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A Few Memorable Moments From Halloween Night ...

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  • A Few Memorable Moments From Halloween Night ...

    The weather was quite pleasant given the rain we'd had the day before and being that it was a Saturday AND the fact that one of the larger bars/entertainment complexes in town is about a block and a half up the street, we had our annual assortment of costumed patrons from the bar take our tour that evening. Groups that night ranged from as few as two people to as many as ten at a time, but we made it our customary point to give them their money's worth (and then some) ...


    We were doing a simplified version of our usual entrance, where the groups were brought directly into the hallway where they'd come face-to-face with yours truly. I'm standing there in my funeral attire, a two-piece suit with a corsage, standing under a small black light (which I've been told makes my extremely blue eyes look like I'm wearing some sort of bizarre contacts). Behind me, accented by a small red light, is the ominous sliding door which takes our patrons to where the fun REALLY begins.


    A young couple in their early 20's dressed as Pebbles and Bam-Bam were ushered in and once the exterior door slammed shut behind them, I began deliveriing my introduction. Despite my gentle coaxing to step forward, they stayed about a good ten feet away from me, listening intently to what I was saying. Now I've added a new bit to my intro this year, working in tandem with one of our new actors, who played the gibbering green-faced ghoul who terrorizes patrons in our first scene, the morgue's laundry room. He'd stand on the other side of the sliding door and listen for a vocal cue from me and at my cue, he'd proceed to growl, snarl and scratch at the door for a few seconds. As soon as he did this, Pebbles started crying her eyes out and kept repeating, "I can't do this!!!" Bam-Bam tried appealing to her sense of thrift by saying, "But we can't get our money back", to which Pebbles tearfully replied, "I'll GIVE you the twenty back, JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!!" Yes ladies and gentlemen, you're now reading the words of the man who made Pebbles Flintstone cry on Halloween.


    A larger group came through that evening and among them, a young woman dressed as Disney's Snow White. After delivering my spiel, I pressed the remote button that I carry behind my back and the sliding door opened and they began to oh-so-carefully make their way down the short interior hallway before entering the laundry room. Snow White made it to the end of the short hall, glanced into the laundry room with its clotheslines draped with bloody sheets and the mop bucket and mop caked with blood leaning against the wall, she turned around ran screaming in the opposite direction, past me, right back out the front door and according to our security at the front gate, nearly halfway down the block, screaming all the way! Take THAT Wicked Queen!! This evoked a great many shocked gasps from the people who were waiting in line in our courtyard. My only regret is that I didn't run to the door and shout after her, "Well, you're NOT getting the dwarves back!!"
    Last edited by Warren Vanderdark; 11-15-2009, 12:54 AM.
    "We all go a little mad sometimes..."

    - Norman Bates

  • #2
    Scratches, growls, snorts, anticipation building all spread out over the entire 90 minutes the customers might be going through The Ravens Grin keeps them guessing and more importantly their minds working. It is just way too much work to keep a dullard entertained, "Hey! Wake up!, Think about this thing I just said..." No fun for Jim.
    I can tell alot about the customer's mental state and latent abilities (and whether or not we are all going to have a fun time or not) just from when I open the front door. Or just when I begin my first rooom routines.
    It all is such a kick and a peculair challenge sometimes to orchestrate their responses and get them , influence them in the most fun direction that I can. Whatever "works"..works.
    I am sure a large part of my personal energy to do this and to keep going long hours is coming right from the fun and the challenges involved.
    Just this morning my #1 helper told me he convinced several groups that he was going to pull a rope and the floor beneath their feet would collapse!
    Maybe some hypnosis is happening sometimes within the haunt guide field?
    Speak plainly, use some big words and they believe you!!?? Sort of like the "Evil Scientist"-thing. "He's smarter than us, so he must be dangerous!"
    hahahaah!
    Last edited by Jim Warfield; 11-15-2009, 01:41 PM.
    hauntedravensgrin.com

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    • #3
      One Halloween Night

      We had wound-down, closing time, but it was also "Opening Time" for our Oct. 31st "Ghost Seekers Night", (we don't do this every year) People (pay) to sit in the wine cellar with ghost hunting equiptment(theirs) and wait for something to happen(things do happen, often)
      As the first young woman arrived to do this I was helping her carry some of her equiptment into the house. As we just began to walk down along the side of the house a helper of mine was almost running towards us (he's a BIG Boy!) almost yelling:"I'm not going down into the wine cellar again! I'm never going down there again!"
      Guess what? This was not an "act", nor a set up deal, he actually was scared! After spending many hours over many nights down there he had seen some bright green self-illuminated floating "things" down there and the lights in the room were "on".
      Such things have happened in that wine cellar quite a few times now.
      I have seen them too, but then I live here.
      They live here.
      Maybe I scare them?
      hauntedravensgrin.com

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