jezebel.com: I arrive at Six Flags Great Adventure, in Jackson, N.J., one extremely hot October day, already a scary human version of myself: I’m slightly hungover, the smell of a sausage, egg, and cheese bodega bagel on my breath, and the internal darkness of someone who just witnessed, through tears, Brett Kavanaugh get confirmed the day before. I don’t really want to fuck with anyone, and I don’t really want anyone to fuck with me.
6 comments:
It was interesting to read this article after previously having read another article on what it's like to work as a actor in a haunted house. In this case the author was at six flags which is an amusement park with fewer boundaries and open air. She was talking about the restrictions on the degree of which you are allowed to scare locals when being an actor. I found it interesting that six flags would even have actors outside of their haunted house because I feel as though it defeats the purpose of a haunted “house”. Though it is an new idea that does sound appealing, there are going to be more rule enforced which in some aspects takes away the fun of being scared in a haunted house. One rule states that the actors are not allowed to scare children in 12 years old, which completely makes sense under the circumstances being that six flags attraction audience is mostly children. But with this compromise comes the elimination of varies different things that could be done in order to enhance the experience of the haunted house but now can't because they are located in six flags.
The title of this article seemed so much fun that it was impossible for me to not read the article. The fact that someone was able to scare people although seems like a redundant idea, still works well enough to attract readers to the article.
But fun apart, this article also draws our attention to the fact that people who work in haunted houses have to put in a lot of hard work to be able to be in a place where they can scare people. It is comparatively easy to make people laugh or cry, but to scare them requires such knowledge as to what their weak nerves might be, the useful utilization of which this article clearly articulates.
Scaring people is an art; if done wrong, it can easily become a source of laughter, if done right, can really affect people to the point where they question their reality.
This is such a fun hearted and great story. I love to peek behind the curtain for events like this and see who they get to play these kinds of roles at amusement parks. If I had the time and energy, I’d totally go do this for a night or two at a park and try to scare some teenagers. What struck me is how casual the handing of the shaker was. Here’s a beat-up old can, shake it and you’ll scare everyone, trust us. I shared the writer’s skepticism in this initially because, ooooOOoooo you have a rattle. How terrifying. But hearing how effective it was and taking the time to actually think of how she was using it and what I would do in that situation as the audience—loud noises startle us. Loud noises when surrounded by zombie faces scare us even more. This makes total sense. But you know that someone in some office decades ago was racking their brain trying to determine how to scare without inflicting damage or lasting trauma to people at a theme park with actors ranging across the experience spectrum and went through several iterations and research phases to figure out the best types of props to give their temporary hires for maximum effect. That kind of attention to detail of what works and doesn't with an audience is an important lesson.
I used to go to Fright Fest with my a small group of my friends back in High School. We absolutely loved the thrill of walking around in their various haunted locations and getting spooked by the actors crawling around the themed sets. I also enjoyed hearing her talk about the different places around the park having different themes and different types of monsters or ghouls, and the kinds of personas people put on when they get into costume. I know it takes a lot of work putting everything on and getting it all ready, but it’s even more impressive when you can see the process of putting on the costumes, prosthetics, makeup, etc. I also think it would be really fun to one day actually get to be a part of a haunted house or amusement park like this. My friends and I often talked about how much fun it would be to become one of the actors and take part in scaring the people,(even though I'm far from being an actor), especially since we would already go all out on the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. Maybe one day in the future we will be able to!
Back home me and my theatre friends would set up an elaborate trick or treat decorations and dress up and scare the children. I wanted to read Hazel Cillis’ article, “I came, I spooked, I conquered: My Thrilling Journey As An Amusement Park Zombie”, to hear how someone else celebrates the halloween season in a similar fashion. The same people who I like to scare with, we also like to get scared together and would also annually celebrate by going to six flags and going to the haunted houses. In the article Hazel describes her time at Six Flags Great Adventure. Even though I’ve never been much of a performer, I did wish to know what it’s like to be one of the “scare actors” that go around the grounds during fright fest, lucky that's what Hazel described doing at six flags in her article. This article did not disappoint running around scaring people seems just as fun as it seemed, It seems worth it to me. I loved reading the insight of behind the scenes and how they prepare the scare actors. I might not get to go to six flags this year, but I hope to soon, it would be cool to see the scare actors again in action but now with prior knowledge to the spoopy magic.
Amusement park actors during Halloween seem to have the best fun. While I am not the one you will find going through a haunted house, I am all for a haunted amusement park. I found this article very consistent with what I have heard previously from friends who have worked in amusement parks for Halloween nights. It is the initial setup that intrigues me the most I think, in this case, eleven makeup artists disguising over two hundred people into scary monsters with makeup that has to last through sweat and movement over the course of six hours. Also, these artists have to come up with 200 unique designs for each person so that a person in the park doesn’t seem to see the same monster every twenty minutes. As far as the documentation of the actual scaring, nothing seems more fun. She mentions the high feeling you get when you scare someone and not being able to contain her smile is a feeling I totally understand. Overall, this was a very comprehensive post about what it is like to work a haunted night in an amusement park and what all goes into these events.
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