Nopeville Green Room - Haunted Houses

Welcome to another installation of our Nopeville Greenroom series where we have a casual conversation about a spooky topic. Today, we are discussing Haunted Houses, and no, not the kind for paranormal investigators, but the commerical ones like Halloween Horror Nights, household haunts, and extreme haunts like McKamey Manor.


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Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Down this road is a small city. One's thriving and full of life,
but now desolate and abandoned. Well, abandons say for the horror's rumored to
reside with it, which I presumeis why you're here now. There's nothing
wrong with a little morbid curiosity,but please remember to stay close to your
guides. We wouldn't want anyone toget left behind. Now. Hello,

(00:42):
and we're back here in the greenroom waiting for another tour to come up.
But we're excited about this one.We're talking about haunted houses. It's
one of our favorite things. Yeah, from the trailers we used to go
into when we were in middle schoolin high school to Halloween horrne. I
thought we've made an annual tradition,which is so fun. But before we
continue, in case you don't knowwho we are, we are your tour

(01:04):
guides of Nopeville. I'm Christine,I'm Jen. So our green room segments
are when we just have a littleconversation about spooky things that interest us.
Yeah, the kinds of things thatwe can't make traditional tours out of.
Although this one's probably a little closerthan our previous green room topics. So
Halloween Horrorites is near and dear toour hearts, especially in recent years,

(01:25):
because my mom took me to Orlandofor a graduation president back in twenty fourteen,
and we did Halloween Horrorites as partof our day pass for Universal that
day. So it was a longday. So I don't actually remember a
whole lot of what we did.I remember absolutely loving it. That is
rough, yes, yeah, thatis rough. Having to do the park
and then doing Halloween hornonydes right after. Yeah, and we probably got there

(01:49):
in the morning, like we do. Halloween Hornites itself is rough. Yeah,
well, because it's what six hoursseven to two? Yeah, it's
about seven hours, yeah, yeah, and then we usually get early access,
so I'll see what earlier. Yeah, but then going there early in
the morning to go to the actualpark on top of it is even earlier,
but it's open till two am.Yeah, we definitely did not do
that. I don't remember how latewe stayed, but we did one of

(02:12):
the houses, I think it wasthe Halloween one before we did anything,
and then there was one called RoanokeCannamel Colony, which was probably really gross,
and I know the one we waitedthe longest for was The Walking Dead
and my mom was over it beforewe even got in there. And I
don't remember doing any of the otherones. But what stuck out to me
was one of the scare zones wasPurge related, and because I'd seen the

(02:34):
movies, I wanted nothing to dowith that area. But that's where we
spent a lot of our time.Is that just where all the houses happened
to me, It's where we gotdinner, and it was like by the
entrance for I think the Walking Deadexperience and everything like that. But I
just remember the costumes being so cool. And I'm a chicken shit when it
comes to hunted houses. So theones on the side of the road where
they just send your group of peoplein and there's nobody, no buffer around

(02:58):
you, is terrifying. Mm hmm, especially with the kinds of friends I
had where they'd abandoned me and Iwas alone in the haunted house. So
that's no fun. I never abandonedyou. Yes, my childhood friend definitely
did, at least on one occasion. I still haven't forgiven her for it.
If you can tell I see that, it's like, you know,

(03:19):
twenty years later, m h Ipunched her at the end. Oh jeez,
I'm glad I never got you soupset that you wanted to get physically
aggressive with me that I would everphysically assault you. It was more like
I had my hand out in frontof me as I was running out of
the house, and I got herin the shoulder. I didn't like walk
out and like deck her. Oh, but it would have been warranted.
I mean, because we'd made friendswith this mom and son ahead of us,

(03:44):
and we're like, can we gowith you? And then both of
my friends left me alone for thefirst part of it, and then one
of them finally came and joined me. But remembering how much I enjoyed Halloween
horn nights with my mom despite thelong hours, I wanted to expose you
to it. Yes, and Ihad never done one before. I never
even thought about doing it, because, like you, I'm a chicken shit
when it comes to scary things.You know, surprise, surprise, I

(04:06):
have a scary podcast, right exactly. That's because we have a deep fondness
in love for it. But also, yeah, I mean a respect legit.
We watched Evil Dead Rises yesterday andI couldn't sleep. It felt like
I had a Red Bull right whenI lay down and you had sleep paralysis.
Yeah, I had a sleep paralysisnightmare within a nightmare. It was
awful. It was the worst thingever. Yeah. But I think you

(04:29):
took me to Universal for my birthdaybecause always wanted to go to Harry potter
Land here here in Hollywood, andit happened to be October or September or
something like that, and you're like, we should totally do Halloween horn Nights.
And I was so scared. Andluckily they had the Walking Dead,
just the AMC attraction that was justa run of the mill, year round

(04:50):
thing. It wasn't part of Halloweenhorn Nits. It was just part of
Universal. And we went through itand I survived, and I thought it
was really fun, like they'd runand rush through that. And then you
convinced me to do Halloween horn Nightsbecause you're like, if you're good with
that, you'd be good with HalloweenHorrnits. I was like, well I
can do that. Yeah. I'mlike it's basically that, but on a
much larger scale. Yeah, Sowe did it. We debated adding on

(05:15):
that day, but it was justwe tried to They said it was sold
out. Right. Yeah, itwas one of those two things. Either
it cost too much at the time, we were like, I can't really
justify that right now. Plus wewere retired. Yeah. But yeah,
then the following year, twenty eighteen, I believe, No, we did
it that year. Did we dothat year? We did it that same
year. We just didn't do itthat day. Oh okay, yeah,
WELLI the way of the first yearwe went together was twenty eighteen, yeah,

(05:35):
because that was the year Trick orTreat was there, and I made
you watch the movie first because thatwas a year that I went to Universal.
I had never gone to Universal inmy life hmm up until that year.
And I went three times within twomonths because you took me, my
sister took me, and then wewent back for Halloween horn nights, right,
So it was that it is thatsame year, Like we decided not

(05:57):
to go that same night, butwe decided to go to Halloween hohrn,
Nit's like maybe weeks later. Yeah, and then we just got energy drinks
for the road and ride home.Yeah. Yeah. And then you made
me watch Trigger Tree because there wasa Trigger Treat house that year, right,
yep, No, there was aPurge house and I think I'd already
made you watch Purge, Yes,but this one was the first Purge so
I hadn't seen that one yet.Yes, before we went to that house,

(06:17):
but I had seen some Purge movies. Yeah, I hadn't seen that
one either, because we watched thatfor the first time together. Yeah,
I think we watched it afterwards afterwe just had so much fun in that
house and we're like, we needto see what this movie is about.
It was so cool. It isone of the most and then the entire
time you were standing there, theyhad the screens advertising for the show.
Yeah I didn't. I mean,we'll talk about it, but I haven't

(06:39):
seen those in a couple of years. But still to this day, that
house is one of the ones thatsticks out in both of our memories.
We always talk about that experience whenyou're walking through and it was just timed
perfectly. The beauty about Universal Studiosis if you get the scare that's timed
perfectly, it is great, butif you're a little or a little late,

(07:00):
you just feels kind of lame.Yeah, the house could be absolutely
nothing. So that's how Stranger Thingswas for us this year for sure.
Yeah, Unfortunately we saw videos onit and how much stuff we apparently missed
because we were just in between thescares, which is a bummer. But
again, like she said, whenthe when the scares hit, right.
So in the first Purge one,there's this like convenience store or bank,

(07:26):
I don't remember which, but there'ssomebody holding somebody up, a woman and
she's screamed, you know, she'scrying out for help, asking you to
help her, and the person who'srobbing her slits her throat in front of
you. Yeah, and we gotsprayed. Yeah, and we both just
oh oh, because we had noidea that that was a thing. We

(07:47):
didn't think it was immersive that way. We're like, what, I was
just sprayed rhythm. But then wewent to the Trigger Treade House immediately after
that, and they animatronics of Samspitting, which definitely not a thing he
ever does. Weird, Yeah,he didn't do that in the movies.

