean and the smell lingered for a day. I know I would never, ever, consider taking the full tour though. I know my limits.

Post McKamey Manor Video

So who are the people willing to take the full eight hour, no safe word tour?

“Folks who want to come here and the folks who I can’t talk out of going are the hard core extreme fans, the ones that want that adrenaline rush, the ones who can’t get scared at other boo haunts,” Russ said.

In a video posted on the McKamey Manor YouTube channel, a group of people emerging from the last tour of 2012 provide these comments: “That was by far the craziest, wackiest thing I have ever done in my life and at the end there you actually had me crying. I’m not an easy person to actually get to break down but you broke me. This is the most ridiculous thing in my entire life and it is by far the greatest thing and I love to hate you, you are awesome… awesome. It wears you out, scarier than sh-t, it was awesome. I’m not going to be able to sleep… it was different, I wouldn’t say fun, damn no… it was awesome, so intense, it was off the hook, it was unbelievable I don’t have words to express it… that was way, fifty times worse that Halloween Haunt at Knotts, that was the most real without dying you can get.”

Extreme Haunts

McKamey Manor is not alone in offering an extreme experience. Blackout in New York gained fame or infamy for faux waterboarding, having people suck on a tampon, and forcing people to strip naked for what some describe as simulated sexual assault. These extreme haunts have their detractors who call the operators everything from jackasses to sadists. Although Russ says McKamey Manor has never been sued, Blackout and Las Vegas’ The Gates of Hell revealed on a ScareLA panel last year that they had each dealt with multiple lawsuits all of which they had won. But Russ did run into problems when he tried to move the haunt to Lakeside.

“In Lakeside and we were going to be on this 11 acre ranch and the city shut us down because people freaked out about having us there,” Russ recalls. “They saw the videos, the videos alone scared them so much that they ran to the city and said no way do we want this haunt in Lakeside. So we had a choice of either, we had all of our permits and paid a lot of money to be out there, and we had a choice of either pay another $50,000 to reapply, no guarantees, or pack it up.”

He definitely has a lot of haters among people who have never taken the tour. There are numerous comments on many videos about McKamey Manor where people accuse Russ McKamey of being a torturer and that his haunt needs to be shut down. Russ admits that people will get cuts and bruises but he follows each person on the tour to make sure they are safe and he says he has medical staff on hand to evaluate people along the way. But everyone who comes through McKamey Manor is given a waiver to sign outlining what to expect and there are a plethora of online videos of people explaining how brutal the tour is and to stay away. So anyone entering should have a good general sense of what to expect even though they may not know what specifically awaits them.

Beth Accomando's face is covered in blood during her four hour tour of McKamey Manor, Oct. 3, 2014.
Russ McKamey
Beth Accomando's face is covered in blood during her four hour tour of McKamey Manor, Oct. 3, 2014.

The best way to describe McCamey Manor is that it’s like going through horror boot camp. Many of the actors are Marines and McKamey spent 23 years in the Navy (he used to make haunted houses on the ships). The McKamey staff do everything to break you down mentally and physically but once you emerge, you’re part of an elite group.

“People that come here really feel like they’re family, they just feel like it’s a badge of honor to go through McKamey Manor,” Russ said. And if you watch some of his videos you will also see him giving out some big bear hugs to people who emerge from the haunt. A quick scan of his Facebook page reveals a huge following of adoring fans who love what he does and can’t wait to take the tour. Even the people who emerge broken and crying give him props for running an intense haunt. Plus, many of the people who survive the haunt become actors in it. In fact, the only way to become an actor is to go through the haunt.

Showmen

Critics may call these extreme haunters sadists but the creators consider themselves showmen. The guys behind Blackout come from experimental theater, The Gates of Hell is run by a filmmaker, and McKamey was a theater arts major. On the ScareLA panel, they all said that they just love to put on a killer show, something that will make an indelible impression on the people that partake.

“I love scaring folks,” Russ said with glee. “Once you scare someone for the first time, your first boo, that’s addicting. Then ramp it up about a thousand times and now put people in genuine panic mode, sounds mean but to be that close and see what you created and you know they’re okay in reality, you know they are ok, but in their mind they are not ok and to see that come together, something that you created, is very satisfying for sure. Of course I love it when they lose it because I’m there taking all this fantastic footage of them, the special Kodak moments.”

But Russ confesses that he would never go through his own haunt.

“I built them around my fears,” Russ confesses. “Things that freak me out. So there’s no way in the world I would ever, ever be able to do my own haunt. You would never see me through a McKamey Manor. I created it and it scares the heck out of me.”

If you’re still interested the cost is just a few cans of dog food donated to Operation Greyhound. Unlike for profit haunts, McKamey Manor is a volunteer operated home haunt run strictly… for fun.

Beth Accomando is covered in fake blood and axle grease after surviving her tour of McKamey Manor, Oct. 3, 2014.
Russ McKamey
Beth Accomando is covered in fake blood and axle grease after surviving her tour of McKamey Manor, Oct. 3, 2014.

There is currently a Kickstarter campaign going on to raise money for the documentary "Haunters: Your Nightmares Are Their Dreams," which features McKamey Manor.

Watch for my video tonight on Evening Edition and for my discussion of a broad range of haunted attractions on Midday Edition Thursday, Oct. 30.