A Scare Actor’s Guide To Supporting The Best Haunted House Experience
Kate Henderson (she/they) // Crew Writer
Sasha Lun (she/her) // Illustrator
Halloween is one of the most immersive seasons of the year, with our day-to-day life entering an exciting veil of brooding and supernatural each October. Anyone who wants to amplify this spooky energy in their October evenings could attend one of many local haunted houses, each room telling a different horror story. For many Vancouver actors, these rooms are supernatural; a part of their day-to-day lives in the month of October.
For Vancouver film and TV actor Jaira Brownlee, her career expanded into scare acting a few years ago when she saw an ad for Maan Farms on the Vancouver Actors Guide. Once securing the job, Brownlee arrived and “was put in costume, hair and makeup, and sent to [her] location in the corn maze.” Additionally, atmospheric actor Garett Doran Moran shares, through his decade of scare acting, that the early years were quite simple; hair, makeup, scare! However, Moran quickly became a regular scare actor of Vancouver’s largest haunted house company, PNE Fright Nights. He describes there were training videos, 250 coworkers of specific scaring positions and eight haunted houses to fill.
“At Fright Nights, we have roamers, people in the houses and a security guard all within designated scare zones,” Moran points out. However, whilst more elaborately organized, it seems both processes of training have the same result: creating one’s character on the job. Similar to film and TV, Jaira says she enters a rhythm of repetition with each group as she would with different takes. However, unlike her day-to-day acting, the director is one of the attendees of the corn maze. “Reactions are my way of adjusting on the fly,” Brownlee shares. Moran concurs with this, “my job feels like much more than just scaring people, it’s weirding them out, being ridiculous, all finding out what works.” Brownlee elaborates, “When I get a really good scare, it’s confirmation that my character is working.”
Patrons’ reactions under pressure can typically be summarized into flight, fight, or freeze. However, Brownlee and Moran have seen that and more. “The most common response seems to be flirting,” Brownlee shares that she has even been asked for her social media while in character.
Brownlee recounted her favourite response, saying, “Once when I was working as a cannibal farmer, and I yelled ‘get off my land!’ to a patron, they responded with ‘I’m native, so…’” Moran’s favourite encounter involved a large group with a couple. Once Moran jumped out of fog dressed as a clown and the boyfriend threw his girlfriend at the actor in fear. Moran asked if she was okay, only for her to look back at the group and then leave the Fright Nights grounds. “I noticed the rest of the party seemed to look related to members of the couple, soon realizing this was actually a wedding party.”
Both of these experiences prompted Brownlee and Moran to share the importance of not only the physical boundaries that are set on the job, but communicative boundaries. “My job in nature is mean, we’re scaring people,” Brownlee acknowledges. “However, when I was working at Cougar Creek, my supervisor pulled our team aside to talk about the importance of making our lines impersonal… Sure, someone has consented to being scared, but not personally insulted.”
Brownlee’s understanding of how to respect customers was well-advised on her jobs at Maan Farm and Cougar Creek, bringing into question how patrons can do their best to support scare actors. “I think the most frustrating thing is when patrons assume our job by hiding and scaring their friends,” Brownlee states this saying it messes with actors’ rhythm. Moran agrees with this, elaborating that customers have even tried to scare him on the job. “Please don’t scream in my ear, I don’t scream in yours. Monsters are people too!”
Brownlee further mentions the importance of patron-to-patron boundaries. “I’ve seen so many parents dragging their kids into our spaces clearly overwhelmed.” While this can be a common experience, Moran mentions the opposite and much more hopeful scenario, “Seeing a kid discover the joys of Halloween for the first time meeting the creatures of a haunted house; creatures that aren’t cast for archetypes–frankly, the most accepting casting space of every shape and size of person–is so exciting.”
While this community is at the forefront during October, Moran made sure to share that atmospheric acting happens all year; support your local theatre troupe! We can get a scare and a laugh at any point in the year, and most of all, support our scare acting community.
