Haunted Houses

An offshoot of human darkness

Haunted House

It’s that time of year, where everyone turns their attention to spooky things. It is one of those things that suddenly inspires questions about what sort of things do I like to do for Halloween, with assumptions preinstalled.

“Athena, since you don’t feel fear, you must really like haunted house attractions, especially the extreme ones.”

Or:

“Athena, do haunted house employees get frustrated with you because you don’t get scared?”

For whatever reason, I get a bunch of these sorts of questions frequently around this time of year, and I am going to write a post addressing why I don’t prefer haunted house attractions, at all, and it isn’t what you think. It isn’t due to them being boring due to lack of fear.

To start with, I have worked on a haunted house in the past. I helped build it, and helped run it. I thought it was pretty cool. If I did one again, I would want to do a, “The Frighteners”, room. I think it would be pretty cool to get rubber sheets that are made to look like walls and have this effect:

for the passers-by. If you haven’t seen The Frighteners, I suggest it. It’s a fun film.

Anyway, back to the whole, why I don’t like going to them. Some of them are creative, and can be fun, but there is truth to the second question that I get a lot. Do employees get frustrated when the participant isn’t afraid. Not only do they get frustrated, they can get sadistic in the extreme ones. In this post, we will deal with McKamey Manor, as it is one of the more famous extreme ones that in the long run, is basically defunct.

You can find copies of the waiver online. Many lawyers have said that they would shred it in court, and it certainly isn’t legal to waive away physical assault.

Here is my issue with attractions like this. They encourage the darkest parts of the human soul. Not only in trying to figure out what will terrify people, but also because it allows for going deeper and deeper into the fantasies that people don’t often indulge in.

I get people want to be scared. They like the adrenaline rush that it brings them, and there is an anesthetizing effect over time. You get used to the basic, person jumping out at you, or chasing you with a chainsaw, so you will seek out more and more extreme experiences. That is how these aggressive haunted houses are born. McKamey Manor is just one of many, however it is one that has a very negative reputation. That reputation was justified when the waiver leaked:

Most of these things, you cannot sign away permission for. It is still assault. Let me ask you this. What sort of minds or mind is coming up with the situations that this waiver is meant to cover? Likely not one that you should reasonably be turning your safety and wellbeing over to. There are some people that can keep themselves under control when they have someone’s entire being at their disposal, but that is a far more rare individual. Most will quickly slide down the slippery slope of evil when they are granted this kind of control.

Really, what these haunted house attractions are, is not some sort of spooky creaking floor, dark hallways, and a person that you can barely make out in the distance, but they don’t respond to you, so you follow thinking that’s the way out. This isn’t experiencing the fear of the unknown, such as the possibility of ghosts and their effect on our realm. No. This is gambling with the darkness in the human soul and hoping that you come out of it okay. Chances are, you won’t.

You are volunteering to be tortured, and while some people are drawn to that, what I can say from my experience with true sadists, these are not people that I am interested in having control over me. It’s not a logical bet, and it isn’t one that I want to participate in. The evolution of this particular manner is, to me, evidence of the descent into places that most humans are not prepared for. What I mean by that is, you need to know what you are capable of, and after finding that out, being very clear with yourself what limitations you will inflict on your darkness.

Nearly no one does this. They might do the first part, finding out what they are capable of, but they stop before the second part. Often, darkness is tantalizing. It’s interesting, and it invokes various emotions that people like to feel. You can, of course, see this in those that pretend to be psychopathic, because to them, it makes them powerful. This is the same function in people that don’t want to be psychopaths, necessarily, but they do enjoy feeling different from the norm. When things are novel, they tend to be played with more, and now we get back to that anesthetizing effect. That same thrill obtained at the first exploration into darkness doesn’t feel as strong, and there will have to be more next time.

Do you think the people that you are handing your literal life over to have the control necessary over their darkness to have you walking away mostly unscathed? Probably not. Let’s add into the mix, someone that is immune to their attempts of terror. It doesn’t make them want to give up, it makes them try harder. It becomes a game of ego for them, and the chance that I end up unscathed physically is about zero. When someone lacks the response that they are looking for, they will double down on their efforts, often getting lost in the emotions that they experience at that moment.