(08:07):
So just there was I remember specificallythere was like a hallway where this there's
a Sam doll that was hanging fromthe ceiling and like spit down on you.
I was like, that's disgusting becauseI looked up so obviously it's like,
it's spit on my face. Butthat was just weird to me because
it wasn't just that one. Therewas at least one or two other instances

(08:28):
where Sam spit at you, andI was like, that's, yeah,
that's weird because he's already spooky enough, like he's the spirit of Halloween.
You break the rules and he's gonnado something. Yeah, And that was
I think even like the the adpremise that year was break the rules,
pay the price, and you know, all you have to do is have
like a tiny I mean, maybethey don't have enough short actors. Yeah

(08:52):
that could pop out at you.Yeah, maybe that's why are I don't
know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't understand why he was spitting,
other than the fact that that's oneof the things that's kind of goes
into why haunted houses are the waythey are, the immersion, like the
playing into all your senses. Sowhat's really cool about Halloween hornites is they
pipe in smells. There's different texturesof the little room diviner things. They've

(09:16):
got strings dangling in your face.Yeah, and it mimics spider webs or
just like weird, creepy Crawley thingsthat like you know what am I touching?
Right? Or they have like reallyrealistic fake intestines that are things that
also hang down that you have tomove out of the way. Who knows
if something is high over? Yeah? Are the hanging pigs? Yeah?

(09:37):
Who knows something that's hiding behind theselittle wall transitions And you just want to
get through those things as fast aspossible. But one thing I from this
year that stood out was there's amaze called Holidays in Hell, which has
easily become one of our favorites.It is a repeat one like when it
started yep in twenty nineteen as justscare zone. Yeah, and we had

(10:01):
a lot of fun going through that, and then in twenty twenty one,
oh wait, because it was closedduring COVID. In twenty eighteen was the
first year that it was a scarezone that you it was a forced scare
zone. You had to walk throughit, kind of like the toxic terror
tunnel that they used to have thatthey closed, which pumps me out.
It was twenty eighteen, but twentynineteen, I see on my little map

(10:22):
here, they was the first yearthey actually made it its own maize.
Yeah, And so we really enjoyedthe scare Zone a lot, and so
when they made it Amaze, wewere excited to go through right and and
they had it again this year.So what I don't know if it was
the same back in twenty nineteen,but specifically in the Easter Bunny room,
it smelled like hot and candy.Yeah, it smelled really nice in there,

(10:43):
which is jarring because you walk intothis room expecting something to happen and
there's like bloody bunnies and shit.Yeah it's like these Yeah, there's just
these eggs and the room was mostlyempty weirdly enough, But we have a
special connection with the since the phonebecause in the scar Zone, nobody wanted
to go through, so you don'thave the buffer that you normally do in

(11:05):
the haunted houses with people in frontof and behind you, so their attention
was fully focused on us. Plusit was just us. You bought these
little skull medallion things, not medallionsthere. They were big, heavy skull
lights, but they drew the attentionof at least the Easter Bunny was the
only one that acknowledged the things aroundher neck. Yeah, because he kind

(11:26):
of followed us a little bit andwe were like, no, leave us
alone, and he kind of pointedat the thing around my neck and I
was like I just shook my headand he sort of shrugged. I think
he almost hit Jen in the facewith his baseball bat too, So there's
you know that. Yeah, we'llnever forget about that either, because like
I can't I can't imagine the visibilityin those costumes. And yeah, if

(11:50):
they accidentally hit you with one oftheir props, you can't really fault them
for it, right, so unlessthey come at you and actually like bring
it down on the center of yourhead right and keep swing it in front
of you to kind of like jaryou a little bit, yeah, to
give you the impression of a threat. But yeah, I think since then
we've never had just like a personalexperience because like they just funnel you through

(12:13):
the houses and even going to thescare zones, it's usually pretty crowded,
but this one it was a forcedscare zone, like Christine said, but
people snaked their way around it bygoing around the stanchions, and we didn't
know that was an option. SoI think we were following this couple through
and we're like, Okay, we'lljust follow them and then they like at
the last minute diverted away from theentrance and we're like, what, you

(12:35):
can't go that way? What areyou doing? So we started going the
way you're supposed to go, andit turns out we were the only ones
going through this Holidays and hell scarezone. And you're just like, how
can you make holidays scary? Youknow, aside from the fact that you
have to spend holidays with your families. But and it was just so crazy,
like they have like creepy leprechauns.They had like a zombie Uncle Sam

(12:56):
for July fourth, they had thecreepy ease your money father time for New
Year's all their time. Yeah,and then like they had and again for
New Year's they had like Great Gatsby, like flapper girls with skulls on their
faces with skulls. Yeah. Andit was just so crazy. And so
when they made it a haunted house, we were so excited. That was
one of the first ones we hitthis year, and one of the first

(13:18):
ones we hit the first year thatit became a haunted house. And you
know, Christine got her moment whenthe Easter bunnies again. I think the
first year that it was a house. We originally were kind of like,
ah, I mean we did it. It was neat. Yeah, if
we hit it cool if not,whatever. I think it was one of
the last ones we did because thatwas the year that all the big ones
were not great, because that wasthe eighties year. Yeah, and it

(13:43):
was like so killer clowns from outerspace it was Ghostbusters were like, this
isn't scary, right, none ofthat. It was really don't get us
wrong. It was incredibly neat tolook at. It was beautiful. Everything
was super cool to look at.But yeah, and then the smell,
the smells and the clowns and thekiller clowns from out of space. There
was cotton candy, yeah, andit was it was just really fun to
go through. But it wasn't scary, Like it was the level of detail

(14:07):
and the costumes and the actors andstuff like that, Like it was great.
It just wasn't scary. Yeah,because the movie itself is campy,
which is nothing wrong with that,but again, yeah, it's not haunted
house fuel you know, it's notlike you're walking through and you're afraid.
Yeah, But I think we learnedwhen our first or second year that the
original ones that Universal puts on areactually sometimes better than the big name ones.

