Haunted houses a BOOming industry

At Kennywood, Halloween begins in January.

For months, the staff prepares for the amusement… At Kennywood, Halloween begins in January.

For months, the staff prepares for the amusement park’s annual Halloween event, all in hopes to elicit screams of terror from its guests.

Kennywood, an amusement park in West Mifflin, is just one of several attractions in the Pittsburgh area that thrive off the multi-million-dollar industry of frights that comes with every Halloween. It offers Phantom Fright Nights, which has added a spooky element to the park for the past 10 years.

To get ready for the event, Director of Ride Operations Marie Ruby heads a committee tasked with brainstorming scare attractions to fit its budget.

Kennywood employs 300 people to walk around the park dressed up as monsters, vampires, ghosts and pirates, frightening guests who tour haunted buildings and ride roller coasters. The park even changes every one of its light bulbs to an electric orange or an eerie green for added effect. These changes contribute to a boost in business during October.

“Fright Nights are extremely successful,” Jeff Filicko, the public relations manager at Kennywood, said.

Many college and high school students attend Fright Night, said Chris Pope, makeup artist and head of special effects. The park has special nights allotted for students to get half-off tickets.

Kennywood’s “haunts” — a term used in the industry for the Halloween attractions — include Voodoo Bayou, Dark Shadow Maze, Haunted Noah’s Ark, Mortem Manor and Kennyville Cemetery.

A biotech genetic laboratory is a new addition to the number of spooky sites for Kennywood visitors. Construction finished in September for the laboratory, where an experiment has supposedly gone wrong and resulted in a mass disease outbreak.

“Kennywood wanted an industrial theme. I always liked ‘Resident Evil,’ so I wanted to do something with an outbreak,” Steve Hickman, the designer of Biofear, said.

Guests walk to the entrance of the attraction where a soldier shoots at an unknown target and briefs them about the lab. From then on, guests run into escaped mutations and containment crews.

Kennywood isn’t the only option — a haunted house in Bethel Park offers another option for those looking for a good scare.

Pittsburgh’s largest haunted attraction is Hundred Acres Manor, a charity haunted house that, like Kennywood, offers a variety of haunts.

The haunted attraction is completely volunteer-based and donates its proceeds to the Homeless Children’s Education Fund and Animal Friends.

Hundred Acres Manor’s haunts include Massacre Mansion, South Valley Hospital, The Family, The Maze and Fearscapes Factory. Each of the haunts can take more than 45 minutes to complete. But for those who scare easily, there are exits placed throughout for an escape.

“Each of those haunts have different goals in mind,” Ethan Turon, the special effects director and operations manager, said. “For those folk that are into gore, hack them up, The Hospital is for them. If you’re into the creepy ‘Hills Have Eyes’-style, middle-of-nowhere, almost-hillbilly-but-not-really, The Family is for you. If you’re into getting lost and being confused, The Maze is one of our huge hits, and we do it every year.”

And business has been booming for Hundred Acres Manor. It brings back repeat customers and guests from as far as Florida.

“On a weekend, [we have] well over 3,000 individuals that will come through on weekend night. Every year, our attendance does go up,” Turon said.

Hundred Acres Manor starts preparing for the next year of scaring starting in November, a month after the last person escapes the haunted house.

Each year, the attraction’s organizers change around the haunts and makes new themes. Fearscapes — a factory-themed haunt — was a clown house last year, but it’s an industrial factory this year.

Much of the work is done on site. Construction goes on throughout the year, and Turon works every day to improve different aspects of the haunts, including painting, building and web management.

To save money, some of the material that Hundred Acres Manor gets for costumes and props are obtained through thrift stores. One of its sets uses real food encased in lacquer and painted over.

“The hospital is probably the most difficult area to design,” Turon said. “Well, conceptually, it’s very easy to design. When you walk into the hospital, you have reception, observation, brain surgery, plastic surgery, the boiler room, operating room, the morgue, the body-bag room. That makes sense as a hospital. But go out to a hospital and say, ‘Oh by the way, I’d like your EKG machine,’ it’s not exactly easy things to obtain like we can on Craiglist or thrift stores.”

As to why people go to haunted houses and why there are so many good ones in Pennsylvania, Turon thinks that it’s because of the adrenaline rush people get and because of a widespread love for the horror industry. Halloween is heavily celebrated, especially in the northeast, Turon said.

“We’re the crazies on this side of the state,” he said.

Certainly, patrons can be scared without the real danger. Turon and his staff just don’t want the guests to know that until they’ve finished it. When you open the door to the black-light-lit parlor room of the haunted house, the year-round staff ensures that its patrons get their money’s worth.

“It’s a mind-bending experience, and we’ll scare the hell outta ya,” Turon said.