Halloween is big business. In addition to people spending millions on costumes, decorations and candy, 35 million people are estimated to attend some kind of haunted attraction. But if you think Disney Haunted Mansion is typical of what’s available, think again. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando checked out a range of offerings and considers why we love being scared and to what extremes we will go I love horror. And when I heard that San Diego had an extreme haunt that was ranked among the top three in the nation and had fans internationally, well I just had to find out more. But in order to get an interview, I had to follow these instructions: proceed to where the road ends, wait at a white barrier overlooking a canyon at a prearranged time … and to face forward until my handler approached me from behind. RUSS McKAMEY: Who would you be young lady? SO I heard that you actually want to see what McKamey Manor is all about. Is that true? BETH: Yes, I kind of want the light experience though. RUSS McKAMEY: We can do that. You are going to get the very sissy, girly tour. RUSS McKAMEY: There are some rules you have to abide by and you need to sign a couple of waivers you need to sign for me… BETH: Hello and welcome to McKamey Manor, I have been selected from a list of thousands to participate in my own personalize horror movie. Well done. Once I accept the 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: Let’s swap those out and you are going to first put on these goggles… we don’t want you to see where you are going. BETH ACCOMANDO: I am doing my first interview blindfolded… So Russ, I’m in the car with you heading off 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 , we either give them a destination to meet at like we did with you, which is easy, or we actually go to them and kidnap them sometime during that day. And when they reserve a spot for McKamey Manor, they have to reserve the whole day because the whole event takes on a short tour, 4 and a half hours, on a normal tour 7-8 hours, so some time during that day we are going to come to them when they least expect it and basically kidnap them. RUSS McKAMEY: we are so specialized that only 2 people get this golden ticket and this is insane, think about this, 2 individuals go through a 4 to 8 hour experience, that’s it… you are involved in every step of the way, it’s audience participation to the max. And if you don’t believe that 4-8 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… Just because either the mind gives out or the body gives out… and there is no safe word, once you are inside you’re there for the long run but if there’s a medical issue absolutely we will stop the show, we don’t want anyone getting hurt… every room, everything you do has to do with stunts and deals with challenges that you and your partner have to decide who is going to do what, there’s choices made at every turn and if you make the right choice it could be very easy if you make the wrong choice then you have to suffer the consequence . RUSS McKAMEY: 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 just to watch them throw each other under the bus left and right. BETH: Have marriages broke up after this. RUSS: 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 give these folks the chance. 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. BETH I feel really bad taking this spot since it takes you 2-8 hours for one of these tours and you have a huge waiting list I feel like I have deprived somebody RUSS McKAMEY: Currently there are 2 waiting lists. One as of last year and I secured that list there are just too many, it’s still there of course, there’s 17,000 on the PC side of the house and on the new list on FB there’s like 500. So what I do is when there’s an opening I send out a quick little post to both lists and whoever contacts me first will have a chance [package has arrived] RUSS McKAMEY: So we are here at destination number one… BETH It looks like I am about to enter McKamey Manor here, and possibly to regret it. VOICE: Welcome to McKamey Manor. Do you understand our game? No one can save you, no one will hear you, no one… it’s just you and us now RUSS Give us your camera. That’s when the duct tape came out. BETH: 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… And confronted by a buzz saw… BETH This does not bode well for me. (saw SFX) And that was the sissy tour. BETH: Which seems fairly extreme to me. JON SCHNITZER: It’s not haunted houses any more, they are horror experiences. This is interactive, visceral theater. Jon Schnitzer is making a documentary called Haunters: The Movie. JON SCHNITZER: I’ve talked with people who go to McKamey Manor and some are thrill seekers, some of them have office jobs, some of them are ex-military, they have been to Afghanistan and nothing, not even a rollercoaster can get their adrenaline going. But McKamey Manor does. And for that they love Russ because he was able to make them scared, make them scream, make them feel fear, give them that rush of adrenaline of being alive, and they knew they were going to be okey, they knew they were actually going to be safe…These extreme haunts, they kind of blur the line between entertainment and survival. It’s a can I survive this, what am I made of? McKamey Manor intrigued clinical social worked and psycholanalyst Christine Powell. CHRISTINE POWELL: I was pretty fascinated, I found myself spending a lot of time going further and deeper, trying to understand what was going on and analyze it and psychoanalyze it…. my point of view is influenced by people I know who love horror and write horror, and write thriller novels and because I have a lot of experience with those people and those genres, I appreciate it as an art form but there’s this small percentage of people who can’t handle it. CLIP Girl screaming CHRISTINE POWELL: And I’ve been devoting my life to trying to help people heal from trauma, it was interesting for me to see especially the interviews of