(14:31):
Yeah, that was the year becausethey had us, which we think
something was wrong with the house whenwe first went through, because it was
dark as shit. Yeah for agood part of it where you couldn't see
anything. There weren't very many actors, which a ken could have been because
it was poorly timed on our part. We weren't in the right spot at
the right time. But we wentthrough the Frankenstein's Monster and Wolfman one and

(14:54):
that was fucking amazing. And thatwas another one that had a moment yeah
that we will never forget. Yeah, where we're walking through this room where
on it's sort of like a laboratorytype room. One slab has Frankenstein's Monster
and then on the other slab isWolfman. They're both laying there motionless and
you're, you know, going througha HRD house. Yeah, one of
them's alive, one of them's real, so and you have to walk between

(15:18):
them. So Frankenstein leaps at Jenfirst, Yeah, and we're like,
oh shit, okay, that's theone, but no, Wolfman also was
alive, so he jumped out andit was just that double moment of like,
oh shit, we weren't expecting thatthose double whammy ones are great because
you're just like, Okay, Igot the scare in this room. There's
no way they're gonna do the otherone. They're gonna save that scare for

(15:39):
the people behind us. Nope.I remember that there was a one year
there was one of the Halloween houseswhere at the beginning of the room,
you know, Michael Meyer jumps outat you mm hmm, and then on
the other side of the room it'sLaurie, right, and you're like,
oh, it's Laurie, Like she'sa good person. She's not. She's
the protagonist. Yeah, she's notgonna do anything, and so we're just,
you know, innostantly past her,and then she leaps at us with

(16:02):
her knife, like you're not supposedto do that. But it was in
the same room that we had justgotten a scare from Michael Myers mm hmm.
And I think that was another oneof those houses that has the mannequin
room where there's all these Michael Myersand you're like, fuck, one of
these is real, one of them, one of these, one of these
is real. Probably two of them. Yeah, there was at least two.
I think that we ran into thatactually jumped out. There's probably more

(16:25):
than that, and they just kindof like stagger themselves. But right,
speaking of some of the good,the big ones not being great. Remember
when we did the first Blumhouse onefor Unfriended and I forget what the other
Yeah, I forget what the othermovie was, Truth Dare. Oh that's
what it was, an Unfriended.I'm sorry if you like that movie,
it's not good. That movie sucked. So the thing we've noticed about Blumhouse
is it either sucks or it's great. There's no in between with Blumhouse.

(16:48):
Mhm. It could go either waywhere like it's a really good movie that
we really enjoyed, or just ashooty movie like Unfriended. Right, Yeah,
the House was a mix of Truthor Dare and Unfriended, And I
think the only reason why I kindof enjoyed it was because we had just
watched Unfriended, so we kind ofknew what the kills were and so we
appreciated the reenactment of the kills,which is probably the only good thing about

(17:10):
that movie is seeing everybody die.Well, yeah, because they're creative,
but let's be real, nobody likestalking on Skype. Yes, nobody likes
talking on Skype. And to watchan entire movie as if you're in a
Skype call, yeah sucks. ButPoltergeist I remember being there that same year,
I think, yeah, yeah,the both of these were the first

(17:30):
year we were there and then whichagain was great, but I don't remember
being scary. Yeah, nothing stoodout really Yeah, and Ghostbusters was like
really nostalgic. I liked the slimer, but all the slimmers were animatronics.
Yeah. Well, and the visualsin that house were amazing where it looks
like they're using the actual like raysand stuff like that was actually really neat.
Yeah, but again not scary.But that year I think was that

(17:52):
year with Pandora's Box. Yes,so I remember we saved that for last
because we were like, I haveno idea what this is. It's an
original one. We saved that formore than ones and ended up being one
of our favorite ones. Were likethat one was great, and I think
it's just because we had really goodtiming with the scares yep. So that
worked out really well. Yeah,that was the exact year that the only
houses that really like blew us awaywere the offbeat universal original Haunted Houses.

(18:15):
So that was yeah, Holidays inHell when it first became a house Pandora's
Box and Frankenstein meets the wolf Man. Yeah. I think that was when
we stopped doing the Walking Dead becausethe year before we were like, let's
see if it's different for Halloween HoraNight's and it was exactly the same,
So we didn't have to do thatanymore. Yeah. I thought maybe they
would add in more zombies, rightor something, but no, it was

(18:37):
just the exact same walkthrough. Yep. Well that's a waste of time.
I could have done another house.I think twenty twenty one was the last
year that it was there, right, I think so, But we just
skipped it completely, Yeah, becauseI think last year that spot was the
hotel one. It was. Thatwas good. I liked it. I
liked the story behind it. Yeah, like in the entire time you're in
line, you're getting bits and piecesof it, which was a lot of

(19:00):
fun. Yeah, which okay,So in terms of stories, the storyline
of the houses. I was watchinga documentary called the Art of Scare and
it had the creative director of HalloweenHoronites talking about it. And talking about
like the storyline and how like areally good haunted house it has like a
good story to follow, and notonly for the patrons but for the actors,

(19:22):
because the actors have to like improvand if they have like kind of
like a loose script to follow,like what's my lead? You know what
kind of character am I playing?What are my motivations? Yeah, they
can get more into character and likemake up their own improv lines and stuff.
And I'm this whole time, I'mjust thinking, I don't know what
the stories are, no, becauseI am too scared, yeah to pay

(19:42):
attention. Yeah, I'm just waitingfor the next thing to pop out on
me from around the corner. Yeah, nine times out of ten, I
don't either. So I'm sorry thatI'm not paying attention to your story.
But I'm sure there's a great storythere. But I'm definitely appreciating all of
your sets in that I can whereI'm trying just stay close to the people
in front of us. Yes,but yeah, on that same note,

(20:04):
I had actually read something myself thatwas kind of similar, where like when
a haunted house has a story,they if the story is too complicated,
people aren't going to understand what's happening. There was an example that was given
of there was one house that wasmade where the patrons are sort of in
the middle of this war between goodand evil, and at the end you're

(20:26):
kind of choosing a side, butnobody had any idea what they were doing
by the end of it, Soit's sort of like you have to have
just enough for there to be likecohesion to what's going on inside of the
house that people are walking through,which I think works to Universal's benefit of
using things that already exist, soyou know, stranger things you're going seen

(20:48):
by scene by scene through what happenedin the last season, and a lot
of the movies again seen by sceneby scene through whatever happened in the movie.
And then another thing that was kindof part of that is a lot
of haunted houses will go really hardat the beginning with the scares, and
really hard again at the end,and then in the middle they kind of
give you a little bit of abreak, which is interesting, but they
want to get you kind of campedup ready, like oh shit, yeah,

(21:10):
which I've I noticed in at leastone of the houses that we went
into this year. I can't rememberwhich one it was? Now last of
us? Was it last of us? There was one that something got me
real good and everything I remember Lastof Us. The last couple rooms,
it was just clicker after clicker afterclicker. It was like the last third
of the maze right where it wasjust every corner you're just getting hit by

(21:32):
a clicker on either side, whichwas great because like you leave the maze
feeling that adrenaline rush of I justescaped and the adrenaline hit Yeah. Yeah,
but I like when that happens.That was another thing I researched of
what it is that draws people intohaunted houses in the first place, And
one of the main things is thissense of accomplishment quote unquote, you know,

(21:52):
I survived the thing, Yeah,and that makes people feel really good.
Yeah, so of course all ofour good problem. Yeah, And
to that same point, I readthe same thing where people can't control a
whole lot of things in their dailylife, and that haunted houses are a
form of escape, and that senseof accomplishment is that, hey, I

