To Gore or Not to Gore???

[Raycliff Manor]

Alright, I'm soliciting your opinions again! We've always touted ourselves as "high-startle and low gore". We have very little in our attractions that would be classified as gore. The goriest thing we have is probably the "John Doe" with the open chest in our Morgue.

A couple of our Actors are suggesting that we need to include more gore in one or both attractions. My question to Actors, Owners, Haunt Enthusiasts, etc. is this...

Do you consider a haunt with more gore better?
Has the haunt you work in or own seen better attendance after increasing the "gore factor"
If you heard buzz about a haunt being really gory, would that make you want to go even more?

I'm really interested in feedback on this. Gore is not my personal preference, in my haunt or in horror movies, but I also want to please my audience. Your insights are greatly appreciated!

Kel

[spookhaven]

I think that it depends on if gore fits into the scene itself. Just throwing blood and guts on something and trying to make a scene gorey could make it fake.

I am having the same problem this year with doing a mansion. But, I put in a freezer scene and in the pantry/kitchen area and bathroom I can do gorey.

Maybe someone with skin falling off but gore doesn't really play into a mansion so much as good old fashion scares as you already do.

[Darkangel]

I think if you have multiple attractions having one with some gore is great so you have all your bases covered.

DA

[Tom]

Well since it's my last name, I have no choice but to say Gore is good. LOL
But seriously, I don't "have" gore in my ride.
Go off the feedback of your customers, not your actors. I've been told every haunt (in our area) they go to has gore and gets old. Kinda like the "same old thing", thing.
BUT... I think it all depends on how you apply it and what theme you're dealing with.

[Mike Goff]

Our first 9 years of operation were exactly like you described, High impact, low gore. This has always been our favorite style of haunt, and it was what I was most comfortable with presenting to the community.

As our attraction grew, lines got longer and we decided to raise our ticket price.
It became clear that a mother with 5 kids was not going to pay the $15 ticket price, and if they did, they were going to bitch to everyone they knew about it.

Rather than gore up a show just for the sake of goring it up, we decided to narrow our target market to an age that were old enough to come up with the money, but still young enough to blow it on frivolous things like entertainment.

It is my belief that teen agers and young adults will not go someplace that is for kiddies, they're too cool for that. Sure there are always exceptions, but you won't get them in the huge numbers, that it takes to grow your business.

Over the last few years, our attraction has evolved from a show that tried to be inclusive to all ages, to a show that packs in a very narrow market.

Rather than asking "to gore or not to gore" maybe you should ask, who is your customer, and are you ok with that? If not, who do you want your customer to be, and how do you make that happen.

[Jim Warfield]

Reputation lasts a long time

I have been swimming upstream ever since I opened all those many years ago trying buck the shows put on by other haunts over the years that made it a staple in many people's minds that you can't have a haunt or customers without gore and roaring chainsaws.
The hours and hours I have spent trying to convince the timid and the phobic to step inside my door are unmeasurable but I'm still in the business and have quite a clientel of past happy patrons who return over and over bringing friends, relatives, new girlfriends, boyfriends.
Cull the customers you want and need from the group you are trying to appeal to and to your own self be true. If you don't like something don't have it in your house.
There is the Grandma/Grandpa market out there wishing to find a place to bring the Grandchildren and the Grandparents seem to have less trouble justifying spending for the ticket than the parents usually do.
I think I also see many customers come here to see something "different".
For the few complaints I have heard during October about"No Chainsaw?" I simply point out to them how easy chainsaws will be to find other places if they merely look.
I am not knocking chainsaws, I know many people see them as THE big thing, I'm more than happy to have the people who don't need or want them.
Whatever "Works"..works and this is what works for me here.
By the way, I'm open every night of the year and Sat& Sun. afternoons, gore wouldn't sell to "Tourists" This house is a tourist attraction, complete with the blue state signs on the highwayoutside of town, so see my advice as given under these influences .

[Gore Galore]

Kel,

Gore is just another tool you have in your haunting arsenal.
Use it if it works.
Some people will react to gore and makes the scare easier because they are already stressed from it. It lowers their "Scare Threshold". When a patron is looking at the gore and you can see on their face they are distracted by it, that is the moment to startle them.
It is the same reason you use most animations. To distract and startle. It is just eye candy.

But don't put it where it doesn't belong.
If it doesn't help sell the scene then why do it.

[Cookie Crumbler]

I'm with Kevin on this one!

[Evernight]

For years and years we remained "Family Friendly" and we have found that around here the majority of our guests didn't want that....they want as scary and gory as we can make it. I always tried to keep things at the haunt in the area where families could enjoy it together and our numbers just never grew....until we started upping the scare factor and the gore.

We were told that there were plenty of yard haunts and kid's event in the area and that the adults and teens didn't want to waste their money on the "mildly scary" stuff. So now our attendance is probably 90% teen and up, and they come to us strictly for the scare and gore.

So go with what your guests ask for and you can't go wrong!!

[Allen H]

Do you consider a haunt with more gore better?
No I dont. Gorey and scary do not go hand in hand.

Has the haunt you work in or own seen better attendance after increasing the "gore factor"
No, The scare factor has increased and the audience is responding to that, out of six haunts one has a decent amount of gore in it.

If you heard buzz about a haunt being really gory, would that make you want to go even more?
No, I would assume it was a crutch for them because they didnt know how to scare people without it.
Just my opinions,
Allen H

[CreepyCollectionProps]

Guess where i fall.