It is a minor example, but a long time ago I was at an amusement park for their Halloween special days, and I found out quickly how lack of a startle response and generally not caring about the zombie, the scary clown, or the chainsaw guy, ended up with a large group of them following me and the people I was with, trying to get the proper response from me.

Now, while the target was me, that didn’t mean that the people I was with were immune to fear, and in fact one of them had a severe fear of clowns. Having one walking literally on our heels doing their damnedest to get a response from one person of the group did not exactly help. She was going for exposure therapy by going to the attraction. Instead of mild immersion helping, it reinforced her fear. The rest of the group were also scared, but the performers had one goal in mind, and that was compliance with the desired outcome.

I was walking in front of everyone, and the zombie was right next to me, being obnoxious (these performers were not allowed to touch the guests) and finally I rolled my eyes at him, turned around facing the rest of the group of performers stopping everyone from walking forward, and I screamed. Loud and long, horror movie style, all while staring at the actors. When I stopped, I said, “There, are you happy now? Go the f*ck away.”

They were still and silent for a second, and then starting with chainsaw guy, who had been revving that thing like he was a three-year-old with a new noisy toy, they started to walk away, chainsaw finally quiet. They kept going, passing by many guests that they would have had better luck with, and apparently missed some of them shying away as they walked past. The people in my group were surprised by the scream, but thankful for the result. It seems that word spread, because we were left alone for the rest of the night.

Would that have worked at one of these houses, where they are allowed to touch the guests? No. Not at all. It would have made things exponentially worse, and there is a good possibility that I would have been gravely injured. I can hear some of you saying, “They give you a safe word.” Sure, they do, but at McKamey Manor, that safe word was ignored for some participants for hours, and this is my point. You aren’t going to be scared by the possible unseen horrors in the world. You are going to be scared by the potential of your fellow man to do you extreme harm because they get off on it.

I don’t know about you, but I know enough about human darkness, that I do not need to place my fate or my physical form in the hands of those that absolutely cannot be trusted with it. Take this warning however you will, just understand, playing with the darkness of a stranger, doesn’t usually work out too well.

So, this month I will be doing some more of the human darkness posts, because it is the right season for it. When the more merry holidays roll around, I will try to do some posts that explore human goodness. You may also see some posts that you have already read get sent out randomly. This is so those that are new here might be alerted to some of the past posts that may answer questions for them, or simply be interesting.

Someone asked me in the comments section what it is about Silent Hill that I like, and while I would enjoy writing a post about that, it would be riddled with hardcore spoilers about the game. However, I will say this, it is an excellent venture into psychology and human emotion. I wouldn’t play a game that didn’t have such things, as the scary parts mean nothing to me.

If you are looking for something spooky and exceptionally well written this October, I can recommend the remake. It, so far, is excellent. If you are new to the series, you do not have to have any experience with Silent Hill at all to play number two. The first and third games are indelibly tied, to understand the third, you need to understand the sequence of events in the first. Not true with the second one.

Also, the second one is considered the best written out of the series, however, I disagree with that. The first is the best, but the gameplay is so unbelievably clunky that playing it is an exercise in frustration. The writing, however, is unreal. Team Silent, which was the original development team at Konami, really delivered. It isn’t the same psychological ride that the second one is, but the amount of time and effort creating Silent Hill as an entity is best presented there. Anyway, if you are a gamer, and like scary games, play it. You won’t regret it.

Also also, if you want to learn more about McKamey Manor, there is a documentary on Hulu. It’s called, Monster Inside: America's Most Extreme Haunted House. I didn’t dealve too deeply into the controversies surrounding it, so if that sort of thing interests you, I shouldn’t have spoiled it too much.

Edit: I am in the middle of watching this documentary, and I have to give a warning. If you are disturbed by graphic content involving fears like waterboarding, tight spaces, abuse, etc, I am suggesting you skip this film. There are no recreations, all of the footage that they show is real, the emotions are real, the fear is real, and a good deal of it would qualify as disgusting.