(22:15):
conquered something like I may not beable to conquer a whole lot in my
real life, but I survived thisthing. This one thing I'm good at.
And there was a sociologist talking inthat documentary I mentioned earlier where she
mentioned that a lot of the hauntedhouses had the highest attendance rates during the
Great Recession during nine to eleven.A lot of these big social turmoil things

(22:38):
that are happening in real life iskind of when people were looking for that
escape. And that's kind of likewhen these haunted houses, like not Scary
Farm Halloween Horrnites, when they allstarted booming and then COVID hit and fucked
it all, Yes, because youcouldn't escape. And now we're noticing the
Halloween Hornites is more busy than itwas before the pandemic, right because people
are like, yes, I couldfinally go, oh, I don't have

(23:00):
to wear a mask. Yeah,in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and
even a little bit into twenty twentyone when it came back, we were
able to hit all the houses withouthaving an express pass, without without skipping
any of them, minus you know, the Walking Dead one, because that
was just like a normal attraction.And then this year, oh yeah,
we go under the same expectation thathey, we don't have to get express

(23:23):
passed. We can hit all thehouses, and we missed three of them.
We didn't hit any of the scarezones because we were just in line
for all the other ones at thelower lot. The lower lot, yeah,
where there are no scare zones yep, yep, not this year,
at least like the at least beforethere was a toxic tunnel and the Holidays
in Hell one was down there.But I think they're just making more room

(23:44):
for the houses that there was noscare zones down there in this year,
and we just felt like we misseda lot. Yeah. So this is
also the first year we're going backbecause we never do that. Yes,
but it was definitely as far aslike the content of the stuff they have
this year, it feels worth it. So Also, I think part of
the reason why when it was firstcoming back it was easier to get to

(24:06):
stuff was because obviously, number one, they don't let as many people come
in. Yeah, a lot ofpeople don't want to wear a mask for
that many hours. Yeah, becauseit's hard to fucking breathe, especially when
you're walking. Yeah, and it'shot, because it's hot in September and
October still in southern California, right, so in twenty twenty one, they're
only six houses minus Walking Dead experience. Excluding that, there were only six
houses. Last year there were andwe're like eight, which again this year

(24:30):
there's eight. And then I thinkthe first year we went, we didn't
do the Tara Tram, did weNo, we did. We did the
Terarra Tram. Yeah, no wedidn't. We did the scaremony, but
we still did the Terror Tram.Okay, unless you're into being on like
camera and stuff, don't bother withthe opening scare of money by the way,
Yeah, you're not going to seeanything unless you're in the first row
and you have to get there superearly if you want to be in the
first row. Otherwise you're just goingthrough the first scare zone in a mob

(24:52):
of people. Yeah, you're justgetting shoved through all these actors and chainsaws
and usually fire. And it wasjust not I mean, it was kind
of cool because it was the Triggertreat ear, so like there was Yeah,
the people dressed up like that,but again it wasn't worth wasting the
time that we could have been goingthrough the Terror Tram and stuff like that.
Yeah, and speaking of the TerrorTram, we have a system where

(25:14):
we always try to hit the Tarratram first before the sun goes down,
because we feel like running through thedirt and stuff like that is not good
at night. But since we weregoing back this year, we're going to
see what it's like at night.So we's us lucky, assuming we have
time, but that is part ofthe plan, is that we will attempt
to do it in the dark.Which it's also the longest experience though too.

(25:37):
Like most of the houses are likemaybe three minutes long to get through,
maybe five if you're lucky, butthe Terror Tram is like closer to
ten minutes, because I mean maybea little more than that, maybe twenty
total with like the ride down tothe YEA cassettes and everything like that.
Yeah, and then you walk throughand then you drive back up to the
little ride area. But yeah,one thing we've never done was the photo
op at the Baits House the BaitsMotel. Yeah. I don't like photo

(26:02):
No one, it's really that importantto us. No, no, But
you haven't even seen the movie.I know a lot about it. You
do, You're welcome. We wenton a tour. But yeah, one
of the one of the things Iread as far as what makes sonned houses.
Most effective is, of course,it uses all of your senses,
filtering in the smells, getting splashedwith water, the strings tickling your face,

(26:26):
everything like that, flashing lights,loud noises which I actually read flashing
lights. The strope effects that theyhave in all the houses is partly designed
intentionally to disorient you a little bit, so you're not one hundred percent sure
what's going on around you. Makessense, which I thought was neat makes
sense. I feel that. Andthen and the fog, the fog machines
as well. Yep, Limiting yourvisibility in general is just like key to

(26:48):
keeping you on your little little toesi'sas you're walking through. And then when
I was in college, one ofmy classes was based around the psychology of
emotions, and I remember one ofthe things my professor had talked about was
the priming effect. So the primingeffect is exposure to certain stimuli and how
you respond to a subsequent prompt takesplace without you realizing the connection even exists.

(27:15):
So when you're presented with a listof words and someone says the word
doctor, if nurse is in thoselist of words, the first thing you're
going to point at is nurse orthe thing you're going to notice versus nurse.
Interesting, But the best example heever gave is relevant in that the
situation he illustrated was say you're goingto the movies and somebody behind you drops
their phone on the floor while you'rewatching the movie. Your response to that

(27:37):
sound is going to be vastly differentif you're watching a horror movie versus like
a romantic comedy, because you're probablyleap out of your skin. So I
think I would be scared if itwas a scary movie, and I would
be mad if it was a wrongcom exactly. God, why the fuck
are you too serious right now?Yeah, So going into haunted house as
you're expecting to be a fright andyou're expecting things to scare you, and

(28:02):
especially it becomes that much more heightened, I guess when you're walking through and
something did just scare you. Sowhat I was getting at earlier there was
a house I don't remember which oneit was. Something had startled me and
suddenly I was jumping at every attendantthat you see. Yeah, and that's
the first year I think that's happenedwell to that degree anyway, because normally,

(28:25):
like I might see one that like, oh shit, yeah, but
like every single one I turned,I was like, oh that was this
year, right it was. Ijust can't remember which of the houses,
if it was the Last of Usor if it was right after Steve scared
the shit out of me in StrangerThings, Steve of all people, I
think it was Stranger Things, butI kind of want to say that it

(28:47):
might have been Exorcist. It couldhave been Exorcist. That was good.
That one was good, especially becausethe one thing that's out for that movie
right now was the trailer. Yeah, that's all they have to go off
of. Yeah, and it reallydid justice that's insane. Yeah. Those
were good to that one. Yeah. So Halloween Hornites is just, you
know, one type of haunt,one type of scare, and there's also
not Scary Farm. There's the FrightDome in Vegas. Was that still around?

