CaptainSchnitz

Great questions. Sorry for my delay, there are so many great questions and debates going on here. 1) Hard to say, but to me it's anything to do with food and puke. That was beyond what I could handle being around. 2) Probably Mandi when she kept repeating "I can't do it" over and over again because she had reached her breaking point and really needed to get out. 3) I've done extreme haunts, but I would never do McKamey Manor. Why? Because Russ wouldn't go through it. I'm willing to try anything knowing 2 things: 1) I can get out when I want 2) The creators know exactly what it feels like to go through it.

Thank you so much for these great questions.

Filming at McKamey Manor was even more intense and shocking than I thought it would be. I saw the videos Russ made and I saw how he always warned people, "you don't wanna do this", but I'm also a HUGE horror fan and I love the entire spectrum of horror, so I know when I see trailers for a horror movie or a haunt that says, "the most terrifying experience ever" - it's just a marketing gimmick to sell tickets and it's never actually horrific, it's just fun for people who like a good scare. But McKamey Manor is different. Here's how...

When you watch the McKamey Manor videos you don't know what it smells like in their. Russ uses a lot of fake bad smells which all combined together smell very bad. Russ and Carol when I was there had about 10 dogs and since the haunt was in their backyard sometimes the dogs would walk to the backyard and poo and pee. Then there was "Mothers room", that was the room I had to run out of. That's where they feed you gross stuff so that you puke. Ok, now combine all of these smells all together....yup, it's really bad.

The first room at the Manor had steel walls, so when you are pushed against a steel wall and you feel that it's real then it clicks in your head."this is real" and it's hard not to freak out and panic.

When people scream for help and that they want to get out and their screams are ignored or mocked that adds to the panic attack atmosphere. Made me think of the dinner table scene in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre when the woman is screaming for help and they laugh back at her. Only, this isn't a movie, it's a simulation that blurs the line so much it feels 100% real.

The feeling of the Manor is like a prolonged panic attack. There was one time when I stopped filming because Christina Buster, who flew all the way from Kuwait just to do McKamey Manor, went into shock. She started to not respond to questions, and looked dazed. I put my camera down and told Russ she's in shock. I quickly picked her up and took her out of the haunt and into the living room. 30 minutes later she snapped out of it and said,"Why am I not in the haunt anymore?" I told her that she went into shock and then she yelled at me,"I flew 19 hours for this put me back in!" She then told Russ to put her back in and then the put her back in for 4 more hours! When it was over she thanked Russ and his actors. And then she went back 3 more times! That really blew my mind and made me realize that this experience isn't for everyone, but it was really made for Christina.

What's off limits in my opinion? No safe word. I filmed a scare study, but couldn't include it in the film because it wasn't finished yet, but now it has. one thing they discovered is that if you have a safe word in an extreme haunt and you use it then that makes you feel empowered because you reached your limits and even encourages you to return and see if you can make it further the next time. But when there is no safe word at all, then you aren't accomplishing anything, things are just happening to you. Even with Fear Factor you have an option to stop, so when a contestant continues and wins it is an accomplishment. Think of it this way, if you run a marathon and you eventually cross the finish line that's a HUGE accomplishment and something you completed on your own. But if someone dragged you the entire time and threw you across the finish line then you didn't do it on your own. How would that make you feel? There's a moment in the film where I interview people after they finished the matter and some would never do it again and others wanted to work their after. Their reasons for both were really fascinating.

It's hard to say what my most negative experience inside the Manor was, but it's easy to say that the mist negative experience I had while making this movie was dealing with threats from people who hate McKamey Manor. When people saw my Kickstarter video and saw that the Manor was in my film I got threatening phone calls, emails, Facebook messages from people threatening to come after me to stop me. Others made videos lying about how I am, and that I wasn't making a documentary, but that I worked for Russ, and so on, and so on. In my opinion, if I'm doing a doc about what;s going on in the haunt world then I must talk about the conflict between traditional haunts and extreme haunts and there's nothing more extreme than McKamey. I had to include it and now you can see what it's really like to be inside it without having to actually go through it. People, real people are fascinating and it was fascinating to film people who sacrifice everything to bring your nightmares to life. That being said for months after I filmed at McKamey Manor I had horrific nightmares and not of anything made up and surreal, but actual memories about what really happened and that panic attack feeling. It took a long time for the nightmares to stop. I talk with people who have gone through it and when we do it must be what it's like for Troops tor reunite with people they served with.

Actually, when I was filming at McKamey Manor it was 100% volunteer and nobody paid with money it was 1 bag of dog food or 4 cans of dog food to get to go.

I asked this exact question while doing research for my doc. So I looked up when horror films, haunts and Halloween made the most amount of money and I noticed some really fascinating correlations.

All the classic monster movies for Universal Studios came out during the depression and were major box office hits, Halloween made it's most amount of money during 2001, right after September 11th and was beat out by 2008, the financial meltdown, but this year Halloween is on track to make more money than ever before, $9.1 BILLION. Why? Because people use Halloween, horror and haunts as a safe way to face their worst fears and scream their heads off. I learned a lot about people and how horror is a mirror that reflects society's worst fears.

And your second question. Do I think this is something that will go away anytime soon? No. Turn on the news, there's a lot to be nervous, fearful and scared about and as long as real life is really scary, people will need horror experiences as a way to both confront their fears and escape the horrors of reality.

Thanks for your questions. When I interviewed people I asked them why they wanted to do the Manor and they usually would say they wanted to learn something about themselves. So many people want to either prove that they're stronger than they think they are, or see what their limits are. Same reason why people jump out of a plane. In society unless you join the Military there are few ways to have a "rites of passage" to test yourself and prove how brave you really are.

To be clear: I filmed it, but refused to have it done to me. I filmed Russ while he filmed people so I could show exactly what it's like inside. I also never joined a frat in college cause I would never want to be hazed or to haze anyone else. I also was bullied as a kid so I knew the Manor would not be for me.

You get to meet the actors and learn about who works there in my film. When I first started filming the people who worked there were really nice kids. Yup, kids, High School kids. These kids were really nice, but they were encouraged to go crazy on people going through the Manor and kids being kids they go too far. It's not their fault because they're kids and they were trying to do what Russ wanted and they would get carried away with the duct tape etc... Eventually he had to replace the kids with adults, but he didn't replace the kids with haunt actors. A great haunt actor has compassion. Legendary haunt actor Shar Mayer is in my film and she talks about the connection between the monster and the human. How the "victim" is scared and excited and the monster is 3 times as scared and excited. When she scares you, it feels dangerous, but you can also feel that the person behind the mask is an entertainer and that's why in mazes with monsters like Shar we scream and we laugh because we know it's all for a thrill and for fun. Who were the adults that replaced the teens in the Manor? Well, Russ had a selection process that was questionable just like it was with the teens.

What did they feed people? Usually tofu, or meat, but mixed with food coloring and sprayed with gross scents to make you gag. They also at one point had coagulated snake eggs, but when the food part in "Mothers Room" would happen I would last a few minutes and then have to run out. It was too much for me.