What is the funniest reaction you ever got?

[Jim Warfield]

Of the last post "We thought they were props, I chitt myself!'
A helper of mine totally missed "the Picture" when I told him to put on a big lion mask, sit in the middle of the maze and to pretend he was not a real person. As a girl began kicking him in the shins he sat there unflinching taking all the abuse she could muster out and never moved or scared her at all!?
Then he later complained about it, of course! "Scare the girl! What's with adding another prop to the show by flawlessly pretending to be one?"(til closing time)

[Soul Reaper]

I was in my butcher charator at The Haunted Train Car. I would stand in front of a waist high table I made out of wood on the oposite side of the room from the incomming door to the room, with my back to the door slightly turned with my head tilted so that I could see people when they came in. I would stand motionless. Two females about 25 years in age came in. I could see that they were already scared. As they worked there way down a four foot long wall which forced them a little closer to me. They had there backs against the wall and was looking around the room holding each others arm. As the first one started to turn around the corner. She look to see what was around the corner. I slamed a meat cleaver down on the table with a loud bang and turn fast and one step I was in ther face so fast that one ran to the corner by the incomming door and the other ran to an oposite corner in the room and both screamed so loud they could be heard outside. They were afraid to move. I had to take a step back so they could get out of the room. As they were both so scared they could not move.

[Jim Warfield]

That you just happened to be in a place they never will expect you, so one of them decides to scare their friends. Ferreted away in a dark corner or whatever, they are all nervous (maybe because they know they are not supposed to be doing it?)
And of course at the back of that dark corner they backed into ..you wait!
Perfectly timed you scare them a half- a heartbeat before they scare their friends or maybe better yet you scare him a second after he scares them so you are in essence enacting their need for payback! You just became their personal instant "Hero"!
And you have also just once again proved that you are better, smarter, possibly more commited to a scare than they could be (or maybe it's that "Experience"-Thing?)
I feel scaring the scarer reinforces good predictable behavior from the patrons since now they are surrounded by Ninjas they will be devoted to looking very closely for you in your next hiding place.

[Damien Warwick]

Mines a definite tie...and I enjoyed them both lol
1. as I walk towards a group, this rather attractive woman leans in and lands a big wet one on me...happy birthday to me :P lol
2. In the middle of my spiel the girl looks at me "you're cute" and proceeds to leave me a card with her # on it on the way out
...and by God...I did not break character for either of um :P lol

[Soul Reaper]

The first year I worked The Haunted Train Car. I was in a room near the back end of the car. This is a metal room with a narrow door leading to the hall.
Just before you get to the last hall where the room that I am in is. There is a swinging door the patrons walk through with a set of airhorns behide it that a behind the scenes actor sets off when the door closes. And is also a que for me to know that they are in place so when the horns are turned off.
I would slam open my door which would put me right there beside them in there faces, and I would say in a gruff voice "ah fresh meat".

But there was one time when I heard the him turn the air horns off I slamed open the door and said ah freeessss wha wher. I step out into the hall and looked both ways and not seeing anyone I though may be his timming was off and he let them get to far down the hall, or maybe there just wasn't anyone at all. As I stepped out into the hall I turned toward the swinging door and stepped over to it and listened. Then I heard the patrons on the other side getting up out of the floor. The blast from the air horn scared them back through the door. LOL
I was like O'crap and trying not to laugh out loud where they could hear me I quickly reset to my position and waited. I had to laugh at my self and them later. I told the rest of the cast what had happened and that I was dumbfounded as to where they then relized what had happend. Everyone got a big laugh out of it that night.

[piercemanor]

Haha, Arx Mortis was having our flashlight night on halloween sincw it would help boost our sales, and I flipped on a switch that cut on a small light in my room. Unbeknownst to me, there was a lady right about my face when i flipped the light on. she turned and ran straight into a wall. I simply walked away and laughed harder than I have ever laughed before XD lol

[Jim Warfield]

Our first haunted house was in a shack of a decrepid old house that needed demolished!
We had very few nights left before we were open, yet the "powers That Be' insisted we all attend the monthly meeting first,or maybe to only go to the meeting?
I went to work in the house instead, all by myself.
Someone decided to "call" the meeting early and make it a worknight on the house! (Yea!)
I laid inside our homemade coffin that was still just laid on the floor. (How obvious! huh?)
The old house was a very small house, very few rooms, nobody even went in the basement, it was so bad.
So I really had virtually no hiding places... except the coffin.

"Jim! .. Jim!... He's here , someplace....no....no!... he wouldn't be....he can't be....(in the coffin)"
Even though all logic dictated that had to be where I was to be found, the anticipation built enough that I actually did scare the JCs President, who was also the State's Attorney.
Later as we were taking groups through the house he was a very theatrical guy and had performed musically and theatrically on the stage besides in courtrooms, he was drawing attention to himself with his voice talent, the things he would say... which also served to distract him from me sneaking up on him and scaring him several times right infront of all those customers! (He was in to it abit too much to notice me or anticipate that if I suddenly wasnot where he expected me to be this time, that I would be right behind him! Talk about Alot Of Fun For JIM!
That old house only had two upstairs bedrooms. They would lead a group into the room, standing room only, I would quietly crawl up the stairs and deftly reach passed several sets of legs standing there as they were all looking into the room, and then make a grab on the furtherest leg I could reach! They would try to turn around but they were packed in like sardines and the people right behind them were standing up! So who was now grabbing their ankle? Tricky Fun! hahahahah!