(29:11):
I don't know if it is,but I went there once. I
actually think it closed. I justwasn't impressed. Yeah, I wish I
could remember if i'd ever been,because the one time I went, I
had gone with a boyfriend who wasvisiting me at the time, and I
had to buy the tickets and wewere only there for like an hour because
I worked, So I don't rememberit being any kind of thing expensive to
only be there for an hour ortwo. Oh, it sucked. I

(29:33):
was very upset. But yeah,yeah, that kind of tainted my vision
of that. But I don't remembergoing any other time. I remember knowing
one of the creepy clowns. Iwent to college with them, that's wine.
It was one of my first dateswith my husband, my now husband,
and he was scared more than Iwas, and that's saying something.
His palms were super sweaty. Itwas just an excuse. The only reason

(29:55):
I pitched this idea for a datewas because I needed an excuse to hold
his hand, of course, Andturns out I was protecting him. He
was protecting me, which is whyhe doesn't go to Halloween Hornites with us
now, because he is not aHalloween Hornites type of person, and I
respect that. It's fine, it'snot for everybody, because we have each
other. Yeah, we protect eachother. Yeah, we quote unquote assumed

(30:17):
the position. We link arms andwe walk through rightside because those corridors are
just big enough for the two ofus to be side by side, like
you're not letting me go. You'renot getting in front, I'm not getting
him back, Like it's side byside we face the togarras together. Yep.
But yeah, so that's just onetype of haunt. The other types

(30:37):
of haunts there are home haunts whereyou just have people that have these these
mazes in their home, Like alot of them do it in their yards
or their driveways or in their garages. Yeah. We had one neighbor that
used to do it in their garage. Yeah, I remember, and like
they would you said that they wouldtake donations for charity, right, Yeah,
and for how tiny the area is, it was really well done.
Yeah. And I remember growing upsome of my childhood neighborhoods they would have

(31:03):
those things too, And it's greatlike seeing the amount of detail that goes
into these home haunts, and someof them get so big that there's like
lines wrapped around the block to gosee these things. And a lot of
them showed up in these documentaries Iwatched. So the documentaries I watched were
the Art of Scare, Nothing butHaunts and Epic Home Haunts. So these
were these came out in around liketwenty eighteen, twenty nineteen so I'm not

(31:25):
sure if a lot of these arestill around. But the level of detail
that these people go through, andit's completely out of their own pocket to
do these things, Like some peoplein the neighborhood will donate some materials,
they might donate some time to helpbuild these things, but the level of
detail that goes through it could belike universal level attention to what they do

(31:45):
because of the intense passion that theyhave for these And I would like to
do that one day, but Idon't know if my if my yard will
be enough. But that is thatwas like one of my seems to be
able to do my own home haunt, but it just takes so much time.
Like a lot of these home haunters, it's like a year round planning

(32:06):
project for them. And the payoffis for the four hours that are open
on Halloween, the joy of seeingpeople go through it. Yeah, I
mean you've definitely put that much thoughtand effort into like your yard. Yes,
so I could see you easily makingthis year long plan for something.
What's funny though, is in sowe moved into our house in twenty twenty
one, and we moved in inthe middle of October, but I had

(32:30):
had all of my Halloween decorations sanctionedoff to the side because I knew as
soon as we moved in those weregoing up. And I decorated my front
yard to maybe about thirty percent ofwhat I wanted it to be in the
limited amount of time. But Iwas the only one on my street that

(32:51):
decorated, and so many of myneighbors just came over to talk to me
as we were decorating. They're like, oh my god, you guys are
going all out. I'm like,this isn't all out, Like this is
all I have in the small timeframe that I have, Like I can
do more, and I want todo more, Like just you wait and
see, it's going to get bigger. It's going to get bigger. So
like in twenty one, in twentytwenty two, I added more stuff and

(33:12):
I got my twelve foot inferno skeletonthat I've named Flint Ignatius. And I
felt really bad because my neighbor acrossthe street, she has a three year
old and she said that he cansee it from his bedroom and so they
have to close the room at night. And I'm like, oh, I'm
sorry, but also not but Ihave a pumpkin stack, an eight foot
pumpkin stack that he loved. Heabsolutely loved you. I would see him

(33:34):
look through the window and he wouldcome over and say hi to the pumpkin
stack. And then last year,as I was putting it away, he
wanted to say bye to it.Anah, I wonder how he's gonna feel
with the teddy bear. I lovemy teddy Bear. I named him.
I have a zombie teddy bear thatI named Eddy Bear. Jen has to
name all her things. Yes,But what was funny is last year and

(33:55):
this year, people on my streetand people in the neighborhood started stepping up.
Right now is October first, andlike half of the houses down the
street are decorated with something nice andit's amazing. And I like to believe
that I started that because I'm justlike you guys gonna step it up.
Because what was funny is so myneighbor across the street has two kids,
the girl, the older. Theolder girl. She I was witnessing the

(34:16):
witnessing this. She told her mom, mom, we have to get more
decorations. When she was looking atour house, I'm like, yeah,
sorry, yeah, but their houselooks great. This year. It's super
cute. They have like a lotof inflatables. They have like a little
spider web going on, they havethings hanging from the tree. It's like
so much better. Like the firstyear I moved in, they had a
projector on the w on their garage. That was it and they they were

(34:39):
like so inspired by us. Andlike when I put up the Halloween decorations
and subsequently I did Christmas and theywere just so fascinated with it. So
ever since then, they've stepped uptheir game. People, and my neighborho
stept with their game and it's greatand I enjoyed that growing up. Yeah,
I mean, if nothing else,you're giving them a reason too,
because if the rest of your neighborhooddoesn't, there's a lot of people who

(35:00):
will just decide like, okay,well then what's the point of me doing
it? So even if they wantto, and they'll go to other neighborhoods,
right, But I've I've had multiplekids come up and be like,
you won the Spooky House of theYear award. I'm like, oh,
thank you. I don't know whatI want, but I appreciated their praise
and love. But yeah, Iaspire to be one of these home haunters,
but it's it's amazing just what theydo. And then you know,

(35:22):
on the other side of the cointhere's the extreme haunts. Right. So
between universal not scary farm the homehaunts, I think there's a sense of
safety in knowing that the actors can'ttouch you, nor can you touch them.
It's not even like I think likethat's one thousand percent a thing that
people, Yeah, have that senseof safety of I know I am safe

(35:44):
when I walk into this place,and then I will be okay when I
leave. So the extreme haunts,they kind of don't have that boundary where
the actors can touch you but youcan't touch them, right, And of
course you sign waivers for these thingsfor them to happen, and that's kind
of how they get around the likeof some things. Yeah, but not
my thing, not my cup oftea. So yeah, but we'll go

(36:06):
back to the extreme haunts. Butanother type of haunt that kind of bordering
on a haunt is the scary escaperooms. Okay, so I've only attended
one escape room myself, and itjust happened to be a zombie themed one
of course, and there was oneactor who was a zombie and for some
reason she scared all of us.We were like, wait, if she
touches you, are we dead?Like do we fail the escape room?

