TheWastelandWizard

Former Haunt actor as well, what's the little trick you've learned to catch people off kilter?

I volunteered in a Corn Maze for about 4 years, and I always managed to incorporate Chains into my outfit. There was a local dog that also had a chain around his neck who was super friendly and would play with visitors. 3/4 of the time they were expecting the dog and not an actor with a chainsaw, so it allowed me to get really, really close to folks.

Nothing better than a perfectly timed Chainsaw rev.

For sure, appreciate the answer. I'm a pretty big dude too (6'0"), I used a cloak and stuck low to the ground, people most often would assume I was a log or piece of equipment, helped that I could drop the chainsaw to my side with one hand, then whip it out and rev it. Structured haunts are so much harder to work in, I really respect what y'all do for the scare.

I hope to get back to haunting one day, hopefully with my own. Best exercise I've ever had.

You never forget making someone brown themselves. Generally you don't know until they're walking away and you catch a whiff, but every now and then someone goes full mudslide and it's a surreal moment.

Depends on the haunt; In most enclosed spaces there's enough fog juice and smells of just people and smoke around that the air is already saturated. You're not going to smell much else besides that miasma.

At my haunt it was outside, but we always had a bonfire going at night, fog juice in the maze, and there were 3 people running chainsaws (2 in the maze and 1 on the hay ride). At the end of the night we'd get as many people on the hay ride together and all three chainsawers would run past. It was a great time, but it's really about execution for when to strike. They know it's coming, they just don't know when.

If you get 100 people in your attraction, you'll prolly have 5 people have a visceral reaction. My very tiny haunt would do 2-400 a night, with 1000 or so on the day before Halloween and slightly less on Halloween itself.

We always had cleaning products and caring staff on hand in case of a biological event.