GORE no shocker there. I tell people the day i build a user freindly prop or attraction i will hang it up.I like to push things at the haunt. We even had a seen dedicated to Necrofila last year.( sex with dead Corpses)- No one was doing it to corpses. However we had Our blow up light wieght bodies hanging from the celling like 4 of them. in the bed we had a betten bloody female full of blood and on the wall there was splatter everwhere and it said help me in blood. -
and then a man dressed as a woman popped out of the closet and said Get away from my girlfirends.HA kids did understand. Adults loved it!
i had 2 rooms of no blood at my haunt.

[jakprintsHAUNT]

My opinion is a combo of what a lot have said. I like it if it is done right. Same goes for movies, and I think there is a mixed bag of people that are "into" it, people that are made uncomfortable by it, and people that could care less either way. As with anything in entertainment, no matter what you do not everyone is going to like everything about it.

I think getting feedback from your local audience is best. Some areas are more proned to people with "sick senses of humor". I for one enjoy when an attraction takes it over the top. Like the Columbia haunt tours during Transworld...I liked both attractions for different reasons, but I think some of the over the top nature of Necropolis was the main thing I liked about it. Little heavier on the gore, a little more edgy on the actor dialogue, touching...etc... especially being a haunter made me feel a little less "safe" and I liked it, but gore was only part of it. On the other hand Fear Fest had less gore, and was a little "safer", but was a solid well produced show in my opinion with some neat gags and storylines. So really gore didn't make or break either of them for me, but did lend to my opinion on Necropolis.

Funny related story...while watching Final Destination in the theater with my now wife (girlfriend then), there was the scene where (I believe it was Sean William Scott...been a while) is near the train tracks and a piece of metal beheads him above the jaw. I kind of loudly said "that was a sweet beheading"...and she grabbed my arm hushing me saying "other people don't think like us!"


Mike "Pogo" Hach

[Killer Katie]

For what it's worth..

I personally like gore, but do i like all of it? No.
I think anyone who says definitively that one way or the other is the only way to go, is kinda closed minded.
I agree that it is one of many tools you can use, and should be used in context (ie - save it for a place that makes sense)
When I think of set or prop design or makeup, I always think of what will enhance the project. I look at blood in the same breath as dry brushing, wallpaper, texture, monster mud, and lighting.
This year we have one house completely void of blood - because it's not in the story line and wouldn't enhance the experience. The other house if full of gore - since it's a evil torture-type setting, it fits. And even then, there are scenes that have no blood at all.
Best advice I have is : ask yourself if it would make sense?
Good luck!

[CreepyCollectionProps]

revised

GORE no shocker there. I tell people the day i build a user freindly prop or attraction i will hang it up.I like to push things at the haunt. We even had a seen dedicated to Necrofila last year.( sex with dead Corpses)- No one was doing it to corpses. However we had Our blow up light wieght bodies hanging from the celling like 4 of them. in the bed we had a betten bloody female full of blood and on the wall there was splatter everwhere and it said help me in blood. -
and then a man dressed as a woman popped out of the closet and said Get away from my girlfirends.HA kids did understand. Adults loved it!
i had 2 rooms of no blood at my haunt.

Sorry- Had the tech guy at my location i was bouncing around computers and desks,
kids did understand- correction-Kids did not Understand it -
kids seen it as a bloody scene. and when they walked in were like WOW! now thats 15 and older with parents..any one 15 and under we did not let them come in.however they did with a parent.

Dont get me wrong - you can over do it with blood as well, we walk a fine line with it. Just enough blood guts and gore to drive along the edge.

I can only stress this fact. I read an aol post sometime ago about the state of horror in hollywood. It said that the more RED on the screen the more Green it makes.
These kids see movies like saw, Hostel, Rob zombies halloween, Friday the13th, zombieland, the crazies, all very bloody teh hills have eyes and trust me there seeing it...then they show up to someones haunted house and theres someone in a black robe with a rotten skull screaming Welcome braaahhhh . um what do you thinks gonna go on in there minds.

We hit them hard we disturb them , shake em up. and then send them home. one of my greatest stories was an ex worker of mine where i use to work showed up with a group of around 12 girls ranging from 12-17 years old and there parents. they all went in. when they came out 10 of the 12 girls were crying ..so bad they had to sit down for 15mins- the other 2 were laughing why because they were huge horror fans. and they couldnt stop laughing at there friends and the 2 girls that were horror fans came over and said THIS PLACE ROCKS! the other 10 after they calmed down said they loved it.

a haunter friend from Long Island called me one nite last year and goes what are you doing over there. I said why? he said ppl came here and said they went to yours when i asked them how it was they said it was the BOMB dog! he said what are you doing. I said its creepycollection alive lol.

[brad]

I do have gore in my event, but not a lot of it. I will have 2, maybe 3 rooms out of 17 that will have gore in it.

For a house theme(Texas Chainsaw Massacre/House of 1000 Corpses) I feel that gore is needed, but it doesnt have to be a ton of it.

I know that Rocky Point had no gore for several years, and the customers were asking for it. She regretted it, but finally added gore, and she said she got better reactions and better attendance by doing so.

But its all based on your customer base. If you want to entertain a full family, then gore is probably that great in large amounts. If you want to entertain the teenage-to-late 20's crowd, then you might want to consider it.

I base it off of whats popular in culture right now. The horror movies that are growing in sales are growing in gore factor. So maybe the patron strives for more gore?