(36:27):
That was more our fear than anything. We were just trying to like get
around her because we felt like ifshe touched us, we would die and
we would then fail the escape room. But there are some of these other
horror ones where like you're legit goingthrough like a haunted house, but you
have to escape. It's not justyou walking through a maze like a Halloween
horror nightes. You have to figureout how to get from room to room

(36:49):
while you had this creepy like sodicalooking girl on the corner. I've seen,
and I don't know what they comefrom, but I've seen the ones
where there's like a chainsaw person chaseseeing somebody, and like the people will
get away by either like hiding ina potato sack or they legitimately like climb
up on the back of the door. And I've seen one video where somebody
actually like takes the chainshawunt runs offwith it. And I don't know if

(37:12):
that's an escape room thing or wherethose come from. Yeah, it might
just be like one of the Thereare so many different haunts throughout the country,
and you know, the world probablylike I'm i religious, bought tickets
to go to Halloween Horneites in Japan. Oh yeah, I was just thinking
Halloween's not as big in a lotof other parts of the world as it
is in our country. Yeah,But back to the extreme haunts. So

(37:34):
there's one that has a ton ofcontroversy surrounding it and it's still active to
this day. It started in theearly two thousands. It's Mcamie Manor.
It's actually started out here in southernCalifornia and San Diego out of this guy's
yard and you have to sign waiverswhere you know the actor is allowed to
touch you, and touching is areally mild term of what happens to you

(37:58):
in these things. So they werelegit showing scenes of it. In the
documentary. There's a YouTube where RussMcCamey posts the footage of the people who
go through these homes. Now'll gothrough these haunts and because you see him,
he is actually one of the onesthat has the camera in your face
and kind of goating the actors todo more to the patrons that are going

(38:21):
through the house and it's one personat a time. I think it originally
was like two to six hours.Now it's like eight to ten hours,
and you're just in this house andessentially there's no limits to what the actors
can do. There were scenes inthe documentary of him giving pep talks to

(38:42):
the actors, saying, you haveto be really good at improv. You
know, the grosser the better.If someone throws up, pick up their
puke and throw it back in theirmouth. It was I don't know.
He was saying, like, youcan't be squeamish. You have to be
able to do these things. Andthey were talking about there was one teenage
girl who was working there and shesaw it was either a teacher or a

(39:04):
neighbor come through. She didn't likethat this person was there. And Russ
and his wife have ten dogs atthis point, and there's like a giant
bin of dog poop in the backyard, so you know where this is going.
The teenage girl took it upon herselfto improv and was shoving this patron's
face in the dog poop, andthere's scenes of there were scenes of like

(39:28):
the actors like fish hooking, people'sfaces, they're tied up, they're literally
being waterboarded, they're dunking their headunderwater to the point of them passing out.
There you can be electrified. Therewas like scenes of people getting locked
in coffins, like Legit locked incoffins, and back when this documentary was

(39:49):
made, like or in the earlytwo thousands, he didn't have a safe
ward. A lot of the streamhaunts have safe words where if you really
can't handle it, you feel likeyou've gone to your wits end, there's
a say that they will honor andyou can go out. Yeah, he
Legit said that safe words are forthe week. You're just a pansy.
He was like, why would Ioffer a safe word? His whole thing
is a sadist's wet dream. Yes, I think now after all the controversy

(40:13):
he offers safe words. But Ihave seen that you can say the safe
word as much as you want itwon't be honored. Yeah, it's or
you have to at least wait hoursfor it to be honored. And he
there's people spitting in your face.I don't know. Yeah, this guy
really gets off on just people beingas debased and humiliated as they possibly can
be because I saw a video somewherethat I can't find anymore, so it

(40:36):
may have been taken down. Butthis person was talking about how the sort
of like application process now a quoteunquote to even be able to go to
Mcamie Manor is like you have todo certain things, certain quote star challenges
they're called where you're doing something tohumiliate yourself live for the people in this

(40:58):
private group to watch. And hedoes offer I guess, the opportunity to
just like record yourself doing whatever andnot having to be live. But it's
still video of you doing something thatmakes yourself less than human. Yeah,
because before it was just like hewouldn't make dog food. Well, so

(41:19):
I think that's still how he getsaway with it is that he doesn't take
money. He takes donations, soit's not a business like he just takes
donations. That's how we can getaround some of the legalities of what he
can do. And other than that, it's people are consenting to have these
things done, right the waivers.Yeah, But the thing is like,
even though you give your consent,your consent can be withdrawn. Yeah,
and in his house that's not athing. Yeah, you signed it.

(41:42):
Therefore you must go through it.And there's probably something in there that states
that you cannot withdraw your consent,So I'm sure he has that written into
his rules. And I also feellike that's why he moved the house to
a different state that probably has morelenient laws in terms of how consent is
defined, right, and what youcan do with consent. Yeah, because
being in California, I don't thinkthat would fly. No, but he

(42:04):
did move, like I think hewent to Tennessee. I heard that he
got kicked out in Tennessee and Iwas in Alabama. I don't know.
Maybe he has both locations, buthe's no longer in southern California, right,
And he said it's due to costof living mainly. But I heard
that he was having like he's nevergoing to say the real reason, tax
evasions and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, But originally there was like during the
documentary, there's seventeen thousand people onhis waitlist, and he would video interview

(42:30):
these people like skype call interview andbe like why do you want to go
through this house? What are yourfears? Things like that, and each
person had to be mentally and physicallyhealthy, so they had to go through
sports physicals, they had to havemental checkups and stuff, and so he
says that his extreme Haunt wasn't asbad as other ones because there's nothing sexual
in nature. There's no cursing,and because that hurts. Yeah, I

(42:52):
was like, there's more to torturethan that. But I mean, bravo
not having any sexual assault, butlike if that's it, But he was
saying that, like people don't gethurt, or at least they don't leave
with debilitating injuries, probably where somebodyhad a heart attack once going through.
Obviously nothing came of that, likeno legal action. But the I was

(43:16):
watching like some people being interviewed likesurvivors, and they were saying, like
one girl said that she legit passedout and came to passed out, came
to like she kept passing out,and she wanted because like he records everybody's
interaction or everybody's experience as kind oflike a cover your ass kind of a

(43:36):
thing where he can be like,nothing bad happened to you, but this
girl was she said that she wasn'tgoing to be given her footage of her
experience if she didn't leave a goodreview. Oh my god. So of
course she had to leave the goodreview, got her footage, and then
she noticed that a lot of theworst things that happened to her were cut
out of the footage. But obviouslyit's her word against his. Especially because

(43:58):
she left the good review, peoplewere going to be like, well,
you left this good review, youhad a great experience, and all of
a sudden you're turning back, likeyou consent to this thing. You left
a good review, and you're turningaround on what you said. I was
just saying, can't she delete it? But he probably screenshot her, has
his proofs of he must have orhe has it in a place that you
can't. Yeah. But like,in terms of sexual assault, there's another

(44:19):
extreme haunt called the Blackout Experiment wherethere's an area of simulated rape and sexual
assault. What the fuck? There'snaked people during this extreme haunt that are
like pressuring you to do things.I was recently reading a Yelp review about
it, and there was this girlwho left a review. This was back
in twenty fourteen. She left areview saying that she went on a date

(44:43):
with her husband to this experience.She went in at the same time with
this other couple who were on theirfirst date, and at some point in
time, the four of them weresplit up. It was just the guy
of the first date couple and thenher and her husband. They were continuously
shoved down on their knees, toldto do stuff, yell in their face,
and then there was a pitch blackroom and they were being yelled at
to spank this naked girl and theyjust thought it was an actor and they

(45:07):
were getting yelled at to do it, and they were saying they didn't want
to do that, and they saiddo it, and so they did it.
And then something happened where they realizedthat this girl was the girl that
was missing from the first date.And so she was like trying to apologize
to the girl, saying, youknow, I didn't know it was you,
and then the actors just kept yellingat them to keep going. And
then like at the end of it, she said that she was waiting for

(45:30):
them to come out so she couldapologize, but she never saw them,
and who knows, maybe they couldhave been a plant, right, maybe,
because why would that ever be yourfirst date? First of all?
Yeah, but she was like,this wasn't this isn't like a scary experience
when they're forcing you to perform anact of sexual assault on somebody? Right,
how is that scary? Yeah?I mean it is, but not

(45:51):
in the way that's fun, youknow what I mean. Yeah, So,
like it's terrifying to be forced intosituations you obviously don't want to be
forced into. Nobody likes to beforced into, say, situations, But
yeah, that that's not the pointof haunted houses. The point of haunted
houses is to have a good time, which I don't know, maybe that's
somebody's idea of a good time.It obviously is for the people who do

(46:13):
it, Yeah, by meaning theactors and the people who put it on,
is what I'm kind of getting at. I think for other people it's
more of like a challenge. Iknow McCamey, I don't know if he
still does, but he used tooffer a cash prize if you could make
it, and he never allows anybodyto make it. But in some people
just like the challenge of like,oh, well, of course I can
deal with eight hours of torture.It's fine, Yeah, for twenty K.

