A Halloween Story
Mayumi Izumi (she/her) // Contributor
Cameron Skorulski (he/him) // Production Manager
Rachel Lu (she/her) // Crew Illustrator
Andy Poystila (he/him) // Art Director
Rory Ketting-Olivier was five years old when he first visited a haunted house. He recalls the ticket booth attendant asking him if he was sure that he wanted to go inside, and his mom pointing out to him that the attraction was rated 13 plus. He said that he was sure, but admits to being horrified afterwards. He says that the only things to really freak him out now are obnoxious air cannons. Now at the age of 21, he has been living his dream of owning an animatronics company, Canadian Fear.
Ketting-Olivier was born in Surrey to a Canadian mom and Dutch, Indonesian and French dad. He grew up in Abbotsford (or Abby, as affectionately called by its residents) and went to the Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts from kindergarten until the end of high school. This is where he learned about different creative avenues and became involved in theatre. He recalls that his favourite was playing Miss Trunchbull from Matilda in senior year, on which he comments, “I really learned how to master certain vocal techniques in that endeavour.”
His education in theatre led him to do voiceover work and audio for attractions remotely; now, his voice can be heard all over the world. He was asked to work on a project for the film industry over the Labour Day weekend in the same 24 hours that the Courier had asked to feature him.
Ketting-Olivier’s fascination with ghoulish creatures started when he was three years old and begged his mom to buy him a witch spirit ball. He was born into the first generation that grew up on YouTube, so his fascination only grew with the things he’d find online, prompting him to Google search animatronics. It was through those searches that he discovered haunted houses. From there, his parents helped him open his first haunted house around 2008 and the only visitors were his classmates. Ketting-Olivier created Creepstone Haunted House free for all to see, when he joined forces with his friend, Michael Davey and his dad, Kevin Davey who already had experience with their own Halloween attraction.
From ages 16 to 20, he had the opportunity to work for Drew Avinger, one of the main designers at Gemmy Industries, who also designed the witch spirit ball. Ketting-Olivier was also fortunate to work with the voice actor and the packaging designer of the witch that he got when he was three, which he looks back on as a full circle moment.
Ketting-Olivier has an estimated total of 200 animatronics. When he could no longer fit them at Creepstone, he rented out four different storage lockers just to store them. When asked how many pieces he has in his entire collection, he answered, “10 commercial grade animatronics, at least 50 heads, small props, probably 150 small collectibles, decorations, 30 retail market Halloween animatronics, 20 masks and costumes and then boxes upon boxes of lights, sound equipment, fabrics, miscellaneous stuff.”
One of his favourite animatronics is the Krazy Kristen—a popular red-haired, green-eyed animatronic that thrashes around in a straitjacket—that he first saw in 2009 on ‘How It’s Made.’ He purchased the 2013 version of Kristen—which currently finds a home in one of his storage lockers—from the North Vancouver store, Thomas FX when he was in middle school. But, his absolute favourite is the Pumpkin King that was originally at Potter’s House of Horrors in Surrey. He stands 17 feet high, weighs over 1000 pounds and his limbs have a lot of different movements. After many visits to Potter’s (now named Cougar Creek’s House of Horrors) Ketting-Olivier was finally allowed to purchase it last year. The Pumpkin King was the animatronic that started it all. He has been restoring the King’s head because the latex had melted.
Ketting-Olivier has many projects on the go, one of them is networking with other animatronic collectors at conventions all over the world, renting out pieces from his scary collection to raise funds to operate Creepstone all-year-round instead of just on Halloween and selected dates throughout October. He started travelling the world at the age of 16 and it was then that he started working with factories in China and designing and developing products for retail. Ketting-Olivier recounts that because they had to keep costs low, the pieces were mass produced and therefore the work lost artistic integrity. As a result, he lost interest.
He turned his attention to his haunted house and invested all of his time, money and heart into it. This is when he started going to tradeshows in the U.S. One of the biggest is TransWorld’s Halloween & Attractions Show in St. Louis, Missouri. Everyone in the haunted house industry attends this annual event. Ketting-Olivier goes to visit his friends that he has had since he was 10 years old and is able to hang out with them two or three times a year.
He credits his friends from the industry as being the biggest wealths of knowledge in the industry: Brandon Fuges and Max Mastropierro from Screamfitters, Shane Kenyon from Traumatic Studios, Christopher Pater from Valley Vacuform, Jacob Williams from Don Walker Productions, Aidan P. “Macabre Middleman” Finnegan and Donald “Propguru” Dean. Finnegan and Ketting-Olivier have appeared together on an episode of a podcast called JustHauntedHouseThings. His network of industry friends learn and teach other tricks of the trade; Ketting-Olivier learned how to sculpt and make moulds at Williams’ shop in Wisconsin. Lately, he’s been hard at work with his friends—Matthew Hutchings and Anthony Priest—on day-to-day projects restoring animatronics.
Two years ago, he went to Salem to speak with Tim Dunne—the owner of Fright Kingdom, a haunted house in New Hampshire—because Ketting-Olivier wanted to purchase a piece from him and had messaged him on Facebook. Dunne did not know what he looked like. While Ketting-Olivier was getting ready to get back on the bus to return to his hotel and 400 people were going through the haunted house tour, industry legends including Dunne were standing outside in a huddle. Ben Armstrong, from Netherworld Haunted House in Georgia, told him that Ketting-Olivier wanted to buy his quagmire piece. All of a sudden, Dunne recognized him and called out, “Rory!”
On the same Legendary Haunt Tour in Salem, Massachusetts 2023, Ketting-Olivier had the cameras from Spooky Kisses TV surrounding him to interview him for their show. Most would be nervous in this situation, and although Rory was taken completely by surprise, his theatre background helped him with good public speaking skills.
Ketting-Olivier was determined from a very young age, took smaller steps to reach his bigger goals and continued to focus on his passions. He succeeded in making his dreams of owning a haunted house, curating a collection of animatronics, designing them and doing voiceover work for Halloween attractions around the world come true. Now, he is working on having Creepstone to be a professional Halloween attraction open every day of the year.
“Year round I’m working on turning the vision into a reality. I travel the world going to conventions for the haunt industry. I get private tours of very well respected establishments. Networking with the best our industry has to offer.”
Keep up with Rory Ketting-Olivier and his endeavours on Instagram @canadianfear.