participants as they came out. Some say wow that was amazing, they thought it was so thrilling and they were so impressed by it and one gal, I’ll never forget, was on the sidewalk sobbing and shaking and talking about begging to come out but not being allowed to leave. And to my mind that’s a different thing. And that’s where Katie O’Bryan draws the line. She went to Delusions in LA but refuses to go to McKamey Manor or Blackout, which is notorious for giving people a victim experience.. KATIE O’BRYAN: I think if something is too realistic like an actual terrifying event that could happen to a person then I’m out. I don’t want to be tortured, I don’t want to have nightmares or PTSD. But O’Bryan appreciated what John Braver does with Delusion. KATIE O’BRYAN: I go to haunted houses even though they scare me because part of the fun is the anticipation of something terrifying and awful happening and then to come into it and have that moment of jumpiness and fright and sort scream and have that huge release and it turns into a great be laugh. That’s what’s fun about it…. Just remember it’s not real, it’s not real. But your imagination kind of runs wild… It’s the anticipation of being afraid that makes it so awesome. JOHN BRAVER: You hear a scream and you know people are having fun. John Braver has been running Delusion in Los Angeles since 2011. JOHN BRAVER: It’s interactive horror theater, that’s what it is, there’s nothing really like it around … people still say well it’s a haunted house, well no it’s not really a haunted house, it’s a play, no it’s not really a play. It’s somewhere in between. And so we are trying to define ourselves. Still but I feel this year people seem to know what Delusion is, they know the experience now and we built up a really awesome fan base and they get it, that small intimate, immersive experience, and it seems to be working really well. Also in LA is Urban Death run by Zombie Joe. He calls it Grand Guignol French tableaux theater. The Halloween edition of Urban Death had people file through a maze with only a pinhole flashlight to light their way. At the end of the maze they arrive at a small stage where quick vignettes address a wide variety f fears from wondering what crawls around in the dark to our obsession with death. He calls it a horror adventure and journey. ZOMBIE JOE: So for us it is about partnering with the imaginations of our audiences and doing quite the opposite of what a lot of haunts do, like we want you to be drawn close to our installations and we want to partner with your imagination and work with your imagination versus like jump out and show you what we mean, we want to partner with how you feel about it as well. So it’s like an opposite approach for most haunts… That’s what appeals to Paul Wee. PAUL WEE: I thought it was fantastic. I saw the full show before but now it’s more an abbreviated version but still very effective… I would say it’s on the extreme side, what I like about it is it’s not conventional. It doesn’t do the same chainsaw chasing you around, Freddy Krueger, that’s been done to death. What they do is this modern Grand Guignol, which is like, I love the, it makes you feel uncomfortable, and I love that edge of making you feel uncomfortable, and to try and see things on the edge of your perception but its terrible. Extreme haunts have their detractors. Critics call them abusive and the people who run them sadistic. McKamey had to shutdown one location because of community concern. But McKamey, like the creators of Blackout, comes from a theater background and is first and foremost a showman. RUSS McKAMEY: Scaring is fun. and once you scare someone for the first time, your first boo, that’s addicting. Then ramp it up about a thousand percent and put people in genuine panic mode. I know it sounds mean but to be that close and see what you created and you know they are 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. JOHN BRAVER: I absolutely love the sounds of screams, it’s soothing. It’s like some people want to go to sleep to the sound of the ocean but I like to go to sleep to the sounds of screams. I understand Jon Braver. I judge the success of my home haunt by how many kids scream, drop their candy bags and run. But McKamey Manor pushes the envelope and I asked Russ McKamey if he’s ever been called sadistic. RUSS McKAMEY: No! Sadistic, no. I’m a fun guy, no people beg to come here, Beth they want to be here… The folks who want to come here who I can’t talk out of… are the hard core extreme fan who want that adrenaline rush, the ones who can’t get scared with other boo haunts or other adventures… over here they are not going to be bored. Delusion’s John Braver would agree but with a little more emphasis on fun. JOHN BRAVER: I think the people who really want to come are just adventurous souls that want something different, there’s that. People like the story concept, it gets them more involved and connected to the experience. Those are the people we really want, the people who want to be kids again and have fun and let themselves be involved in the story. Jana Wimer of Urban Death wants people involved in her story but she also wants to leave them unable to sleep. JANA WIMER: I want them to not be able to sleep at night, like I want them to be haunted after they leave, I don’t want them to just be scared while walking through something, I want it to stay with them…. The emotional horror, I’m really into the emotional stuff, like getting old to me is terrifying. And stuff that you can’t unsee. CHRISTINE POWELL: The mind is interesting both in the trauma process and the healing process there’s not always the real clear differentiation between what’s real and what’s imagined. Which is one of the things that concerns Powell. CHRISTINE POWELL: I think that differentiating between fictional horror and real life terror continues to be important even if the creators are seeing it as theater and their intention is to entertain, it’s still important to be aware that for some