(46:35):
I don't think there's an amount ofmoney that I would be okay with
allowing such things in like both ofthese extreme haunts, like you know you're
bound, you're gagged, like there'sliterally saran wrap wrapped around your face,
like plastic bags, Like you're literallychoking to the brink of death and suffocation,
right, And I don't know,I feel like a lot of the

(46:58):
actors can get away and you don'tknow, one of them could snap when
in the middle of doing these things, and then all of a sudden,
the safety of yourself is no longerthere. See, And that's one of
the biggest differences between like the funhaunted houses and whatever you want to call
that, torture porn. Yeah.One of the articles I read there was
an owner of something called the HeadlessHorseman in New York, which is a

(47:20):
company that specializes in like halloween attractions. One of the scare acters for his
attraction said that there has to besomething at least a little off about you,
but not too off in the sensethat you would never actually inflict harm
on somebody and it wouldn't bring youjoy to do such a thing. But
a lot of these people that doscare acting really get off on the feeling

(47:43):
of scaring the fuck out of you. Like that's Yeah, there was just
one scare actor that I saw shewas being interviewed. She said that that
brief interaction that she gets with theguests when she's like scaring the pants off
them, like she gets such arush from doing that. There was one
person that even compared it to belike the feeling of that being better than
sex. And I was like,wow, that's impressive. All right,

(48:07):
So that was that was their bigthing. But yeah, that's a different
type of person. See. Sothis rust guy was being interviewed in the
documentary and he said that he wouldn'tdo this if he wasn't able to film
it, because he said he'll doanything to get people to go through the
haunt just so he can film it. Yeah, so he's fucking getting off
of this shit. It's gross.Yeah. He was asked if he would
do it himself and he said,no, I have common sense. He

(48:29):
said, I have to be afucking idiot to go through this myself.
But who would want to do this? Right as he's legitimately calling out his
people. Granted, we're kind ofsaying the same thing, but we don't
run this thing. Yeah, we'renot creating a thing for people to do
this that we're actually telling you,guys, you're silly. If you want
to do it, please don't.Yeah, And the thing what is dumb
to me is that he says thatnobody has gotten injured during his houses.

(48:52):
But that's not to say that thesepeople didn't get PTSD from what they went
through. Are you also keeping tabson their mental status after they leave your
house? But he also said debilitatinginjuries because that just they'll injure you,
but not to the point where youcan't function anymore. Yeah, But like
to him, he probably doesn't thinkPTSD's anything work, Yeah, which was

(49:12):
a very serious condition. I mean, I don't know if I can necessarily
say that effort's fair to say thathe is a Navy veteran, but I
don't know who knows, But maybehe doesn't. I mean, did anything
say if he served active duty,because there is a difference between having ever
been in a war setting versus like, Okay, well I was in the
Navy, but I just did stuffat computers because there was no war effort.
I don't know what he like actuallydid, Yeah, because I have

(49:37):
a friend who actually did go overseas. I believe when Afghanistan was a war
zone and the fourth of July andNew Year's are hell for him, mostly
the fourth of July because of everybodyaround you has their goddamn fireworks going.
But shit's real, man. Thething that's funny is like, during the
documentary they were also trying to likepaint him in a positive light because saying

(49:58):
that he works for the VA andthat he's a wedding singer in a DJ
for his day job, and peoplewere saying things like, oh, he's
a big teddy bear blah blah blahblah. I'm like, so there were
a lot of serial killers that wasabout to say, you want to know
who else? They said that aboutJohn Wayne Gacy among others. Yeah,
that's so funny. I feel sorryfor the scare actors in places where they

(50:21):
don't touch you and you're not supposedto touch them, but then they still
end up getting punched in the facebecause the fighter flight is real. Is
real. Yeah. So the scharacterwas talking about earlier she had been doing
scare acting for like her entire life, and she was she's kind of she's
an older lady now, but shesaid kind of what stopped her from being
able to do scare acting full time? Was she had a really rough night
one night where a guy got soscared he threw her to the ground and

(50:45):
jammed his knee into her back andshe was just permanently injured from that point
on. She said, just likeexisting was pain. Yeah, And she
said she was punched in the facea lot, and so like it turned
out she had to wear all thislike hockey and football gear underneath her costume
because like getting prepared for people hittingher. Yeah. I feel like a
lot of the smaller haunted houses,so like the trailers that used to be

(51:06):
on the side of the road thatI don't even know if they exist anymore.
Mm hmm. Just any of theones that are not on the massive
scale of like not Scary farm orHalloween horror nights. I feel like those
are the ones where you're in themost danger of getting hurt by your patrons.
Where, yeah, Halloween horror nites, people are constantly moving and you're
not getting like that one on onemoment with them. Because there was haunted

(51:29):
house I went into. It wasone of the last ones I ever did
where one of the rooms in thehaunted house was just pitch black. You
didn't know where the fuck you weregoing. You didn't know what was in
there, you didn't know how bigthe room was, and I'm walking through
with my friend and you know there'ssomebody in there, you can feel it.
But I think as we were like, I think I asked out loud,
can you show us the way out? And they just very close said

(51:52):
no, And like if I hadbeen any other type of person, that
person probably would have gotten punched.Yeah. I can't imagine being the actor
in a dark room where you haveto I don't know how they Maybe they
have night vision. I don't fuckingknow, but maybe I never saw them.
We eventually got out. M that'sa good point. I wonder if
they do. You have to imaginein a room like that, they had

(52:14):
to because how else would he haveknown where we were without running into us?
And we never did touch anything oranyone like he did a good job
of it. Was definitely a manthough, from the sound of his voice.
And fuck that just like a briefmention of I guess you can call
it a different type of font likeinteractive plays. Oh I did something similar.

