Recovering the Scare

[Dr. Giggles]

Ok it happens to all scare actors, good or bad, new or old. It happens to everybody. You always get one guy/group/girl who seems impenetrable. She/he/they is cool, calm, and collected. Nothing you do seems to phase them. The creepy mutterings, the jump out startle scare. How would you recover the scare personally? Or would you give it up as a bad job and move on?

[Kevin Dells]

You go on to the next group and not even think twice about it,he had the desire to purchase a ticket and go through your attraction and that meens even though you didn't effect him didn't meen he didn't enjoy himself.

Otherwise if Mr No personality didn't think it would be a good time he would have went golfing instead and not spent the money on a ticket to begin with. He just didn't allow himself to enjoy your show, don't sweat it man he's one in 1000's!

Now if 1000's go past you stone faced and only 1 jumps then you might consider taking up golfing!

Who knows maybe he was on lsd or something, don't sweat it really!

[Allen H]

It depends on how much time you have to work on them. I have been blessed to work in a show where I hit the group in about 15 different places. I was able to try something new each time. Different approaches scare different people, sometimes it is not the direct approach, so then i would try the shot in the dark hitting the phobia vein.
from the darkest corner i would whisper, "go ahead throw the toad on him". that normally got a slight freak out. try a phrase that targets a specific phobia and see if it hits, if you have time, try a different one later.
Another technique that i use is to wait for the person to get near you and concentrate on bad evil violent thoughts, pretend you can see the thoughts and compress them into a ball in front of you, keep thinking them keep feeding energy into the ball and as they get close throw it at them, then a half second after it hits them jump out, make noise and try a standard scare. It sounds weird I know, but try it. When they can feel you coming, and they can if you project it at them they scare much easier, it strips away alot of that armor.
Allen H

[machetemachine]

I close my eyes for a moment and have no choice but be confronted by the latent retina burn in of those before them. I remember the faces - the screams cause my eardrums to go static for a moment, stay low, keep moving. Reset quick and if we are slow and I am waiting on the next group for a minute I will review what I did and what they did.

[nzanesmith]

I had some success with the hard balls with letting them concentrate on me and having another "creature" come from behind. But yeah depending on your time constraints i would often just let it past and get the next ones... someone was bound to have gotten them either before or after me.

[Jim Warfield]

Unscarable people.
The first was a Missisippi River diver, he's in murky, muddy atmospheres where vision is very limited yet all kinds of metallic trash and who knows what await him.
Like those legendary monster catfish that lay around the river dams just eating what comes via the current .
The second was actually a group , the Hillbilly Family from hell!
"Ma' had no teeth, wrinkled old woman, drunk, scared needing someone's arm to hang on to one of her almost adulterer kids or me, my arm! "Ouch!" (She has fingernails!) I pull away from her and put some distance between us quickly, then she begins snagging her kid's arms!
These people seemed normally fearless. Flashing red lights and a siren behind them and gunshots following wouldn't have made them even consider finding fear and they would be ignoring the speedometer telling it's lies about a 120-something per whatever?

Then there was the soldier. He was from West Germany and had been in their army, then he joined our United States Army. He was the guy who told me he had been in a much scarier house, the mock battle house where a trap door drops you down into the basement onto a concrete floor! ("Now go play your war games with a broken ankle!")
I guess you wouldn't want a bunch of "Woosies" in Your army!

Some of the other unscarables had no imagination to prod their brain toward fear, or is it to allow their brain to feel it?
Like the guy who always finds fun by passing on hills where they paint those double yellow lines.....no imagination.

[Dr. Giggles]

I had one guy in line when i was que line scaring one night. And it almost looked like he was meditating. When he got out of line this guy was a rock. I dont know what he did. No matter how good the startle scare it didnt phase him. He must have clicked something in his mind , he went into this trance like state...it was pretty crazy. You just get people or unscarables that are mentally fortified for it. See in my opinion you can weed out the ones that are easily scarable just by how they are acting in line. If they are nervous or jumpy...people i think enhance their feeling of fear by allowing themselves to get nervous before hand because this enhances their receptions of things, for example if im entering a pitch black room of a haunt...il expect it to be haunted so thus every noise, every stumble every person will feel like a monster. But my problem while acting is the unscarables i take it personally and i try my hardest to scare them, but your right Kevin just because they dont show emotion doesnt mean they arent having a good time. But i would like to know what others do when placed in this situation?

[tchaunt]

I still don't get why someone would want to block a scare. I mean, seriously, why pay money to just block it all?! I guess some people just think they're too cool to have fun. I just don't get the point of trying to not have a good time.

[Ken Spriggs]

Hey Kevin.....what do I do?

Got to remember the unscareables are usually a front.
When acting outside in a line....it isn't always about the scare.
Sometimes you have to make them laugh...yes laugh
We usually target the easy ones...yes easy ones but once and a while....
You know the guys......big...burly....billy bad azz
We send the nastiest girl after him from the house.
Then when he runs or makes a stupid comment........every outside actor moves in and tortures the poor soul.

Acting inside is much different than outside.
We usually have an hour to 3 hour wait depending on the weekend
There is plenty of time to watch the people and plan attacks

Then again there are some people who will not jump....but they do enjoy the show...and they are pretty cool people.

[BruiseMuse]

I agree with Ken, that when scaring doesn't work then make them laugh! They are here to be entertained, so even if they are not terrified they should still have a fun experience. Some of the un-scareable patrons seem to get more entertainment out of watching the nervous members of their group freak and scream. They are often willing to "play along" with the actors, allowing you to sneak up on their friends and leaking the names of the poor nervous friend.