of the participants it is going to go over the line and at some point it will cease to be entertainment and will become real terror. Despite warnings from McKamey Manor survivors and Russ McKamey himself, there are 17,000 people on the waiting list. But McKamey Manor is not alone in offering an extreme experience. Blackout in New York gained fame -- or infamy -- for faux waterboarding and forcing people to strip naked, says filmmaker Jon Schnitzer. JON SCHNITZER: So there is something incredible about this boom of haunts and that’s why I wanted to document it because my biggest question has been like is this going to last, are haunts going to just get more extreme or is this a bubble that’s just one controversy away from bursting. Like years from now are we going to look back at 2014 and go wow, that was the wild west of haunting when all you had to do was get people to sign a waiver and you could get away with anything. CHRISTINE POWELL: There’s a really important line between entertainment and real live trauma. Again Christine Powell CHRISTINE POWELL: It’s impossible probably to really be aware of the individual vulnerabilities of every participant who goes through a haunt, it would be hard to predict who can handle it and who can’t but I think it’s very important to be sensitive t the fact tat some people will actually be traumatized by it and suffer effects in the future. Russ McKamey indirectly affirms this when he admits that his own haunt scares the heck out of him. RUSS McKAMEY: I built them around my fears. 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. 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 they can to break you down mentally and physically but once you emerge – as either a survivor or quitter -- you are part of an elite group. RUSS McKAMEY: People who come here really feel like family and they just feel like it’s a badge of honor to have come through. And the cost for this experience -- just a few cans of dog food donated to Operation Greyhound. Unlike for profit professional haunts, McKamey Manor is run strictly for fun.
Halloween is big business. In addition to people spending millions on costumes, decorations and candy, 35 million people are estimated to attend some kind of haunted attraction. But if you think Disney Haunted Mansion is typical of what’s available, think again. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando checked out a range of offerings and considers why we love being scared and to what extremes we will go.
McKamey Manor is an extreme haunt in San Diego. It is ranked among the top three in the nation and has fans internationally.
For the full story: San Diego’s McKamey Manor Takes Haunting To Extremes
Jon Schnitzer is making a documentary called "Haunters: The Movie."
"It’s not haunted houses any more, they are horror experiences. This is interactive, visceral theater," Schnitzer said. "I’ve talked with people who go to McKamey Manor and some are thrill seekers, some of them have office jobs, some of them are ex-military, they have been to Afghanistan and nothing, not even a rollercoaster can get their adrenaline going. But McKamey Manor does. And for that they love Russ because he was able to make them scared, make them scream, make them feel fear, give them that rush of adrenaline of being alive. … These extreme haunts, they kind of blur the line between entertainment and survival. It’s a 'can I survive this, what am I made of?'"
McKamey Manor intrigued clinical social worked and psycholanalyst Christine Powell.
"I was pretty fascinated. I found myself spending a lot of time going further and deeper, trying to understand what was going on and analyze it and psychoanalyze it…. my point of view is influenced by people I know who love horror and write horror, and write thriller novels and because I have a lot of experience with those people and those genres, I appreciate it as an art form but there’s this small percentage of people who can’t handle it," Powell said. "And I’ve been devoting my life to trying to help people heal from trauma, it was interesting for me to see especially the interviews of participants as they came out. Some say 'wow that was amazing,' they thought it was so thrilling and they were so impressed by it and one gal, I’ll never forget, was on the sidewalk sobbing and shaking and talking about begging to come out but not being allowed to leave. And to my mind that’s a different thing."
And that’s where Katie O’Bryan draws the line. She went to Delusion in Los Angeles but refuses to go to McKamey Manor or Blackout, which is notorious for giving people a victim experience.
"I think if something is too realistic like an actual terrifying event that could happen to a person then I’m out. I don’t want to be tortured. I don’t want to have nightmares or PTSD," O’Bryan said.
But O’Bryan appreciated what Jon Braver does with Delusion.
"I go to haunted houses even though they scare me because part of the fun is the anticipation of something terrifying and awful happening and then to come into it and have that moment of jumpiness and fright and sort (of) scream and have that huge release and it turns into a great big laugh. That’s what’s fun about it…. Just remember it’s not real, it’s not real. But your imagination kind of runs wild… It’s the anticipation of being afraid that makes it so awesome," she said.
Jon Braver has been running Delusion in Los Angeles since 2011.
"You hear a scream and you know people are having fun," Braver said.
"It’s interactive horror theater, that’s what it is, there’s nothing really like it around … people still say 'well it’s a haunted house,' well no it’s not really a haunted house, it’s a play, no it’s not really a play. It’s somewhere in between. And so we are trying to define ourselves. Still but I feel this year people seem to know what Delusion is, they know the experience now and we built up a really awesome fan base and they get it, that small intimate, immersive experience, and it seems to be working really well."