(52:35):
Yeah, there's one called delusion.I guess that's been really popular and
you're just like part of the audienceis part of the story where you have
to interact with supposed paranormal powers andthings like that. So that seems interesting
maybe kind of like similar to murdermystery parties. Yeah, my mom and
I went to like an orchestra thingand it was really neat and there were
actors definitely walking through the crowd.But yeah, that was neat. There's

(52:58):
a lot of fun shit Halloween andHalloween's great. Yeah. So yeah,
so those are all the different typesof haunted houses and haunts. But I
think you did some research into whythese things scare us or why we enjoy
these things. I did, andwe've talked a little bit about some of
it. With the fight or flightand the sense of being safe kind of
leads into fun, which triggers atotally different part of your brain, which

(53:21):
is why you get that adrenaline rushplus the feel good happy hormones happening.
But in my research, I raninto a couple of studies that used haunted
houses to figure out different things aboutpeople. So in twenty twenty two,
researchers came up with the haunted housethat would allow them to study the effects
of fight or flight response on thebody without the usual ethical and practical constraints

(53:42):
that has prevented proper studies in humansup to this point. So obviously you
can't normally do certain things to inflictthat kind of response in people, because
yes, yeah, it's it's unethical. Exactly, you need to be fearing
for your life, and that's notsomething they researchers are comfortable doing to people.
This haunted house was set up withseventeen rooms and the experience totaled around

(54:02):
thirty minutes. One hundred and fiftysix participants went through the house in small
groups and encountered situations that quote mimickedthe threat of suffocation an oncoming speeding car
and a volley of shots with pelletsfrom a firing squad end quote. The
only way you can get away withthat kind of shit is a hunted house.
Sure, So, the study aimedto discover quote how the body responds

(54:24):
to threats differently depending on the socialcontext, whether friends were around, features
of the threats, whether they wereexpected, and emotions whether individuals felt afraid
unquote. Participants were asked to wearreal time physiological monitoring wristbands as they went
through the experience. These wristbands measuredwhat was called electrodermal activity, which is

(54:45):
sweat induced changes in the skin's electricalcharacteristics, including conductance level and skin conductance
response. I don't know if you'veever heard of that. I had to
look it up because I'd never heardof that, but it sounded like how
easily electric fied you? And Iwas like, that can't possibly rewrite okay,
So what I found it to meanis, quote, it reflects the

(55:07):
level of psychological or physiological arousal elicitedby cognition or emotions end quote. Also
like goose bumps, essentially like howeasily do you get goosebumps? Simply put,
it tells researchers how much an experienceaffected you. So it probably looks
at like sweat and stuff like thattoo. Participants were also asked to rate
their expected level of fear on ascale from one to ten before ever visiting

(55:30):
the haunted house, and then theirexperience of fear level afterwards, so how
much they were actually afraid of whathappened. And by gathering this data,
four factors were examined group composition,threat, eminence, intrapersonal factors of fear,
and a Participants sensitivity to threats.It was discovered that on average,
people's physical responses were higher when theywere touring the haunted house with more friends

(55:54):
than strangers. What's that effect likewhen you see a scary movie in theater
versus at home alone? It couldbe similar. Yeah. Yeah, it's
like some sort of effect where groupthink. Is that what it is?
Like? Groupthink? I've mind kindof a thing where everybody is scared,
you're scared. Yeah, it's simolis not scared, You're not scared.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's alsothe same reason why, like, if
you watch a comedy in the theaters, you might find it funnier than if

(56:16):
you watch it at home. Yeah. One of the researchers said, quote,
we interpreted this to reflect fear ofcontagion. If your friends are around,
your body picks up on their signalsand has a higher level of arousal
even in the absence of specific scaresor startles end quote. So we kind
of experience that too, where welike being around people who are also scared,

(56:37):
not around like the people who aretough and they're like, oh this
sucks, yeah, like that's notscary yep, because it takes you out
of the experience, because now you'renot having fun because nobody around you is.
Yeah, we like being with peoplewho are also enjoying themselves exactly,
Like why would you pay this muchmoney to just be here? But this
is all stupid. Who are youtrying to impress? What are you trying
to improve? Of course it's allfake. No, no, this is

(56:57):
scary, Like all right, thenwhy are you here? Like that werewolf
is in real I know they're notgoing to hurt you. I know.
That's why I like it. Thankyou, I know that I like the
safety. Go to Mcamie manner ifyou want to get interestingly. Based on
the unique setup of this experiment,researchers were able to actually test the effects
of groups on physiology, something thatis usually difficult in a lab setting where

(57:20):
only one or two people can bestudied at a time. Because again normally
in this tiny little lab, sothe opportunity to study how different group mixes
of friends and strangers affect a person'sperception of threat was easier to set up.
Plus, the study measured multiple aspectsof skin conductance rather than just one
like normal studies, so they wereable to do a lot more in this
study than you normally can in justlike a typical lab setting. The research

(57:44):
conducted in this study proved to bea quote major advance for cognitive and social
psychology end quote, because the immersivehaunted house is able to further our understanding
of how naturalistic contexts influence how thebody responds to threats. All in all,
one of the researchers stated, quote, we show that friends increase overall

(58:05):
arousal, The unexpected scares produce moreresponses and higher levels of responses in the
body than predictable scares, obviously,and the more frequent responses from the body
manifest as feeling more afraid. Andwe show all of this using an intensive,
immersive, live action threat environment quotebecause you can can't do that.
And then in twenty twenty, anothergroup of researchers set up a fifty room

(58:29):
haunted house in Denmark that features moreof like the typical situations and scares you
might find an haunted house, sonot real situationals stimuli, but like zombies,
monsters, stuff like that. Thearticle I found on this didn't provide
as much detail as the other study, but this one set out to study
enjoyment and fear, otherwise known asrecreational fear. What they discovered was that

(58:52):
there is a sweet spot in thefear to enjoyment ratio. I either can't
be too little or people are boredmuch and people are simply not having fun
anymore. So essentially, what thisboils down to, or what everything that
we've talked about boils down to,is as long as you're doing this with
friends, the people around you areenjoying it as well. The haunted houses

(59:14):
have some decently good immersion like smellsor strings or even spit touching all the
senses. Yeah, you're going tohave a good time, yes, And
if you're into the extreme stuff,then we're sorry. Yeah. I like
my sense of safety things. I'ma baby. Yeah, I'm a baby,
and I will be treated as such, thank you very much. Yes,

(59:36):
only in these situations. I likegoing in knowing that the actors can't
touch me because I just don't likebeing touched in general. Right, same,
don't touch me. So we hopeyou had fun with us today.
You can always review us if you'reinterested in doing so, over on Spotify
and Apple for sure. There maybe some other places that allow you to
do that. Yeah, there's likePodchaser and if anybody has campfire story,

(01:00:00):
we would really like to bring thatback. Yes, so if you'd send
us an email to nopeville podcast atgmail dot com, maybe tell us about
your experience at a haunted house.Yeah, that'd be great. If you've
had anything particularly memorable, or ifyou've had sleep paralysis lately too, that
would be fun. You can alsogo to our website too and send us
a contact us there, go tonopeville podcast dot com. Just make sure

(01:00:22):
that the subject line says campfire storieswherever you're sending them to us, And
if you want to tip us,we appreciate that too. You can either
buy us a coffee on Buy Mea Coffee, or you can go to
our Patreon and see how you cansupport us there. Watch a horror movie
with us, like Evil Dead Rise. Well that was a good movie.
Yeah, but we will catch youall on the next tour. Excellent.

(01:00:43):
I see most of you returned andrelatively unscathed, Bravo. I hope you
enjoyed your visit to Nopeville and lookforward to seeing you again next time.