Child Actors

[keudiven]

To use or not to use, that is the question. More specifically do any of you haunt owners allow your own minor children and or nephews/nieces to be a part of your haunt? If so, in what capacity? And lastly, what are the risks in doing so?

[Jim Warfield]

Some "He-Man" drunks look for the shorter, smaller spooky people in a haunt to punch, of course if your 9 year old can really take an adult punch and just shrug it off...put her in the ring, go for the big money!
Looking at a human skull I can find no place in it's design that looks like it was meant to take a punch. Fragile zoatic? arch there alongside the temple, fragile jaw hinge, delicate nose bone which can be made to break and impact the brain behind it, need I continue?
Woody Allan had a line in a movie:"I repeatedly threw my face against his fist until he couldn't take anymore!"..or something like that?
It can be impossible to keep all the drunks out, so keep the kids out (as workers) instead.

[Howie Slobber Erlich]

Jim is right about the smaller actors getting hit more. I think it is very dangerous to use child actors. All my actors are over the age of 18. There are a few nights that I allow one of my long time actors to bring his son up to work. His son is a big 15 and he must work in the same room or the nest room from his father.

There are a lot of haunts that use kids. It's up to you. Keep in mind that children are not usually very intimidating or scary in a haunt.

Howie "Slobber" Erlich
Owner
Deadly Intentions Haunted House
www.deadlyintentionshaunt.com

[Jim Warfield]

Not nearly as intimidating as your own children, screaming in their own bedroom at 2 am, either!
If you need children to scare , record them talking or screaming and yammering, play the tape from behind a wall.

I was at an auction where a little boy was wandering around crying loudly. Everyone ignored him, I mentioned to my Dad that "Nobody is going to even bid on that kid if he doesn't stop that crying!"

[Oct31Man]

I put on a haunt for my neighborhood in our clubhouse. This will be my second year. Last year I let few teens help out. I had one girl get punched by another teen.
I have adults in every room as well, so I hope by making them more aware of the need to watch out for such punks will help this year!

With that being said, I have more teens wanting to be actors this year. Do you think my chances are better of avoiding tough guys hurting the kids, since we don't advertise outside of the community? These kids really have a strong desire to haunt and I want to encourage them, so I hate to turn them down. Any advice?

The girl that got hit wants to do it again, BTW.

[keudiven]

LoL, thats priceless. The crack about the crying boy at the auction that is. I thought it might be a safety issue for them, and also, I agree that they are not very intimidating and therefore not very scary. As much as I want to have fun with this, me and my team are quite serious about doing the very best job that we can do. I just kind of feel bad in that one of my children is old enough, and two are not. I really don't want to tell them that they can not be a part of it and so I am really fishing for ideas as to how I can utilize them. Anyways, thank you both for the advice =) and Happy Haunting

[Jim Warfield]

Build a wall that nobody can walk around, have something the small child can manipulate through the wall to scare others. A small peep hole or a reflection or a shadow can also tell the youngster when to do the "thing" and maybe even get to enjoy seeing the reaction!
Be sure hands and arms stay behind the wall at all times.

[Lord Barnabus]

One year I had two eleven year old boys. The following year I had two twelve year old boys. The next, we used two thirteen year olds and a fourteen year old boy.

Each of our tours has an adult tour guide, and an adult who follows the tour group. There is only one kid in a specific room. At the ticket booth, they watch the guests. If anyone seems under the influence of anything, we do not permit them to enter, and have our security guards keep an eye on them to make sure they leave the property without incident.

The haunt I ran years ago used several child actors for our kids maze (kids entertaining kids). I have never once had an incident with child performers (child performers, that just sounds gross)...I mean child actors.

[MMManiac]

we utalize kids in certain rooms of the house. Such as in cages in the torture room. They love it, have fun and are out of harms way. We put their safety as our #1 priority.

Sean

[Jim Warfield]

Unless you are running a very busy house, crammed ful of all kinds of customers at all hours of the night..you probably will not suffer any incidents that leave any actor hurt by the customer, especially if your people are screening out the nasty drunks very well.
It may have been a couple of years ago though that a yard haunter posted concerning several car loads of a particulair foreign people pulling up and ripping her place apart, intentionally and beating up several of her people , possibly for some imagined religious afront they felt from Halloween celebrated itself, maybe?
She was terrorized by this attack and was pretty serious about never having anyhing go on in her yard again.
Anyone remember this series of posts?
Maybe it was on another board?
Her kids went to school with some of the attacking kids, but adults were definately involved in it too.
Pretty nutty.
Haloween and dealing in fears, real and imagined ellicts strong reactions in some people, but then don't we all already know this?

[Lord Barnabus]

Yeah...We've had a few thread on here about the stupid crazy things that people will do. Even those Godly christians will resort to evil to get rid of a haunted house that is put on as a family oriented event where families can go to have safe fun. The extremes that they will go to to try and shut you down, even though there is absolutely nothing satanic about the place, and especially those who run on volunteers and donate money brought in to fund local charites. Forbid that anything good could come from something so evil.

[shredman]

I agree here, kids can be used for some of the scares, as long as you don't have extremely crazy people ( drunks in some cases) going wildly through your haunt