[Jim Warfield]

Fairly elaborate, time-consuming set-ups.
It was summer about midnight, nothing happening here. An old truck rolled to a stop infront of my house.
A ragged-looking guy got out, walked toward me,
"I got something you want!"
"?"
"A real coffin, found it in an old farmhouse."
"Is it "New" or "Used?"
"Don't know, I think some JCs left it when they didn't come back to use the farmhouse again for their haunted house."
(Didn't really answer the question though.)
So I now had a real coffin upstairs in my house.

A customer showed up a few nights later who Always was bringing a new girlfriend here. Just the two of them were going through the house. The old exit was getting puked out from the big steel skull's mouth at the front corner of the house. I was standing there waiting for them, holding the big jaw open with my foot. He could see my legs and feet but then, who knows why or how, he got scared of me when he slid out and looked up!
"Dammit! I Almost Made It All the Way Through your House Without You Scaring ME!"
(I had no inkling that there was this contest going on ?)
We all had a god laugh, including his new girlfriend.
Then a strange car drove passed us (we are on a dead end street, it had to turn around to leave)
Suddenly the new girlfriend screamed and ran toward the car full of people screaming "Let me in! Let Me In!" Trying to grab their doorhandles! Which of course made the driver leave much faster!
I thought she was kidding , having fun?
No, she suddenly became very scared because as the three of us were standing there talking , she turned looked sort of behind me and saw :"A LAdy in a Black Dress, with no face, behind a picket fence I had installed next to the big skull. The "Lady" had her hands resting on the fence, wearing white gloves? And "She Had Ten Fingers On Each Hand!!"
This young woman-(new Girlfriend) could not be calmed down! She was hysterical (in the bad way) I had no clue what was going on . Maybe this girl had just flipped out? I had seen nothing, knew nothing about any such person or thing.
They left. It was very late now. I went inside, and sat quietly writing a letter.. then I heard a slight little knock on my door just a few feet away..?
2 OClock in the morning?
I put my hand on the knob, yanked it quickly open ,no idea what or who I might be looking at? (Probably some punk knocked then ran away)
There she stood in the moonlight!
Black, full length dress, black veil, white gloves!... only a total of ten fingers on 2 hands...
She worked next door for her Father during the day, she was also a classmate of my oldest son. I had once suggested to her to come down some night to scare people, "Have some fun!"
She had chosen that night! She never returned ? ("Been there, did that?")
I asked her if she would lay in my real coffin for a photo-op?
She did, wearing that dress, looking pretty spooky, black dress in a white lined coffin, looking bug-eyed/strange! Arms crossed.
Maybe a month later I had to really talk to convince some High school girls to take the tour, some of them were scared !
At the end of their tour I told them about getting the real coffin (of questionable ancestory!)
"Sometimes a camera can "see" ghostly things our eyes cannot see... so I took this picture of the old empty coffin.. (I was holding the photograph close so they couldn't see it yet....) But IF you look at this and use just alittle imagination... it almost looks... as if there might be a woman's body in it."
I then turned it toward them! Some screams followed. It was VERY Easy to see what I described of course.
Maybe she thought her imagination was working abit too well?

[LivingTheHauntedHouseLife]

Okay, so first of all you have to understand that I'm a 13 year old girl working at a top rated haunted house for charity in Texas, Fearshire Farms. So the nights that we are extremely busy, it puts a lot of stress on everyone, including me. But one of the funniest reactions I ever got was one night, I was working the drop window and basically what you do is you wait and watch for the person to come (they can't see you, but you can see them) and once they are right in front of you drop the window and scream. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew that. Well this was a teenage group of kids going through, and as soon as I drop the window I notice a kid is on the ground. I don't want to laugh or break character so I just stare at the rest of the group then raise the window, they leave. Done. Then a person in my area tells me that the teenage boy had fell down because he was so scared! XD It was extremely funny, no injury, he just got scared. I thought it was actually funny.

[Dr.Mandrake]

I remember one night when my church had done a charity carwash and decided to reward the kids by taking them to the haunt I worked at. The thing about my spot is that the people could never figure out where to go after I scared them (Hmm, way we came, wall, wall, curtain... where do we go?) so I would always have to follow them to guidr them out. This time, it took a bit longer than usual to get them all out, and I could already hear the next group coming around the corner. With no time to get back to my hiding spot, I simply stood against the wall, hoping they would mistake me for a mannequin (of which we have an abundance). A group of my friends come through, lead by an adult (who happens to be a very close friend of mine). Sure enough, he walks straight past me, and I motion for the kids to be quiet while I snuck up on him. I got right behind him (while the middle school age kids were trying to hold back laughter) and yelled the man's name as loudly as I could. He was acting pretty high strung, and I was told later that he sprinted straight through the rest of the house!