Also in Los Angeles is Urban Death run by Zombie Joe. He calls it "Grand Guignol French tableaux theater." The Halloween edition of Urban Death had people file through a maze with only a pinhole flashlight to light their way. At the end of the maze they arrive at a small stage where quick vignettes address a wide variety of fears from wondering what crawls around in the dark to our obsession with death. He calls it a horror adventure and journey.
"So for us it is about partnering with the imaginations of our audiences and doing quite the opposite of what a lot of haunts do, like we want you to be drawn close to our installations and we want to partner with your imagination and work with your imagination versus like jump out and show you what we mean, we want to partner with how you feel about it as well. So it’s like an opposite approach for most haunts," Zombie Joe said.
That’s what appeals to Paul Wee.
"I thought it was fantastic. I saw the full show before but now it’s more an abbreviated version but still very effective… I would say it’s on the extreme side, what I like about it is it’s not conventional. It doesn’t do the same chainsaw chasing you around, Freddy Krueger, that’s been done to death. What they do is this modern Grand Guignol, which is like, I love the, it makes you feel uncomfortable, and I love that edge of making you feel uncomfortable, and to try and see things on the edge of your perception but its terrible," Wee said.
Extreme haunts have their detractors. Critics call them abusive and the people who run them sadistic. McKamey had to shutdown one location because of community concern. But McKamey, like the creators of Blackout, comes from a theater background and is first and foremost a showman.
"Scaring is fun and once you scare someone for the first time, your first boo, that’s addicting. Then ramp it up about a thousand percent and put people in genuine panic mode. I know it sounds mean but to be that close and see what you created and you know they are OK, 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," McKamey said.
McKamey Manor pushes the envelope and Accomando asked Russ McKamey if he’s ever been called sadistic.
"No! Sadistic, no. I’m a fun guy. No people beg to come here. Beth they want to be here… The folks who want to come here who I can’t talk out of… are the hard core extreme fan who want that adrenaline rush, the ones who can’t get scared with other boo haunts or other adventures… over here they are not going to be bored," he responded.
Delusion’s John Braver would agree but with a little more emphasis on fun.
"I think the people who really want to come are just adventurous souls that want something different, there’s that. People like the story concept, it gets them more involved and connected to the experience. Those are the people we really want, the people who want to be kids again and have fun and let themselves be involved in the story," Braver said.
Jana Wimer of Urban Death wants people involved in her story but she also wants to leave them unable to sleep.
"I want them to not be able to sleep at night, like I want them to be haunted after they leave. I don’t want them to just be scared while walking through something, I want it to stay with them…. The emotional horror, I’m really into the emotional stuff, like getting old to me is terrifying. And stuff that you can’t unsee," Wimer said.
Psychoanalyst Powell said there is not always a clear line between real and imagined.
"The mind is interesting both in the trauma process and the healing process. There’s not always the real clear differentiation between what’s real and what’s imagined," Powell said.
Which is one of the things that concerns Powell.
"I think that differentiating between fictional horror and real life terror continues to be important even if the creators are seeing it as theater and their intention is to entertain, it’s still important to be aware that for some of the participants it is going to go over the line and at some point it will cease to be entertainment and will become real terror," she said.
Despite warnings from McKamey Manor survivors and Russ McKamey himself, there are 17,000 people on the waiting list. But McKamey Manor is not alone in offering an extreme experience. Blackout in New York gained fame — or infamy — for faux waterboarding and forcing people to strip naked, says filmmaker Jon Schnitzer.
"So there is something incredible about this boom of haunts and that’s why I wanted to document it because my biggest question has been like is this going to last, are haunts going to just get more extreme or is this a bubble that’s just one controversy away from bursting. Like years from now are we going to look back at 2014 and go wow, that was the wild west of haunting when all you had to do was get people to sign a waiver and you could get away with anything," Schnitzer said.
Powell is concerned that what might be entertainment for some can be traumatic for others.
"There’s a really important line between entertainment and real live trauma," Powell said. "It’s impossible probably to really be aware of the individual vulnerabilities of every participant who goes through a haunt, it would be hard to predict who can handle it and who can’t but I think it’s very important to be sensitive to the fact that some people will actually be traumatized by it and suffer effects in the future."
Russ McKamey indirectly affirms this when he admits that his own haunt scares the heck out of him.
"I built them around my fears. 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," he said.
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 they can to break you down mentally and physically but once you emerge – as either a survivor or quitter — you are part of an elite group.
"People who come here really feel like family and they just feel like it’s a badge of honor to have come through," he said.
And the cost for this experience — just a few cans of dog food donated to Operation Greyhound. Unlike for profit professional haunts, McKamey Manor is run strictly for fun.
