Favorite tactic

I really love our Q line lol. Since we're in an old baseball stadium they actually have to go through a gated ticket area to get inside our courtyard where are Q line is. Its about thirty yards by thirty yards of wide open concrete area (sheldon you would have a blast its allllll perfect concrete) with three or four picnic tables in the middle. So basically once you pay to get in...you're fenced in with us....and can't get out very easily. I like to start off by perching on the picnic tables staring straight at the line buying tickets, twitching and drooling and just generally being disturbing. The fun part about that is watching how many people buy a ticket...see me...then decide to go home lol. But once iv got a target who enters i watch them all the way in and once they walk past me and think i have ignored them follow them into the line and begin the process of terrifying them. The buildup is what really creeps them out best.

Psycological Profiling At Its Finest!

OdetteDespairr
Rotting Flesh Radio Haunt Hottie

My fav is the perfectly timed blood curdling scream..:)
You have to give it a few beats.. wait til they are built up and think that nothing is going to happen...they relax a bit...THEN get them!
Second fav is the mannequin scare..takes practice to get it just right..:cool:

I have some slider gloves that i dont slide with anymore. I have an old leather restraint mask, similar to the one that malicious studios came out with. The one with the zipper. I would wear a faded black overalls with a torn burnt up thermal shirt. Bruise up my kneck. I NEVER have to talk. Il just stand literally in the middle of the que line. When everyone gets accustom to me. I start clicking. Quitely at first. Then i go insane. I can get a 10 foot circle around me in every direction every time. Once i just literally followed a girl through out the whole haunt (i rove) and i didnt say a word. I was just always about 10 feet behind her. ALl the time. Then before the chainsaws ( rovers arent allowed in there) i just snuck up behind her and clicked my metal tipped gloves in her ear. She dropped to the floor. Not missing an oppertunity i stepped over her, she looked up into my face. and i just whispered "Hello freshmeat." very calmly and very smooth. Because i have a very low voice. And she burst in to tears. And i am pretty sure she urinated herself. Those are the scares that i live for.

Which is the majority of the year I will sometimes speak very s l o w l y. . . . .enunciating fully, pausing often, attempting to thereby prove through these subtle mannerisms that I am in control of the situation, the room, this house and Them! (I lead the whole tour)
Am I scary?
Sometimes many years later I will be told how much I affected someone while doing this particulair style of communicating or someone will tell me how much I scared their friend they were here with who can't return because of the fear issue with that experience . Sometimes the house itself creeps them out instead, maybe it's those ghost stories, maybe if I am being friendly and not acting at all it all becomes more meanacing? The juxtaposition of Jim when contrasted to the house and those vibes? Maybe I'm seen a satan's salesman, the friendly guy who still steals your soul then laughs?
"Different" is scary because it's different . It requires the brain to stop, pay attention, then determine what is happening.
I lead the tours here all year long til the end of September and begin doing all the tours myself again in the middle of November.
I know this is a very different sort of style than what the majority of you can do with the season and the way a house is designed, but just imagine how scary you could be if you had an opportunity to do it like I just described.
Give it a try sometime, get a group of 8 to 10 people and entertain them all by yourself for 90 minutes.
I consider myself to be very lucky to get to be able to proceed with such an entertaining schedule for my customers.
These customers get to sort of know and respect me (or I'll kill them with extreme pain) and possibly then respect the house and the inventory because of the time I spend with them.
The other reason they might behave is because they feel there must be secret passages I'm not showing them (and there are!) so even if I seen to dissappear, I may still be watching them and prepared to jump around the corner and say the "G" Word. ("Gotcha!")

I had a simliar scare like JamBam's

One night we did a lights out haunt, and had guests sign a waiver allowing us to touch them (security was on staff just in case)

at the end of the haunt, there was an exit that took you outside, but it was a far walk back to the parking lot, so we would as a group ( 7 or 8 actors) would chase them out at once.
a group of 2 girls came in, late 20's, and screaming at everything and anything. it made our jobs easy. At the end, one of the girls got scared and let go of the others hand. the other girl didnt look back, so she just stuck her hand out...to which I stepped in. She gripped tight, and at that moment I have her a tug on the arm. She then turned around to see a guy completely blood spattered in shredded scrubs holding her hand. Needless to say it didnt take her long to make it to her car...

My most favorite tactic was when I was a toxic clown in 08. I wore UV reactive makeup and got to use a chainsaw, so i was pretty freaky looking under blacklights with a roaring saw. When large groups came in, I would hide until the correct moment, and fire up the saw. This would make the group stay against a wall, and I was right next to the exit of my room. I would crouch and watch them walk by me. I would pick out who looked the most scared, and then lunge and slam the saw on the wall in front of them. Not only did this separate them from the group, but they would see that the saw is real (without the chain) and would scare the pure hell out of em. The floor of my room was also a smooth concrete, so I would scrape the blade of the saw on the ground, shooting sparks up. This mainly scared males, as I would get close to their feet.

my final tactic was once they left my room, they were in a pitch black hallway. When they left, I killed the saw but left it on, and followed the group. Halfway in the hall I would fire it up again and scream out some lines, like "IM NOT DONE YET!!" or "SCREAM ONE MORE TIME", to get that final scare out of them.

That has worked so well.
A 50 year old Chinese/American man was hiding behind the women in the group(the group was mostly women) he was doing this for the whole tour, the women finally realised this so they pushed him forward into the dark first. (Most of my house is very well lit)
When I turned the light on we were standing almost nose to nose!
I didn't know they could do this but I saw his oriental eyes go very round, very quickly!
(Much to the enjoyment of those women.)

Talk about a very cheap "Effect", look into the 89 cent push button switch, "Normally "On". model. I hold it in to kill the light.
It is mounted up high, I put my arm straight up to push it which also creates a hiding place for my white reflective face, behind my own arm. There is a slight reflection from a piece of metal from the dead end behind me that fools them into thinking it is clear-sailing or an empty space.